Return of Les Ballets Russes

In
8 minute read
Ballet, as we've forgotten it could be

SAUL DAVIS ZLATKOVSKY


The Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo companies once traversed the world, trailing a wake of artistry, excitement and glamour. Like a meteor shower passing overhead, it flashed and pulsated, only to dim with time, leaving memories and its faint but definite imprint on the psyches of those who witnessed it as well as those too young to have seen it but who sense the lure of its vibration.


We’re all accustomed to the glamour and production values of MGM movie classics, some of which have even been labeled "art" by journalists. Now a compelling new documentary film, Ballets Russes, conclusively demonstrates that these films derived their inspiration— their higher self, as it were— from the stage art of the Ballets Russes companies.


Ballets Russes calls to life a glorious spectacle enjoyed by millions of people around the globe through Depression, war, feast and famine. In two-plus brief hours of exciting film clips, photos and interviews, it relates a contemporary Odyssey that also spawned an unparalleled literature of dance.


From its conception in the inspired mind of the great Serge Diaghilev in pre-revolutionary Russia to its performances across Europe and America, the Ballets Russes broke new ground and established an exciting precedent for the performing arts. Basing his philosophy on the highest universalism in art and the unity of Wagner’s theory of “total theater,” Diaghilev brought together the finest artists, the most gifted choreographers and conductors, and many of the world’s finest dancers in an unprecedented explosion of color and vibrance.


The experience of today’s ballet audiences is largely shaped by two sources: George Balanchine and Soviet ballet. Both once shared the same roots in classical and romantic ballet as the Ballets Russes, but eventually they moved into worlds of their own dominion. Unfortunately, these twin forces overshadowed and eclipsed much of the Ballets Russes tradition, not by dint of greatness per se, but by timing, and manipulations. If not for that, there might be three or more equal strains in today’s ballet, a far healthier situation than the two we have now.


Yes, the Pennsylvania Ballet has staged a production of Petrouchka, perhaps the greatest single ballet from the Ballets Russes. But it failed to do Petrouchka justice. Peasants wearing ballet slippers in the middle of winter, indeed! Ballets Russes did it in fully realized costumes, including boots for everyone.


Diaghilev drew together a social milieu of wealthy patrons of artistic interest to support his venture, lending them immeasurable cachet and significance in the process. After his tragically untimely death from diabetes in 1929, when he was only 57, two men resolved to revive the Ballets Russes: the Monte Carlo impresario René Blum and the former Cossack Colonel Wassily de Basil. Together this unlikely pair founded the first of several companies called the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in 1932. This company was to evolve almost into a collective of companies that flourished (with variations on the original name) from the 1930s until 1962. In the process, these troupes brought ballet— which had once been the plaything of the rich and imperial— to the general public around the globe.


The displacement of classical and romantic ballet from Russia to Paris and London was caused by the Bolshevik Revolution. Ballet’s imperial roots made its practitioners (rightly) fearful of communism, so after 1917 Russian dancers, teachers and choreographers fled to Paris, Monte Carlo, London, Berlin and other cities, bringing their culture and supporters with them. The ballet schools of Paris and London then provided a steady supply of Russian emigré girls and boys who were culturally destined to become potential virtuoso dancers despite their poverty. The Ballets Russes ultimately included everyone from Russian counts to American Indians, many with famously Russianized names. Consequently, these companies combined artistic inspiration with a sensibility of humanity and unity.


Thanks to Balanchine’s version of neo-classicism, audiences today have come to expect plotless, theme-less, expressionless, set-and-costume-less ballets overfull of steps, acrobatics, attitude and athletics— attempts at cosmetic perfection often devoid of charm, excitement, theatricality and expression. These ballets extol just one type of physical beauty: extremely thin. The Soviet ideal, conversely, extolled mechanistic subordination of the individual dancer to the collective group. Yet the dance clips in Ballets Russes, on the contrary, demonstrate that ballet can be full of satisfyingly rich costuming and sets, with vivid acting and star personalities. The Ballets Russes approach stressed well-fed athletic bodies, greater stamina, tougher working conditions, better shoes and more vibrant temperament. The steps were more complicated and smaller, the leaps bigger and more varied, and the arms and faces much more expressive. The overall extension was less extreme but much purer in line and therefore infinite in geometry. Many dancers performed every night for months or even years on end in the most demanding classical roles. (Nowadays, it almost seems a principal dancer cranks it up for one performance a week.)


The relative brevity of a film with such an epic subject made me wish someone would turn it into a series, perhaps for PBS, that would allow for full-length films of the ballets and full-length interviews. Many interviews must have been omitted, as there are many significant people not present, and many essential players in the drama, such as Serge Gregoriev and Lubov Tchernichova, respectively the regisseur and balletmistress who preserved the Diaghilev legacy, are not mentioned. The film offers only minimal description of the historic South American tour by de Basil’s company during Word War II, an epic journey in itself. These vignettes fail to fully convey that tour’s importance to Latin America (not to mention its role in saving the lives of the many male dancers who would have otherwise been drafted).


The now-elderly dancers who do survive the cut appear still quite mobile and very elegant. Tamara Tchinarova Finch (widow of the late film actor Peter Finch) and Irina Baronova come across quite strongly, and Frederic Franklin is wonderfully vital, along with George Zoritch, Marc Platt and others. Even though we see Alicia Markova only coaching a fortunate young dancer, she seems almost other-worldly here— and indeed she died not long after filming. I was saddened to see the young dancers‚ apparent failure to grasp very well what they are being taught, even displaying their disdain on-camera. The callowness of youth! One wonders what they can bring to the stage if they can‚t absorb anything from living exemplars of another time. Never before have so many had so much to learn from so few, and failed to do so.


The film contains several bits of score-settling in some interviews, such as comparisons between Alexandra Danilova and Alicia Markova, and unfavorable comparison of the de Basil Original Ballets Russes company to the Denham Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo company. This is entertaining but misleading, as opinions are presented as absolute fact. The music in the film doesn’t always match the dancing, but only an expert may catch that. The film excerpts are frustratingly brief, the interviews occasionally too long. It’s also a bit of a flaw that none of the dancers interviewed is identified by rank or position, which makes it hard to take into account their perspective.


I can only hope, like so many aficionados, that this film stimulates sufficient demand to revive the Ballets Russes before it’s too late for today’s generations to experience any direct human contact with it. But that may not be possible. Today’s dancers would have to be trained technically and artistically in the manner of the Ballets Russes, which is to say in the Old Russian classical style, pre-Soviet/Vaganova, with all the exaggerated expression of silent movies, pantomime and histrionic theater, with the glamour and style of the movies of that time. It can be done, with enough care, attention and money, like most things. And if it were, it might attract the kind of dancers who currently gravitate toward acting careers or some other form of creative expression. There are dancers here and there who have the character, personality and sense of style; there are teachers here and there who still teach this style; there are even companies who can embody this work.


I had the great fortune to study ballet with two stars from the Ballets Russes: Nina Stroganova and Vladimir Dokoudovsky, who was poised to take over as choreographer when the De Basil company died. Their many students know the style and technique, and many other Ballets Russe teachers still practice all over the world, especially in South America.


So where can the Ballets Russes be revived? It needs a home city from which to tour, but it must begin in a great city with great art museums. New York is too expensive. Where else but Philadelphia? We even have another opera house for them to call home: the Met on North Broad Street, where indeed Diaghilev's company once performed. Lacking that, this film is the best reminder of the true heights to which the art of dance can ascend.

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