IV
In the repertoire of Diaghileff’s company there have been, thus far, only two more or less satisfactory ballets, Le Pavilion d’Armide, by Benois and Tcherepnin, and Le Spectre de la Rose by Weber and Vaudoyer. But both might be termed choreographic sketches in one scene rather than ballets. Without Nijinsky and Karsavina even these would not be very charming. The aristocratic sentimentality and poetic pathos of the two dance pantomimes are perfectly displayed by these two most talented artists of the revolutionary group, as their miming and dancing are characterized by a certain natural softness of movement, the quality of languor and passion. But it was the music of Igor Stravinsky, a young Russian composer working in the impressionistic style, that saved the situation of the new ballet. Stravinsky has a genius for the ballet, such as perhaps the world has never seen before. However, he seems to be greatly hampered by lack of proper conception of what constitutes the modern ballet. It is evident that he is influenced in his compositions too much by the Diaghileff-Fokine tendencies, as most of his ballets are built up in the old form of construction, though the phonetic images and spirit are new. His music is graphically vivid, as it should be, has a strong rhythm and inspiring modern spirit. It is the form of construction that he has not grasped yet fully, except in his Petrouchka.
This Petrouchka, Stravinsky’s masterpiece, is a Russian burlesque taken from an old fairy-story of Harlequin in love with the Clown’s wife. In this ballet the scenes are splendidly arranged by Fokine and the music is thrilling. The puppet has always exercised a curious fascination upon the human mind. The animated doll is a fantastic and yet pathetic symbol of our emotions. Petrouchka is the Russian counterpart of English ‘Punch and Judy,’ though differing in its more sentimental character. Petrouchka represents the character of a real puppet. Stravinsky has woven a dramatic plot around the puppet stage. ‘To take us behind the scenes and show the mingled comedy and tragedy of the puppet world, was a true and dramatic inspiration’ of the composer. The scenic effect of Petrouchka is calculated to create a melancholy feeling in the spectator with its bleak gray background and dull frigidity. It gives a striking contrast to the barbaric colors of the crowd on the stage. One has the feeling of opaque leaden skies, of snow and gay people at a fair. The costumes and scenery designed by Benois are true to Russian life and strikingly in harmony with the dance. In every phrase of the music the composer shows himself a master of the art of writing ballet music. ‘Throughout the four scenes he displays not only a nice sense of dramatic firmness, but a shrewd appreciation of character. In the treatment his humorous percept is of large assistance. In the trumpet dance by which the Blackamoor is first lured into the fair one’s toils or in the slower pas de fascination, by which the conquest of him is completed, Stravinsky’s sense of the ludicrous has turned two slender occasions to most diverting account. A piece of clever orchestration is a passage at the outset of the opening scene where the composer succeeds not only in reproducing the peculiar sounds of an old hurdy-gurdy, but weaves the opposition between two such competing instruments into a most entertaining and harmonious discord.’
As in all the other Stravinsky ballet compositions, the orchestration of Petrouchka is realistically true to the action and the characters of the play. It is full-blooded and modern. It breathes an air of the unsophisticated joy of a simple people who attend to their affairs regardless of conventional restrictions. Nijinsky, with his dramatic flexibility and vigor, makes the play a vivid fairy tale in actuality, or rather gives life to a dream of a fairy tale. ‘That the ballet is thereby endowed with meaning, an inwardness, which it might not otherwise possess, must be accounted as a tribute to the dancer’s genius,’ writes an English critic.
Another splendid Stravinsky ballet performed by the Diaghileff company is L’Oiseau de Feu. Fokine has arranged the music successfully in this ballet. Like Petrouchka, it is based upon a folk-tale. The overture of the play indicates that a fantastic story is to follow. Strange mutterings and unexpected harmonies dispose the hearer to an atmosphere of another world. The adventurous pantomime opens in a gloomy forest emanating an air of midnight mysteries. But the music glows gradually like the magic glow in the forest. One sees the spectacular Fire Bird floating downward toward the stage. Now dancing and music melt into one fascinating picture of two dimensions, to which the brilliant scenic effects add a special spiritual note. Performed by Karsavina, as the Fire Bird, the ballet is excellent.
But Stravinsky has succeeded less well in his post-impressionistic Le Sacre du Printemps. This consists of two tableaux of ancient pagan Russia. The first scene is the adoration of the earth; the second, the adoration of the sun. The music is less spontaneous and less graphic than that in Stravinsky’s other ballets. But, all in all, Stravinsky remains the greatest drawing card and the greatest æsthetic factor in the art of the Russian ballet rebels.
A charming number in the repertoire of the Diaghileff company is Balakireff’s Thamar. Balakireff wrote this as a symphonic poem on an Oriental theme, but Bakst has manufactured out of it a ballet. The music is very beautiful and typically Russian. The story is a thrilling tale of Caucasian life, which takes place at an ancient castle built in a gorge of romantic mountains. But because it is an artificial construction, it is less interesting musically and choreographically than the Stravinsky ballets.
The Russian new ballet has attempted to perform Claude Debussy’s L’Après-Midi d’un Faun, and Richard Strauss’ La Légende de Joseph. In the latter ballet a new Russian dancer, Leonide Miassine, was introduced in the title rôle. Neither Miassine nor La Légende de Joseph proved great attractions. Magnificent as Strauss and Debussy are in their modern compositions otherwise, in ballet music they remain mediocrities. Their rhythm is so anæmic, their images so hazy and their episodes so disconnected that not even a Nijinsky or a Karsavina could put life into them.
In criticising the new Russian ballet of Diaghileff and Fokine, Prince Volkhonsky writes: ‘Their main defect is that they develop [the dance] independently from the music; they are a design by themselves—complicated, interesting, very often pleasing to the eye, yet independent of the music. And we have already seen when we spoke of the old codas that the most unpretentious figure, even when banal, becomes inspiring when it coincides with the musical movement, and, on the contrary, the most interesting “picturesque” figure loses meaning when it develops in discord with music. Look at some dance, definite, exact, that has crystallized itself within well-established limits; you may look at it even without music. But try to watch a pantomime without music. In the first place, it will be a design without color, quite an acceptable form; in the second it will be a body without skeleton—something unacceptable.’
The Russian new ballet is an interesting proof of the far-reaching effect that the naturalistic school of dancing indirectly exercised upon the development of the art of dancing. The efforts of the reform that Fokine is attempting to achieve are admirable and show the great possibilities that the revolutionists face in the immediate future. Their whole drawback has been in their conception of the form and music. Even Stravinsky has not been able to shake himself loose from the old pantomimic form. But sooner or later they will see the new point of view and acknowledge the mistake that every reformer is apt to make in his first step. The Russians have the technique, the music, the innate talent and the traditions for all future choreographic inspiration. The solution lies, to a great extent, in the coöperative work of their composers, writers, critics, painters, designers, teachers and dancers.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE EURHYTHMICS OF JACQUES-DALCROZE
Jacques-Dalcroze and his creed; essentials of the ‘Eurhythmic’ system—Body-rhythm; the plastic expression of musical ideas; merits and shortcomings of the Dalcroze system—Speculation on the value of Eurhythmics to the dance.