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The Making of Ballet Modernism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Lynn Garafola
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Extract

In 1914, as Europe went to war, Serge Diaghilev launched an artistic revolution that profoundly altered the identity of the Ballets Russes. By and large, historians have dated this artistic shift to Parade. Unveiled in Paris in 1917, three years after Diaghilev's last full-scale season in the French capital, the work served public notice of the switch in his allegiance to the avant-garde. Parade came with impeccable modernist credentials: designs by Pablo Picasso, music by Erik Satie, a libretto by Jean Cocteau, program notes by Guillaume Apollinaire. Only Léonide Massine, the ballet's choreographer, was an unknown quantity, although by the early 1920s, his name, too, would be synonymous with modernism. It is not difficult to understand why historians have identified this work as the cradle of Ballets Russes modernism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , Winter 1988 , pp. 23 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1988

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References

NOTES

1. McQuillan, Melissa, “Painters and the Ballet, 1917–1926: An Aspect of the Relationship Between Art and Theatre,” Diss. New York University, 1979Google Scholar; Martin, Marianne W., “The Ballet Parade: A Dialogue Between Cubism and Futurism,” Art Quarterly, 1, No. 2 (Spring 1978), pp. 85–111Google Scholar.

2. A photograph of Feet (Le Basi, 1915) appears in Kirby, Michael, Futurist Performance (New York: Dutton, 1971), p. 57Google Scholar.

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5. Quoted in McQuillan, II, 383.

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10. Ibid., p. 32.

11. Quoted in McQuillan, II, 394. Two of Depero's costume designs are reproduced in Kirby, p. 119. Photographs of the decor appear in Carrieri, Raffaele, La Danza in Italia 1500–1900 (Milan: Domus, 1946), pp. 79–80Google Scholar.

12. Why Le Chant du Rossignol did not reach the stage has never been adequately explained. The reasons offered include tardiness (Depero did not complete the commission in time for the anticipated Paris premiere), Diaghilev's disappointment at the poor reception of Fireworks, and intrigues instigated by Picasso. Carlo Belli ascribes the rupture between Depero and Diaghilev to the “terrible jealousy” harbored by Picasso — in Rome in the winter of 1917 preparing the designs for Parade — toward Depero and his plastic impracticables (complessi plastici). According to Belli, it was Picasso who dissuaded Diaghilev from collaborating with Depero. Bentivoglio, Leonetta, “Danza e futurismo in Italia: 1913–1933,” La Danza Italiana, 11 (Autumn 1984), p. 67, n. 8Google Scholar. Another reason might well have been Diaghilev's acute shortage of funds that winter. With thirty-five costumes, Depero's Rossignol would have been the company's most elaborate wartime production.

13. The description of Balla's “choreography” comes from Kirby, p. 95; that of the “rumorist onomatopoeia” from dell'Arco, Maurizio Fagiolo, “Balla's Prophecies,” Art International 12, No. 6 (Summer 1968), p. 67Google Scholar. Balla's sketches are reproduced in both.

14. Fagiolo Dell'Arco, p. 67. Mikhail Semenov was a former St. Petersburg music critic.

15. Ibid. A sketch for the stage set and Balla's handwritten lighting program in fifty tempi are reproduced here as well. The piece was reconstructed by Elio Marchegiani at the Exhibition of Light in Rome in 1967.

16. Prampolini, Enrico, “Futurist Scenography,” reproduced in Kirby, p. 206Google Scholar.

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18. “The Variety Theatre,” pp. 179-180.

19. Cangiullo described the episode: “In Rome in the summer of 1917, Diaghilev asked me for a futurist ballet, and I wrote him something very amusing and original: THE ZOO, which both he and Massine, his premier danseur, liked very much. Who would do the decors, the costumes, the figurines? I, who had seen a fantastic fauna stylized with elegant synthesis by Depero, gave [Diaghilev] his name. But Cocteau, who was influential and very friendly with Diaghilev, had already given him the names of some Parisian dress designers…, who had eliminated Depero. But the ballet (which Ravel was to compose) was never given, because Ravel went to the front and became ill.” Quoted in Bentivoglio, pp. 68-69. Cangiullo seems to have gotten his dates mixed up. Ravel's war service began in September 1914 and ended with a temporary discharge no later than June 1917. The collaboration, moreover, was set in motion at least as early as January of that year, when Ravel wrote to Diaghilev, formally accepting the commission. Because Ravel's letter mentions Cangiullo only, it is possible, although unlikely, that Depero's services were enlisted later. Maurice Ravel, Letter to Serge Diaghilev, 12 Jan. 1917, Catalogue of Ballet Material and Manuscripts From the Serge Lifar Collection, Sotheby's, 9 May 1984, Lot 203.

20. Martin, p. 85.

21. “Futurist Scenography,” reproduced in Kirby, p. 204.

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24. L'Illustre, 24 Sept. 1959, quoted in Chamot, p. 15.

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26. Lecture by ProfessorKarlinsky, Simon, “Stravinsky and Russian Preliterate Theatre,” International Stravinsky Symposium, University of California at San Diego, 11 Sept. 1982Google Scholar.

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29. Beaumont, Cyril W., Bookseller at the Ballet (London: C.W. Beaumont, 1975), p. 268Google Scholar.

30. Massine, Leonide, My Life in Ballet, ed. Hartnoll, Phyllis and Rubens, Robert (London: Macmillan, 1968), p. 70Google Scholar.

31. Ibid., p. 73.

32. Ibid., p. 75.

33. Ibid., pp. 73, 101.

34. Divoire, Fernand, Pour la Danse (Paris: Editions de la Danse, 1935), p. 266Google Scholar.

35. Svetlov, Valerian, “The Diaghileff Ballet in Paris,” Dancing Times, Dec. 1929, p. 274Google Scholar.

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37. Massine, , “On Choreography and A New School of Dancing,” pp. 69–70Google Scholar.

38. Levinson, André, Serge Lifar: Destin d'un Danseur (Paris: Grasset, 1934), pp. 26–27Google Scholar.

39. Grigoriev, S. L., The Diaghilev Ballet 1909–1929, trans, and ed. Bowen, Vera (London: Constable, 1953), p. 123Google Scholar.

40. Ibid.

41. Comoedia, 15 May 1921, quoted in Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, p. 143.

42. Contracts dated 1 and 2 Oct. 1916 between Serge Diaghilev and Angeles Morillo Lopéz and Jose Rodríguez Martínez, respectively, Fonds Kochno, Pièce 32 Bibliothèque l'Opèra (Paris); Sierra, Gregorio Martínez, The Cradle Song and Other Plays, trans, with introd. Underhill, John Garrett (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1929), p. XIGoogle Scholar; Sangardia, Angel, Manuel de Falla (Madrid: Union musical española, 1946), pp. 28–29Google Scholar; Pahissa, Jaime, Manuel de Falla: His Life and Works, trans. Wagstaff, Jean (London: Museum Press, 1954), pp. 83–84Google Scholar.

43. Pahissa, pp. 96-97; Massine, , Life, p. 115Google Scholar.

44. Ibid.

45. Massine, , Life, p. 41Google Scholar.

46. Catalogue of Ballet Materials and Manuscripts from the Serge Lifar Collection, Sotheby's, 9 May 1984, Lot 157. The score for La Boutique Fantasque was catalogued separately as Lot 207.

47. Ibid., Lot 157.

48. Stravinsky, Igor and Craft, Robert, Expositions and Developments (Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1981), pp. 111–112Google Scholar.

49. Massine, , Life, p. 96Google Scholar.

50. Contract between Serge Diaghilev and Ottorino Respighi, 5 Sept. 1919, Fonds Kochno, Pièce 78.

51. I am indebted to Dr. Stephen Roe, staff musicologist of Sotheby's London office, for enabling me to examine the Boutique manuscript and offering me his expert comments.

52. Francis Poulenc, Letter to Serge Diaghilev, 28 April 1919, Catalogue of Ballet Material and Manuscripts from the Serge Lifar Collection, Lot 186.

53. Quoted in The Diaghilev Ballet in England, catalogue for an exhibition organized by David Chadd and John Gage, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Univ. of East Anglia, 11 Oct.-20 Nov. 1979, and the Fine Arts Society, London, 3 Dec. 1979-11 Jan. 1980, p. 24. In a letter to his friend Thomas Lowinsky, Ricketts added detail: “Diaghilev, the impresario of the Russian Ballet, came over here to try and plant his recent productions on Beecham; one of them to music of Scarlatti is excellent, but none of the stars are there and one of the ballets is staged by Picasso. We quarrelled over German music, which he wants to persecute and suppress; he means to scrap Carnaval, Papillons, and the Spectre of the Rose. I would hear nothing of the kind, said that Schumann and Wagner had been the friends of all my life, that modern Germany could go under water for twenty-four hours without my turning a hair, that to ignore it but not the German classics was a better revenge, that… I hated nationalism in Art, and that the tables might be turned against Russia. This actually happened. Beecham's excuse not to have a Russian season was that he wished to encourage national British art, so the boomerang returned to roost within a few hours of my lecture.” “To Thomas Lowinsky,” October 1917, Charles Ricketts: Self-Portrait, ed. Moore, T. Sturge and Lewis, Cecil (London: Peter Davies, 1939), p. 283Google Scholar.

54. Quoted from La Vie de Rossini, “Cahier de travail de Serge de Diaghilev avec indications de repertoire, 1915-1916,” Fonds Kochno, Piece 124, n.p. As all the monetary references are in pounds and francs, it seems highly unlikely that the date indicated on the document is correct.

55. Quoted from Journal d'Eugène Delacroix, ibid., n.p.

56. Quoted from Journal d'Eugène Delacroix, ibid., n.p.

57. Sokolova, Lydia, Dancing for Diaghilev, ed. Buckle, Richard (London: John Murray, 1960), pp. 68–69Google Scholar.

58. Natalia Goncharova, Letters to Serge Diaghilev, 20 Sept. 1918 and undated, Fonds Kochno, Pièce 37.

59. The company also traveled with a hairdresser, prop man, wardrobe master, and chief machinist, all Russians, and the mother of Lubov Tchernicheva. “Liste des Artistes des Ballets Russes,” 14 June 1918, Fonds Kochno, Pièce 130.

60. Ellmann, Richard, James Joyce (New York: Oxford, 1959), pp. 523–524Google Scholar.