For a time following the break, the Fokines returned to Russia; and then, in 1918, together with their son Vitale, spent some time in and out of Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Conditions were not ideal for creation, and nothing was added to the impressive list of Fokine masterpieces.
In 1919, Morris Gest was immersed in the production of a gargantuan musical show destined for the Century Theatre: Aphrodite, based on an English translation of Pierre Louys’ novel. Gest made Fokine an offer to come to America to stage a Bacchanal for the work. Fokine accepted. Aphrodite was not a very good musical, nor was it, as I remember it, a very exciting Bacchanal; but it was a great success. Fokine himself was far from happy with it.
For a number of reasons, the Fokines decided to make New York their home. They eventually bought a large house, where Riverside Drive joins Seventy-second Street; converted part of the house into a dancing studio, and lived in the rest of the house in an atmosphere of nostalgic gloom, a sort of Chopinesque twilight. Ballet in America was at a very low ebb when Fokine settled here. There was a magnificent opportunity to hand for the father of modern ballet, had he but taken it. For some reason he muffed the big chance. Perhaps he was embittered by a series of unhappy experiences, not the least of which was the changed political scene in his beloved Russia, to which he was never, during the rest of his life, able to make adjustment. He was content, as an artist, for the most part to rest on his considerable laurels. There was always Schéhérazade. More importantly, there was always Sylphides.
Fokine’s creative life, in the true sense, was something he left behind in Europe. He never seemed to sense or to try to understand the American impulse, rhythm, or those things which lie at the root of our native culture. In the bleak Riverside Drive mansion, he taught rather half-heartedly at classes, but gave much of his time and energy in well-paid private lessons to the untalented daughters of the rich.
From the choreographic point of view, he was satisfied, for the most part, to reproduce his early masterpieces with inferior organizations, or to stage lesser pieces for the Hippodrome or the Ziegfeld Follies. One of the latter will suffice as an example. It was called Frolicking Gods, a whimsy about a couple of statues of Greek Gods who came to life, became frightened at a noise, and returned to their marble immobility. And it may be of interest to note that these goings-on were all accomplished to, of all things, Tchaikowsky’s Nutcracker Suite. There was also a pseudo-Aztec affair, devised, so far as tale was concerned, by Vera Fokine, and called The Thunder Bird. The Aztec quality was emphasized by the use of a pastiche of music culled from the assorted works of Tchaikowsky, Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Balakirev, and Borodine.
It was during the winter of 1920, not long after the Fokines, with their son Vitale, had arrived here, that we came together professionally. I arranged to present them jointly in a series of programmes at the Metropolitan Opera House, with Arnold Volpe and his Symphony Orchestra.
Fokine came with me to see the Metropolitan stage. He arrived at what might have been a ticklish moment. Fokine was extremely sensitive to what he called “pirated” versions of his works. There was, of course, no copyright protection for them, since choreography had no protection under American copyright law. Fokine was equally certain that he, Fokine, was the only person who could possibly reproduce his works. As we entered the Metropolitan, Adolph Bolm was appearing in an opera-ballet version of Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Le Coq d’Or. The performance had commenced.
As I have intimated, after he broke with Diaghileff, Fokine was so depressed that for some time he could not work at all. Then he received an invitation from Anna Pavlova to come to Berlin, where she was about to produce some new ballets. Fokine accepted the invitation, and when Pavlova asked him to suggest a subject, Fokine proposed a ballet based on the opera, Le Coq d’Or. Pavlova, however, considered the plot of the Rimsky-Korsakoff work to be too political, and also felt it unwise of her to offer a subject burlesquing the Tsar.
It was not until after Fokine temporarily returned to the Diaghileff fold that Le Coq d’Or achieved production. Diaghileff agreed with Fokine on the subject, and Fokine was anxious that it should be mounted in as modern a manner as possible. The story of the opera, based on Pushkin’s well-known poem, as adapted to the stage by V. Bielsky, requires no comment. Fokine’s opera-ballet production was, in its way, quite unique. There were two casts, which is to say, singers and dancers. While one character danced and acted, the words in the libretto were spoken or sung by the dancing character’s counterpart.
As a result of the Metropolitan Opera Company’s wartime ban on anything German, in 1917, Pierre Monteux, the former Diaghileff conductor, was imported by the Metropolitan for the expanded French list. One of the results of Monteux’s influence on the Metropolitan repertoire was Le Coq d’Or. Adolph Bolm, by that time resident in New York, having remained here after the last Diaghileff American season, was engaged by Otto H. Kahn to stage the work in the style of the Diaghileff production. Bolm, who had his own ideas, nevertheless based his work on Fokine’s basic plan, and that of the Fokine-Diaghileff production. Bolm was meticulous, however, in insisting that credit be given to Fokine for the original idea, and it was always billed as “after Michel Fokine.” The Metropolitan production, as designed by the Hungarian artist, Willy Pogany, whose sets were among the best the Metropolitan ever has seen, resulted in one of the most attractive and exciting productions the Metropolitan has achieved. Aside from the production itself, the singing of the Spanish coloratura, Maria Barrientos, as the Queen, the conducting of Monteux, and the dancing of Bolm as King Dodon, set a new standard for the Metropolitan.