IV
The most typical of the early purely Russian native ballets was the Snegourotchka—‘The Snow Maiden’—which was first performed in 1876 in Moscow. Tschaikowsky took for his musical themes half a dozen folk-songs from Brokunin’s collection, and a few from the lips of the village people near Kieff. This ballet has been of the greatest success on the Russian stage thus far. This is musically and choreographically a dramatized fairy tale. The Snow Maiden is the issue of the union of the gladsome fairy, Spring, with the grim old geni, Winter. The father jealously guards her from the courting Sun-God, who is eager to pour upon her his scorching and destructive rays. Winter would like to keep her in the forest, but the mother, proud of her child’s beauty, wants to send her into the busy world to charm its inhabitants. After a serious conflict of the parents the father yields. The girl feels the strange emotions of love and trembles, singing a thrilling melody. She wanders from village to village in search of a lover, but her numerous admirers are unable to stir her heart, because snow circulates through her veins. She realizes that she is void of real passion. Spring appears to her and endows her with the tenderness of a lily, the languor of a poppy and the desire of a rose. The Snow Maiden’s heart is touched at last, but in the moment when she wishes to fall on her lover’s neck a brilliant sun ray pours its Summer heat on her. She dissolves in vapor and floats into the skies.
The score is wholly Russian in mood and color. The dramatic treatment of the subject is the best that Tschaikowsky has ever done. The Snow Maiden’s theme is very sad and beautiful in the last movement. The pantomime and steps are excellent, and seem to melt into one magic whole. Tschaikowsky, with his peculiar genius for evolving floating, curving dance rhythms and his remarkable gift for lyrical characterization, made ‘The Snow Maiden’ a great success.
Of less success was Tschaikowsky’s second ballet, ‘Swan Lake,’ though it has been in recent years a favorite ballet with the Petrograd audiences. Like the first, it was built on a fairy tale and an old folk legend theme. It was performed in 1876. Another ballet full of imaginary episodes and pretty music is ‘The Sleeping Beauty.’ The finest pages of this score are found in the Adagio misterioso, describing the sleep of the princess. But choreographically the best part is the Pas d’action, in which the prima ballerina seems to melt into one audio-visible beauty that thrills the utmost depths of the soul. The ‘Nut Cracker’ has had less success than the others, yet it is a magnificent work of art. It probably lacks the feminine sentimentality that is always sure of a stage success.
To our knowledge none of Tschaikowsky’s ballets has been given in America. Whether the Diaghileff company ever gave any of them in Paris and London, we have been unable to learn. The Russian ballets that the foreign audiences have thus far seen abroad, are nearly without exception musical patch-works. Neither the Rimsky-Korsakoff Scheherezade nor Prince Igor nor Cleopatra was ever written for dancing. The Scheherezade, for instance, is an orchestral suite of Rimsky-Korsakoff. He never meant it for a ballet. Of all the real ballets that the Diaghileff troupe has given only those composed by Stravinsky and a few by Tcherepnin are meant to be danced.
Among the best Russian ballet dancers of the strictly classic or, as we should say, of the Petipa school, are Kshesinskaya, Breobrashenskaya, Geltzer, Pavlova, Mordkin, Novikoff, Volinin, Kyasht and Lopokova, most of whom are known abroad. But there are quite a number of Russian prima ballerinas, who, for some reason or other, have not been able to display their art abroad, yet who rival the best we know. As with other artists, dancers all have their individual traits of superiority and weakness. In some dances we have seen Kshesinskaya superior to all the rest, in other rôles she is just a mediocrity. We can imagine nothing more inspiring and beautiful than Pavlova and Mordkin in Glazounoff’s L’Autômne Bacchanale. No Russian ballet dancers have surpassed them in this. In the same way we consider Pavlova a goddess of grace and beauty in Drigo’s Papillon and Saint-Saëns’ ‘The Swan.’ We measure her one of the most lyric artists of the Russian classic ballet.
Mme. Pavlova is a graduate of the Petrograd Ballet School and was for years a prima ballerina at the Mariensky Theatre in that city before she made a tour to Riga, Warsaw and Helsingfors. Having been received with greatest enthusiasm on her provincial tour she decided to try her luck abroad and made her London début in 1910, where she immediately had the city at her feet. It is only in recent years that Pavlova has danced in her own regular ballet, whereas before she appeared exclusively in solo dances, either with Mordkin, Novikoff or Volinin. In our judgment she has not added anything to her reputation or success by her patchy ballet, particularly in America, where the public is least impressed by pantomimic art of the kind they can see with more advantage in the moving-picture show. It is Pavlova’s art that the people admire, not the ballets that are concocted for her. It must be said that the ballets recently produced by her possess little dramatic or choreographic appeal.
In questions pertaining to her dancing Pavlova has been broad and tolerant, and has listened quietly to every eulogistic or critical remark. She has not remained indifferent to the latest choreographic movements but has adapted herself to many suggestions, particularly to those of the movement of the naturalistic school of Isadora Duncan. In spite of the growing influence of the revolutionary new ballet of the Fokine-Diaghileff group, and while keeping in view the changing taste and requirements of the public, Pavlova should, we believe, guard against too great a compromise. She surpasses in her magic swiftness, delicacy, bird-like agility, floating grace and lyric pirouettes all her living rivals. One can see that she has tuned her body to the most delicate pianissimi and the most powerful forti. But when she attempts to use her arms too conspicuously, or produce Greek poses, she is a disappointing failure. We must admit with an English critic that ‘in Pavlova’s dancing we are no longer aware of the conscious and painful obedience of the body to the dictates of a governing mind. It is as though the spirit itself had left its central citadel and, by some unwonted alchemy becoming dissolved in the blood and fibres of her being, had penetrated to the extremities of the limbs. Soul from body is no longer distinguishable, and which is servant to the other none can tell.’
Mordkin and Volinin stand by no means beyond the dynamic beauty of Pavlova. In their virilly graceful gestures and poses lies something heroic and strong, something beast-like in its beauty. Mordkin perhaps more than Volinin is endowed with a robust, massive and splendid physique, qualities which leave some of his less critical admirers blind to the deficiencies of his art. Both dancers have acquired most of their pliancy and manliness by a course of systematic and rigorous training which gives to their dance an unusual abandon and loftiness. Their dancing has a tendency to give a semblance of repose to their quickest motions. They seem to avoid the conventional whirls and pivots with intention, and to prefer the lion-like leaps and chassées. Their reckless swing in L’Autômne Bacchanale is just as much an expression of manly vigor as Pavlova’s pirouette and rond de jambe is one of feminine grace.
The ranks of the Russian ballet dancers are of a peculiar bureaucratic order, beginning with the simple danseuse and ending with the prima ballerina, which is a rank similar in the hierarchy to that of a full general. Lydia Kyasht, for instance, is a lieutenant in her rank of première sujet. Pavlova and Karsavina are ballerinas, while only Kshesinskaya and Breobrashenskaya are prima ballerinas. Among the Russian dancers known abroad, Lydia Kyasht and Lydia Lopokova are next to Pavlova brilliant exponents of the Russian classic or so called ‘Old Ballet.’ They have both impressed us as sincere and eloquent artists of their school, the one romantic, the other extremely poetic. The ethereal twists and glides of Lopokova surpass by far those of Pavlova in their peculiar fairy-like lines and poses. Kyasht appeals to us immensely on account of her absolutely classic plastic and enchanting poses, which add an exotic air to her enchanting expressions.
In introducing Pavlova, Mordkin and other more or less prominent exponents of the Russian classic ballet to America and England Max Rabinoff has been the practical spirit behind the scenes. An authority on the dance, Mr. Rabinoff had the conviction, even when the Russian dancers were yet unknown in America, that they would ultimately triumph as they did. To his persistent efforts the Russian ballet owes its success in America.
The classic Russian ballet is a pure Byzantine piece of stage art. It mirrors the bizarre glow and colors of the cathedrals, the mystic romanticism of the Kremlin walls and cupolas, the Tartar minarets, the vaulted teremas (Boyar houses), the lonely steppes, the gloomy penal colonies, the luxurious palaces and twisted towers of a semi-Oriental country. Strongly replete with the character of the passing Boyar life, it is an era in itself.
CHAPTER XV
THE ERA OF DEGENERATION
Nineteenth century decadence; sensationalism—Loie Fuller and the Serpentine dance—Louise Weber, Lottie Collins and others.
During the last half of the nineteenth century the art of dancing reached such a low level that Max Nordau said: ‘It is a fleeting pastime for women and youths, and later on its last atavistic survival will be the dancing of children.’ An English writer of that time wrote aptly: ‘In these days of culture, when the public mind is being trained to perceive and appreciate whatever is lovely in nature and art, when music is universally studied, when there is ample evidence of general improvement in taste and design in our streets, our buildings, on the walls and in the furniture of our homes, is it not strange that a single art, one which was in classic times deemed worthy to rank with poetry and painting—the art of dancing—has degenerated to such an extent that its practice, as frequently exhibited both in public and in private, is a positive disgrace to the age? This is no exaggerated statement. It is one which I think any competent critic is hardly likely to deny.’
The Skirt Dance, the Serpentine Dance, the High Kickers, the Nude Bayaderes were the sensations of the day. Here Lottie Collins, there Loie Fuller, now Letti Lind, then again Connie Gilchrist, figured as the greatest dance attractions of the day. London blamed Paris, Paris blamed New York. How much the craze for such an art had cast its spell on the public of that period is best illustrated by the immense sums of money that the theatrical managers paid for their shows. The gross receipts during one season in New York of ‘Humpty Dumpty,’ a celebrated ballet of that time, amounted to $1,406,000. It brought in a similar sum, if not more, outside.