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Title: The Russian Ballet

Author: A. E. Johnson

Illustrator: René Bull

Release date: July 10, 2020 [eBook #62600]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif, deaurider and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
        file was produced from images generously made available
        by The Internet Archive)


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Produced by Chuck Greif, deaurider and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
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                          THE RUSSIAN BALLET

                            [Illustration]




                              THE RUSSIAN
                                BALLET

                         BY A. E. JOHNSON WITH
                         ILLUSTRATIONS BY RENÉ
                                 BULL


                       HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
                        BOSTON & NEW YORK 1913




                         _Printed in England._




CONTENTS.


                                                                    PAGE

INTRODUCTION                                                           1

PÉTROUCHKA                                                            13

THAMAR                                                                35

LE CARNAVAL                                                           51

CLÉOPÂTRE                                                             63

LES SYLPHIDES                                                         77

SCHEHERAZADE                                                          85

LE SPECTRE DE LA ROSE                                                105

NARCISSE                                                             115

L’OISEAU DE FEU                                                      127

LE PAVILLON D’ARMIDE                                                 145

PRINCE IGOR (POLOVTSIAN DANCES)                                      153

LE DIEU BLEU                                                         163

PRELUDE À L’APRÈS-MIDI D’UN FAUNE                                    179

JEUX                                                                 189

LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS                                                199

LA TRAGÉDIE DE SALOME                                                213

LE LAC DES CYGNES                                                    223

ANNA PAVLOVA                                                         235




INTRODUCTION.


There is no need to enlarge here upon the vogue which the Russian
Ballet, or rather that company of dancers which has become familiar
outside its own country under that title, has achieved in England,
France, Germany, and America. Sufficient testimony to that is provided
by the appearance of this book, which seeks to present a souvenir of the
performances with which so many spectators have been delighted. It may
be interesting, however, to sketch briefly the history of the ballet as
a form of theatrical art, and suggest an explanation of the enthusiasm
with which, after a long period of practical desuetude, at least in
London, its revival by the Russians had been greeted.

The theatrical ballet is comparatively a modern institution, but its
real origin is to be found in the customs of very early times. The
antiquity of dancing as a means of expression is well known, of course,
and concerted movements on the part of a number of dancers, which
constitute the ballet in its simplest form, are recognised to have been
a feature of religious ceremonial in the furthest historic eras. The
evolutions of the Greek chorus occur at once to the mind, and there is
evidence that among the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Phœnicians, the formal
dance was a part of religious ritual. Representations occur, on early
vases and other relics, of dancers revolving round a central person or
object, standing for the sun, and it may reasonably be surmised that
some such ceremonial occurred among the most primitive pagan peoples.

Rites of this kind, indeed, form the theme of “Le Sacre du Printemps,”
the most remarkable of the Russian dancers’ more recent performances,
which may be regarded as a deliberate attempt at reversion to type. That
provocative ballet is discussed elsewhere in the present volume, but it
may be remarked in passing that M. Nijinsky, who is responsible for the
“choreography” of it, has endeavoured to restore to that word something
more of its original significance than its use in modern times, to
describe the general planning and arrangement of a ballet, ordinarily
confers.

Choreography or orchesography amongst the Egyptians and the Greeks was
the art of committing a dance to writing just as a musical composition
is registered and preserved by means of musical notation. M. Nijinsky
considers that music and the dance being closely allied and parallel
arts--the one the poetry of sound, the other the poetry of motion--a
ballet should be as much the work of one creative mind as a piece of
orchestral music. The principle he has embodied in “Le Sacre du
Printemps” is that the dancers shall execute only those gestures and
movements pre-ordained by the “choreographist,” and in the particular
manner and sequence directed by the latter. The polyphony of orchestral
music is to be paralleled by the polykinesis, if such a phrase may be
coined, of the ballet.

Leaving this digression, one may ascribe the immediate parentage of the
modern theatrical ballet to the Court Ballets of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, which in turn arose out of the mediæval mystery
plays, pageants, and masques. Ballets were a favourite diversion of the
French Court of the period, where they underwent a gradual refinement in
style from the relative coarseness which at first distinguished them.
The opera-ballet was the next stage of development; then, towards the
end of the eighteenth century, singing was omitted, and the ballet
attained a dignity of its own.

The founder of what may be termed the dramatic ballet, which is the form
the Russians have developed so magnificently, was Noverre, a great
celebrity of his day, who took London as well as Paris for his field.
After the fashion of his time, Noverre went to the classics for his
themes, and very banal, it would seem, were his efforts to interpret
them in terms of the ballet. But though his ambition as a _maître de
ballet_ outran his perceptions as an artist, at least he initiated and
firmly established a new form of art which was capable of being brought
subsequently to a high degree of perfection.

Vestris and Camargo were among the more familiar names associated with
the ballet, both before and at Noverre’s period. These were the great
dancers of the eighteenth century, to whom succeeded Pauline Duvernay,
the celebrated Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi, Fanny Ellsler, Fanny Cerito,
and others of the nineteenth century. It is barely thirty years since
Taglioni died at the age of eighty, and it is possible there are still
persons alive who remember her at the zenith of her career. Pauline
Duvernay died even more recently (in 1894), but she preceded Taglioni on
the stage, and as her retirement took place at the time of Queen
Victoria’s accession, there can be few, if any, who are able to recall
her performances.

It is difficult to form a clear impression of what the ballet was like
in Taglioni’s day. One imagines, however, that it was less the ballet in
which she appeared than the individual art, or at least skill, of the
dancer herself, which attracted the spectator. At all events the ballet,
after Taglioni, steadily declined, and one suspects that in her the
tendency towards specialisation, which is everywhere inevitable in a
highly civilised state, had reached its climax. The ballet had become a
mere background, of no great significance or importance, to the dancer,
and there being no one to maintain the standard of virtuosity set by so
skilled an executant, the result was inevitable. There have been other
dancers since Taglioni, probably as fine and perhaps finer, but their
distinction has been of a peculiarly personal and, of necessity,
somewhat limited kind. The decay of the ballet as a vehicle of
expression has bereft them of opportunities for the full display of
their art; they have been in the situation of a singer who for lack of
an operatic stage whereon to give vent to mature, full-blooded powers,
would perforce have to be content with the comparatively limited
opportunities of the platform.

For a long time before the Russian revival the ballet had been all but
extinct in this country; it was scarcely better abroad, save in Russia
itself, of course, where the existence of a State school of dancing
since the end of the seventeenth century has produced a quite different
state of affairs. It is to be noted that even now the art of Anna
Pavlova has only been seen under restrictions of the kind just
mentioned. Her perfect skill in technique has been abundantly
demonstrated; to judge of her quality as an artist (though she has given
more than one suggestive hint of it) it is necessary to see her in
ballet--a privilege hitherto denied.

This lapse of the ballet into desuetude accounts very largely for the
extraordinary success of the Russians, who burst dazzlingly upon the
gaze of a listless public, and demonstrated that ballet, which had come
to be synonymous with banality, could be made both a forceful and a
beautiful vehicle of artistic expression. There had been forerunners of
the “Russian invasion”--brief appearances of one or two of the most
distinguished dancers in isolated performances at a London variety
theatre; but it was not until the complete Russian Ballet, as organised
by M. Serge de Diaghilev, made its bow, _en grande tenue_, at the
Covent Garden Opera House, that the London public awoke to recognition.
The descriptive power of music it knew, “wordless plays” were not
unfamiliar, _pas seuls_ and _pas de deux_ it had seen performed in
countless number by accomplished dancers of every nationality and style.
But the art of the ballet, which combines music, pantomime and the
dance, was a revelation, and its enthusiasm was great.

In Russia the ballet has never been allowed, as elsewhere, to die of
starvation and inanition. Apart from State encouragement of the dancer’s
art, an outlet has been provided for the musician and the decorative
painter and designer. The result is that a ballet, as understood in
Russia, is no mere excuse for the exploitation of individual talents,
but a work of art in itself, to the achievement of which the energies
and abilities of all concerned are subordinated. Undoubtedly it is the
unity of purpose, the wonderful _ensemble_, which the Russian ballets
exhibit that catches the imagination of the spectator. It is significant
that their best performances are those which are wholly, or at least in
chief part, of native production, and deal with native or closely
kindred subjects. Indeed, for their success in attaining coherence and
unity the Russians have to thank, perhaps, their comparative isolation
and remoteness from Western European civilisation. Their art is strong
because native. Endorsement of this suggestion is to be found in the
virility of the Russian operas of Moussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, which
made as profound an impression on their first performance in London as
did the Russian ballets before them. Beside such works of art as “Boris
Godounov,” “La Khovantchina,” and “Ivan the Terrible,” the modern French
and Italian operas seem pitifully patched and thin, sadly lacking in
balance and proportion.

Except for the framework on which it is constructed, the modern dramatic
ballet, as evolved by the Russians, bears little resemblance to that in
which Noverre delighted. The latter’s method, indeed, was fundamentally
the opposite to that by which such a man as Michel Fokine proceeds. It
was Noverre’s habit to lay impertinent hands on any theme, no matter how
august, and twist it (regardless of mutilation) to his purpose--which
was to exhibit his dancer’s skill. Not even the tragedy of Æschylus was
safe if Clytæmnestra seemed to the complacent chevalier a _rôle_ in
which his latest pupil might agreeably air her graces. The Russian
method is the converse; its aim is to interpret the theme by gestures
and the dance, not forcibly adapt it to the irrelevant requirements of a
dancer’s special repertoire. It would be ridiculous to suggest that this
aim is always successfully achieved--there are occasions when it falls a
long way short of accomplishment--but at least the principle is right,
and under Fokine the Russian Ballet has brought dancing the nearest yet
to a fine art.

That it should be their performance as a whole which has sealed the
success of the Russians, is the more remarkable when the exceptional
quality of the individual performers is considered. It is not merely
that the standard of excellence, both in acting and miming, throughout
the entire _corps de ballet_ is so high: under ordinary circumstances
(unfortunately) one would expect to see such performers as MM. Bolm,
Cecchetti, Kotchetovsky, Mdmes. Karsavina, Federova, Astafieva,
Piltz--to name but a few--each figuring as that abomination a “star”:
probably supported by a company whose mediocrity would tend to mitigate
rather than enhance the brilliance of the leading light. But the
Russians know better than this, and though it may be difficult to
imagine “L’Oiseau de Feu” without Karsavina, “Cléopâtre” without
Federova, “Prince Igor” without Bolm, it is of the dancer’s association
with the ballet, not of the ballet as a background to the dancer, that
one thinks. “The play’s the thing.”

There are two personalities, however, which the performances of the
Russian Ballet have thrown forward with especial prominence. The first
is, of course, M. Nijinsky, than whom it may be doubted whether any more
accomplished dancer has ever appeared. He excited the more astonishment,
perhaps, on his appearance in London, because the male dancer was
hitherto unknown--at least in any other than a grotesque or comic
capacity. (Nothing, by the way, could be more eloquent of the debasement
of the ballet in this country than the custom of having the male parts
taken by women.) But the perfection of Nijinsky’s technical skill,
extraordinary as this is, provides but the lesser reason for his
triumph. He is an artist as well as a wonderful dancer. He appeals not
only to the eye but to the imagination. Conceivably there might be found
another dancer with equal command of movement, and another mime with
equal subtlety of pose and gesture: but one who can so weld into a
single faculty of expression the twin arts of pantomime and the dance is
surely far to seek. Consider his dancing, and he seems to be less a
dancer (as the word is ordinarily understood) than a mime who adds
movement to gesture: regard him as a mime, and he seems rather a dancer
who is acting while he dances. Nijinsky, in brief, is the true dancer:
dancing is his proper medium of expression, in the use of which he shows
himself an artist of fine perception. To watch him as Harlequin in “Le
Carnaval” or as the Spectre of the Rose (in which _rôles_ it was the
present writer’s memorable good fortune to see him for the first time)
is to receive a revelation of what the dancer’s art can compass. Let it
be added that in the case of Nijinsky no more unfitting prominence is
allowed to the dancer’s personality than in the case of his colleagues
already named. One may shudder at the thought of “Le Spectre de la Rose”
without Nijinsky as the Spectre, but it is the banality which a lesser
artist might produce that is dreaded, not the loss of those wondrous
leaps and bounds.

The second outstanding personality is that of M. Léon Bakst, to whose
designs for scenery, costumes, and all that is summed up in the
convenient word _décor_, many of the ballets in the Russian repertoire
owe no small part of their success. The impression made by the scenic
methods of Léon Bakst was a worthy parallel to that effected by the
performance of the dancers--or perhaps one should say that the two were
but inseparable parts of the same thing, since the services of Bakst to
the Russian Ballet have been not less than the opportunities which the
Ballet has furnished to Bakst. One scarcely thinks of the one without
the other.

The vigour and impulse with which the Russian dancers showed that the
ballet, as a means of artistic expression, could be endowed, Léon Bakst
demonstrated could inspire the designing of scenery and costumes. Again
one finds that a sense of unity and coherence has been the inspiration.
Bakst’s broad method is the converse of the stage realist who seeks to
counterfeit fact by a laborious building up of detail. He presents the
essentials and little more, using colour rather than form to suggest the
association of ideas which he wishes to produce. Compare the cool green
setting of “Narcisse,” the violent riot of colour which forms a
background to “Scheherazade,” the simplicity and dignity of the orange
environment of “Cléopâtre,” with the fretful facsimiles of woodland
grove, harem, and desert temple which a less original designer might
have attempted. In his designs for costumes there is not less vigour and
attack. While the conventional “costumier” is drawing a fiddling
fashion plate or draping a lay figure, Bakst is portraying not only the
clothing which befits the temperament and character of the _dramatis
persona_ under consideration, but the very way in which that clothing
would by such a one be worn or carried. Especially has he an eye for
form and colour in movement--few of his designs for costumes show the
wearers in repose--a fact which obviously gives his work a peculiar
value for this particular purpose.

It will be readily appreciated how vital a bearing the designs of Léon
Bakst have upon that _ensemble_ which has been so strongly emphasised as
the outstanding feature, and the fundamental secret, of the Russian
Ballet’s success. But it should be remembered that Bakst’s creations as
seen upon the stage fall short by a good deal of what they really are.
It is inevitable, unfortunately, that this should be so. It is no easy
task for the actual scene painter to reproduce upon a large scale the
artist’s design with that absolute fidelity to colour and tone which
alone can do it proper justice: and that the wearers of the costumes
should be able to sustain without relapse their impersonations of the
characters so vividly depicted in essentials by the artist’s brush and
pencil is more than can reasonably be expected from even the most
accomplished _corps de ballet_. How much the designs of Léon Bakst
suffer in translation, only those who have seen the wonderful originals
can realise.

       *       *       *       *       *

The music of the ballets is mostly the work of Russian composers, and
the fact that, as a general rule, it has been specially written
preserves the unity of purpose. In a few cases the Russians have
ventured to lay hands on music to which they have no legitimate claim,
and though their sense of the fitting has saved them from banality or
desecration, it is notable that these are the occasions when they give
the least complete satisfaction. Much may be forgiven for the beauty of
the dancing, _qua_ dancing, in “Les Sylphides,” but one doubts the
propriety of the employment of Chopin’s music. As an “interpretation” of
the latter, the dances are merely ridiculous, but in justice to the
Russians it must be observed that they have never put them forward as
such. The use made of Schumann’s “Carnaval” and Weber’s “Invitation à la
Valse” is more legitimate--indeed the delicate romance of “Le Spectre de
la Rose” confers almost a dignity upon the latter somewhat sentimental
composition. More recently Debussy has been pressed into service, but
the peculiar un-ballet-like nature of “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune” and
“Jeux” makes comment in the present connection needless. The fact
remains that the happiest results have been obtained from the
co-operation of native composers like Nicolas Tcherepnin, Balakirev, and
Igor Stravinsky. From the latter has come, in “L’Oiseau de Feu” and
“Pétrouchka,” perhaps the most effective music in the whole repertoire
of the Russian Ballet--a circumstance which makes it the more
disappointing, at least to the simple-minded, that his third ballet, “Le
Sacre du Printemps,” should be distinguished by such marked, not to say
eccentric, characteristics.

It is regrettable to have to end these introductory words upon a note of
disparagement. But the more recent performances of the Russian Ballet,
while confirming the hold already established upon the public, have also
indicated the way in which that hold may presently be lost. That
abounding vitality with which the Russians have invested their work
arises out of a devotion to, and enthusiasm for, their art. They have a
zest which cannot fail of result. But a belief in the possibilities of
an art must be balanced by a recognition of its limitations, or the
result is chaos. It is needless to anticipate here the comments which
are later made upon some recent additions to the Russians’ repertoire.
It is enough for the moment to remark a tendency in them to chafe at
what presumably seem to enthusiastic spirits, confident in their own
cleverness, unnecessary bonds and restrictions. But discipline is the
very essence of Art. To abandon discipline is to run riot, achieving
nothing and arriving nowhere.




[Illustration]

[Illustration]




“PÉTROUCHKA.”

BURLESQUE SCENES IN FOUR TABLEAUX BY IGOR STRAVINSKY AND ALEXANDRE
BENOIS.

MUSIC BY IGOR STRAVINSKY.

SCENES AND DANCES BY MICHEL FOKINE.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY ALEXANDRE BENOIS.


The Puppet has always exercised upon the human mind a curious
fascination. There is a lure in the antics of the animated doll so
reminiscent of, yet so unlike, ourselves which most find irresistible.
Punch and Judy with their attendant satellites furnish, of course, a
classic case in point.

The reason is that the puppet show discharges all the functions of the
ordinary theatre, with this advantage--that it gives its spectators the
privilege of feeling as the gods upon Olympus. With amused and tolerant
eye they watch the petty strife of puny creatures who, but for the lack
of high divinity, would be life-like effigies of themselves. It may be
that “the proper study of mankind is man,” but the occupation is
pleasurable only when it can be pursued with such detachment as, in the
most complete form, the puppet show makes possible. The travesty of
human passions which the mimic stage affords is near enough the truth to
intrigue the fancy, while sufficiently remote from reality to leave
equanimity undisturbed. No wonder all men show a kindly regard for the
queer little figures that provide parodies of themselves which are
shrewd, but not too apposite!

Pétrouchka, it is understood, is roughly the Russian counterpart of our
familiar Punch, though he would seem to have really but little in common
with the riotous Falstaffian character of the English hero. In the
ballet named after him, however, Pétrouchka represents not so much
certain human traits as _himself_, the essential puppet. In its trivial
way the theme thus presented is a big one. A ballet woven round the
puppet stage would have been in any case attractive. To take us behind
the scenes and show the mingled comedy and tragedy of the puppet world
was a true dramatic inspiration. In the result “Pétrouchka” is an
achievement perhaps finer than even its authors had intended.

       *       *       *       *       *

Not only in their miming, but in their scenery also, the Russians have a
subtle art of suggesting local atmosphere. There is a bleak, grey
quality about the background to the scene with which “Pétrouchka” opens
that conveys an instant sense of Russian cold--a dull frigidity which
not all the gay and vivid hues of the parti-coloured crowd thronging the
stage can thaw, which, indeed, the latter merely enhance, as they in
turn are intensified by contrast against so perfect a foil. One has a
sense of opaque, leaden skies, of snow impending.

It is fair-time, the last few days of high revelry before the Lenten
fast begins. Carnival is in full swing, and folk of every station are
making merry amongst the booths and raree-shows that

[Illustration]

have been set up in the market-place. A spirit of careless jollity
prevails, and as the mingled nature of the moving throng betrays, the
licence of carnival time has broken down all barriers of ceremonious
restraint. Coachmen, Cossacks, nurse girls and grisettes rub shoulders
freely with ladies and their escorts, smart officers and sober
burgesses.

[Illustration]

Itinerant vendors offer their wares among the promenaders, and an eager
rogue sets up, for tempting of the revellers’ purses, the clumsy
peep-show which he carries on his back. The coins begin to roll in as
the gaping sightseers gather round, but his harvest is interrupted by
the greater attractions of a dancing girl, who begins upon a strip of
carpet laid with care upon the ground a posturing dance, to the
accompaniment of strains from a hurdy-gurdy turned by her male
companion. She likewise is not allowed to hold the field undisputed, for
a rival--also attended by a portable organ--establishes herself hard by.
The pair vie with each other in elegant poses and slow rhythmic
movements, while the thin strains of the opposing hurdy-gurdies
dolefully assail the ear.

Some coachmen, challenging each other to feats of agility, break into a
dance. The crowd stays to watch them, paying but little attention to the
frequent appeals for patronage of an old man stationed on the top of a
booth, who beseeches consideration of his astonishingly lengthy beard.
More likely to attract the eye are the pair of handsome gipsy girls who
join him on his elevated platform. But it is not until the coachmen
pause for breath in their vigorous saltations that the sirens overhead
succeed in fastening their allurements upon a festive and inebriated
merchant who has pushed his way, with uncertain gait, to the front.

The sudden beating of a tattoo by a couple of drummers, clad in gay
livery, summons the crowd to a long booth standing in the background, of
which the curtains have hitherto remained drawn. The people press
forward with such eager curiosity that the drummers have some ado to
keep them at a sufficient distance; but the apparition of a strange,
antique head, which is suddenly thrust through an opening in the
curtains of the booth, arrests the attention of all.

The head looks quaintly right and left: then the curtains are parted,
and the figure of its owner is revealed. It is no ordinary showman or
cheap-jack who steps forward and salutes the ring of attentive
spectators. The cabalistic signs upon the long robe in which his lean
figure is swathed, his cap of curious shape, his flowing beard and
yellow parchment skin--these are all attributes which belong rather to a
wise magician of the East than to a peripatetic showman. The spectators
are evidently interested; there is a something about this queer
personage which fascinates and holds them. When, after courtly
obeisances, he puts to his lips the flute that he holds in his hand,
they press forward with undisguised curiosity.

With gestures odd and unexpected the strange old man pipes forth a tune
upon his flute--a jerky little air to which he jerkily sways and twists
his lank body. The gaping onlookers follow his antics with
half-mesmerised gaze, and when presently he takes the flute from his
lips and steps down to the front of the booth they are all agog to learn
what sequel to this prelude the drawn curtains will reveal.

When drawn at length the curtains are, an engaging spectacle greets the
eye. Propped in a row upon slender rods are three life-size puppet
figures. In the middle is the Dancer, most radiant of dolls, with the
pinkest of waxen cheeks and the glassiest of stares, elegantly arrayed
in a striped jacket and pantaloons. On one side of her is the
Blackamoor, a fierce and swarthy fellow, resplendent in green and gold,
with gorgeous turban on his head; on the other, poor Pétrouchka, a
grotesque figure of fun tricked out in glaring and fantastic motley.

Such are the three puppets which the ancient showman presents to the
enthralled spectators--and puppets only, mere things of tinsel and
sawdust, they seem as the curtains are drawn aside. They hang limply
upon their supports, not making even of lifelessness other than a
puppet’s feeble travesty. There is occult power in the showman’s hand,
however, and as he touches each in turn the figures are galvanised of a
sudden into seeming life. With a quick spasmodic movement their limbs
stiffen, their bodies are jerked upright upon the props, and a semblance
of alertness is obtained. It is as though on the instant some hidden
clockwork springs had been wound up tense and taut.

To a burst of lively music three pairs of legs start nimbly dancing. The
bodies of the puppets, seemingly fastened to the supports so plainly
visible, remain fixed and stationary. Heads and arms move jerkily and
unfreely, but whatever the mechanical defects in other directions, at
least the puppets’ legs are well and truly hung. They beat a merry
tattoo in concert on the floor; they bend and straighten, kick, recoil
and leap with such inspiriting and infectious gusto, that blithe and
nimble feet are soon a-jigging in the crowd of admiring and applauding
onlookers.

The giddy reel is at its height when, upon a mutual impulse, the puppets
start from their supports, and tripping gaily from their little
platforms in the booth, come forward and continue the dance in the midst
of the astonished spectators. The latter, much excited by a manœuvre so
unexpected, gather hurriedly round. The drummers strive to keep a clear
arena for the puppets, while the antique showman, sardonically aware of
the sensation which his dolls are making, rubs covetous and expectant
palms.

The dance develops into burlesque pantomime, Pétrouchka making a
grotesque attack upon the Blackamoor with a stick which the showman
thrusts into his stiffly jointed arms. Captivated by this new feature of
an entertainment already novel, the laughing onlookers press more
closely round, and the curtain falls upon the hilarious crowd
delightedly applauding the conclusion of the pantomime and dance.

       *       *       *       *       *

When the curtain, after a short interval, rises again a very different
scene is disclosed. You are to understand that the queer old showman has
some acquaintance with the black arts. It is probable that from the
moment when he first peered through the curtains of his booth you have
suspected as much; indeed, if you share but a tithe of the superstitious
instinct of the holiday-makers in the fair, you will have been at once
convinced of it, and the sudden transformation of the sawdust puppets
into the semblance of living, sentient beings (albeit a trifle odd and
constrained in their movements) will have aroused little emotion in your
ignorant mind except a gaping wonder.

The old rascal is, in truth, something of a magician. But though he has
the power to endow his puppets with a certain degree of humanity, there
is a limit to his skill, and the poor objects of his mischievous arts
are but partially humanised--a kind of apish mockery of human flesh and
blood. At bottom they are puppets still.

In worst case, because the most gifted with humanity, is the luckless
Pétrouchka. More nearly does the texture of his rag approximate to
flesh, the thin sawdust of his stuffing to red and pulsing blood.
Vaguely there stir within him the passions and emotions of a man--blind
feelings to which he strives mutely, ineffectually, to give expression.
He has learned to suffer--and no more.

The black rectangular chamber which the newly rising curtain shows us is
that portion of the squalid puppet-box which forms Pétrouchka’s home.
Through the door that flies open the showman’s clumsy boot is seen, and
the flimsy figure of the hapless doll, ridiculous in his pied and motley
clothes, is impelled through the opening by a cruel kick.

For a time he lies in a huddled heap upon the floor, then woefully picks
himself up, striving to collect his feeble wits. His pitiful frame is
fired by yearnings which he does not comprehend. Aimless impulses stir
him to spasmodic, inconclusive movements. He is the sport of he knows
not what. In a sudden access of panic he darts to the door, seeking
escape from his prison-like box to the life and gaiety of the outer
world, from which he has been so rudely torn. There, but a moment ago,
he was dancing, and if the applause was mingled with laughter at his
ungainly antics, at least it was applause such as the ears of even a
half-witted doll can greedily drink in.

But the door is shut. It lies flush, lacking handle or latch, with the
wall, and Pétrouchka’s puppet hands, with fingers stiffly glued together
and muffled in black babyish gloves, fumble at it in vain effort.
Pathetically he totters the length of the walls, groping wildly with his
futile arms for an outlet. At last he finds one--a portion of the wall
collapses--but it is only a hole pasted over with paper, into which the
rickety figure of Pétrouchka nearly disappears. It is no real outlet,
it leads nowhere, and dimly the poor puppet realises that even here his
hopes and aspirations are baulked. He is a prisoner, close pent.
Mournfully he bemoans his wretched lot, his bitter discontent not
lightened by ignorance of what he truly wishes in its stead.

[Illustration]

Lacking the initiative, the constructive power, which full intelligence
alone can give, Pétrouchka can yet perceive his shortcomings. He passes
himself in review, and finds satisfaction in nothing. His motions,
gestures--who could admire such awkward angularity, such jerky, jumpy
movements? Thus he reflects dolefully, as he strives experimentally to
move his limbs with easy grace and rhythm. As to his clothes, such
gaudy, parti-coloured gear is fit only for buffoons and clownish oafs,
not for one who possesses (in how limited degree, poor fellow! he does
not realise) the finer instincts. His motley shames him, his involuntary
_gaucherie_ moves him to anger with himself. Nothing is right; and with
a travesty of emotion which excites a smile while it moves to pity,
Pétrouchka abandons himself to despair.

It is Pétrouchka’s crowning agony that he believes himself in love. The
object of his adoration is the Dancer, the radiant creature who occupies
(in striped pantaloons and the sauciest of caps) the middle compartment
of the puppet-box. Beyond lies the Blackamoor, a feared and hated rival.
How vie with the latter’s rich and handsome dress, his dashing, martial
bearing? The Blackamoor carries a sabre, and though it is Pétrouchka’s
exquisite privilege at periodic intervals to belabour his dusky rival
with the stick he borrows from their mutual master, the attack (for all
the feeble spite with which it is delivered) is but a mimic one--a mere
comic interlude in the dance with which the trio are wont to entertain
the grinning public. Of what avail in private such brief and sham
ascendancy against the subtle, meretricious attractions of his
competitor for the fair one’s favour!

Momentarily Pétrouchka’s gloom is lightened by the unexpected advent of
the Dancer, come upon a visit to the apartment of her love-sick swain.
At sight of her Pétrouchkas fears and doubts are dissipated on the
instant. No deepening of the rosy patches on her cheeks encourages the
extravagant demonstration of delight with which he greets her; nor does
even a momentary softening relax the fixity of her stare. But
Pétrouchka, poor fool! takes no

[Illustration]

note of this. He has learnt no art of restraint, and in the sudden
revulsion of feeling effected by the apparition of his beloved, he
rushes from one extreme to the other. Forgetful now of that _gaucherie_
he was deploring but a moment earlier, unconscious of the ridicule his
foolish garb excites, the hapless creature is betrayed, by the
ill-disciplined vehemence of his rudimentary emotions, into ludicrous
and preposterous behaviour.

The Dancer stands affrighted at the ecstatic transports of her would-be
lover. Not in this antic fashion had she expected to be wooed. Deficient
in the graces and allurements of a suppliant, Pétrouchka lacks equally
the masterful methods of the bolder kind of suitor.

He can but give an incomplete expression to the incomplete emotions with
which his puppet’s breast is charged. The result is ludicrous, a mere
fiasco. Where Pétrouchka thought to excite admiration he arouses only
contempt; he repels where he hoped to attract. The object of his
passion, startled at first, but soon disgusted, retires in dudgeon, and
as the hapless lover throws himself forward in a despairing effort to
detain her the door is slammed to in his face. The curtain, descending,
hides his pitiful fumbling as he tries the door anew.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the other end of the puppet-box, as we see when the curtain next
rises, lives the Blackamoor. A more expensive puppet than Pétrouchka,
despite less sensibility to the showman’s magic arts, the Blackamoor’s
apartment has some pretensions to comfort. A wall-paper of violent hue
and florid design (everyone who has played with a doll’s house will
recognise it) serves as background to the oriental divan on which the
Blackamoor reclines in luxurious ease.

Indolent and stupid, the rival of Pétrouchka is happier than he. Less
responsive to the showman’s baneful influence, the swarthy doll has
been invested with but little more than the lowest of human appetites
and instincts. No dim perceptions of romance are his; his brutish wits
have not been sharpened, like Pétrouchka’s, to the point of suffering.
Lolling in his gaudy chamber, he passes the time in idleness and folly.

We see him, as the curtain rises, intent upon some clownish trifling
with a coconut. Prone upon his back, with legs in air, he shows a
doltish pleasure in juggling his toy with hands and knees. Presently
tiring of this, his vacuous mind casts round for fresh amusement. A
happy thought strikes him, and flinging himself off the divan he rolls
over and over across the floor, clutching the precious nut, till
suddenly he finds himself, with idiot leer, in sitting posture.

He begins anew his juggling, but the silly game has lost its savour. He
drops the coconut upon the floor and stupidly blames his clumsiness upon
the toy. Angrily regarding it, he flies into a rage, and fetching his
sabre, slashes furiously at the object of his wrath. Failing to hit it,
he next finds fault with his weapon, and flings it pettishly into a
corner. The coconut still lies at his feet, and a superstitious notion
creeps into his turbid brain. Retiring a few paces, he prostrates
himself before this fetish that has defied his wrath and violence.

He begins a series of elaborate obeisances designed at once to
propitiate the ire which he supposes the inanimate coconut to nurse, and
cover the stealthy approach which he nevertheless makes towards it. He
grins facetiously as his silly antics gradually bring him nearer the
object of his desires. With a final prostration he achieves his purpose,
and sprawls delightedly over the nut, just as the Dancer, fresh from her
rejection of Pétrouchka’s fervent but ill-proffered advances, enters the
apartment.

Coquettishly in her hand the Dancer carries a toy trumpet, and with this
to her lips, sounding a lively gallop, she foots it merrily to and fro.
The Blackamoor, who took but little notice of her entry, is distracted
from his fervent occupation with the coconut. Beguiled by the
inspiriting strains of the trumpet, he watches her movements with
increasing interest, rolling his goggle eyes from side to side as she
trips it up and down.

[Illustration]

With sudden ardour the Blackamoor starts up, and flinging away his
wretched plaything, seizes and embraces his fascinating visitor. The
latter seems nothing loth, and gratified by this easy conquest the
Blackamoor seats himself to receive the homage of a further dance. The
lady, eager to make the most of opportunity, exerts herself in even
livelier fashion than before, and finds occasion to fall provocatively
into her admirer’s arms. The Blackamoor is now entirely captivated, and
when the Dancer begins, to a sugary, sentimental strain, a _pas de
fascination_ of which his sluggish wits at length realise himself to be
the object, his fondness is grotesquely manifested. From the edge of his
divan he fatuously ogles the fair one, and is thrown into transports of
delight when she accepts a rapturous invitation to sit upon his knee.

The flirtation receives unwelcome interruption by the unexpected arrival
of Pétrouchka. Fired by jealousy, and impelled by his infatuation for
the Dancer, he has escaped at last and come to seek her in the hated
rival’s domain. But the poor fellow is so ineffectual that he cannot
make even a passably impressive entry. In his blundering haste he gets
caught in the swinging door and hangs there, half in the room, half out,
an object of derision to his inamorata and her dusky swain.

Even when he has struggled free of this embarrassment and confronts the
guilty pair, Pétrouchka is pathetically at a loss. Tortured by vague
fears, he has yielded to a vague impulse, only to find himself unable to
deal with the situation he has so rashly sought.

Not so the Blackamoor, whose lower type of intelligence is beset by
neither doubts nor fears. While the Dancer, with nice sense of
propriety, goes off into a genteel swoon, he bounces angrily off the
divan, and advances threateningly upon the intruder. Pétrouchka, half
urged by passion, half intimidated by force, and wholly at a loss, takes
refuge in a futile demonstration, which has not the least effect.
Gloating, like a true bully, over the discomfiture of his rival, the
Blackamoor hustles him to the door, and with a vicious kick sends him
flying across the threshold. Boastfully jeering at his defeated enemy,
he executes, as the curtain comes down, a loutish dance of triumph.

[Illustration]

Meanwhile the fair, to which the action of the ballet returns in the
concluding scene, is still in progress. But evening is approaching, and
the revels are beginning to take on a noisy, riotous turn. To swinging,
pulsing music there is a dance of nursegirls and coachmen, which sets
the feet of all who watch it sympathetically a-stamping. The advent of a
performing bear, walking gingerly upright at the end of the chain which
his owner holds, creates a small diversion; a more lively one is
produced by the reappearance of the tipsy merchant, who scatters bank
notes promiscuously among the crowd. The horseplay which has already
begun receives a fillip from the inrush of a group of masqueraders (a
devil with horns and tail among them) whose hideous disguises cause
pretended alarm among the women and girls. Snow begins to fall, and
under the play of flickering coloured lights, which spasmodically
illumine the gathering dusk, the fun waxes fast and furious.

Of a sudden the crowd becomes aware of a great commotion inside the
puppet booth. The curtains are drawn across the front, but their
violent agitation, now at this end, now at that, indicates that
something untoward is happening within. The passers-by pause and look
curiously at the booth. In a moment the curtain at one end is flung back
and Pétrouchka dashes forth. Close on his heels the Blackamoor,
brandishing his sabre, strides vindictively. The Dancer (agitated, but
as pink and white of cheek, as glassy of stare, as ever) brings up the
rear.

Fleeing in panic down the length of the booth, Pétrouchka vanishes
behind the curtain at the other end. The Blackamoor and Dancer follow. A
wild commotion of the curtain at its middle part suggests a fearful
struggle within. A moment later the three puppets dash forth again,
Pétrouchka still in front and seeking vainly to escape the uplifted
sabre. In the middle of the market-place the Blackamoor overtakes his
rival, and with a vicious blow fells him to the ground.

The spectators, up to this point too taken aback to interfere, crowd
round in consternation. Hapless Pétrouchka lies huddled on the ground,
and though they seek to succour him, no sound but a painful squeaking
comes from him. He strives to rise, but cannot; ineffectual to the last,
he can compass nothing more dramatic at his end than a few indeterminate
jerky motions and a last pitiful squeak.

An alarm has been given, and at this juncture a policeman approaches
with the ancient puppet-showman, an odder figure than ever, wrapped in a
voluminous black coat with a tall hat upon his head. The crowd,
bewildered by the strange events just witnessed, draws back and watches
the showman with puzzled curiosity as he bends over the prostrate figure
of Pétrouchka. Can it be they have been spectators of a tragedy?

The showman is in no wise disconcerted. Stooping, he takes hold of the
bundle of gaily-coloured rags that lies so forlornly on the street, and
lifts it up. It dangles limp and lifeless from his upraised hand before
the astonished eyes of all. A corpse? Nothing of the sort--a doll!
Incredulous hands are stretched out to touch, but there is no need of
that. The showman begs the company to see for themselves. The head is
wooden; the body (as a thin powdery stream falling to the pavement
testifies) is stuffed with sawdust!

The crowd disperses. Satisfied that the tragedy was no tragedy, they yet
feel a distaste for the scene of an occurrence so disturbing, and drift
away to another part of the fair. The showman is left alone.

[Illustration]

With a shrug the old magician moves towards his booth, trailing behind
him the draggled figure of his puppet. As he nears the steps a shrill
screech bursts upon his ears. He starts and looks fearfully about him,
for he recognises the sound. Again the screech greets him, and looking
up he espies, mopping and mowing above the cornice of the booth, the
ghostly figure of Pétrouchka.

The trailing bundle of rags and sawdust drops from the sorcerer’s hands.
Horror-struck, he turns and flees.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Pétrouchka” is the joint work of MM. Igor Stravinsky and Alexandre
Benois, of whom the former composed the music, while the latter designed
the scenery and costumes. The restraint, the fine selective instinct,
which Benois has shown in his manipulation of the wealth of material
lying to his hand produces a most artistic result. The local colour is
firmly, but without offending emphasis, insisted upon--that it is a
Russian fair in which we find ourselves, there is no mistaking. Nor does
he lack humour; nothing could be defter than the grotesque touches with
which the rival puppets’ boxes are adorned, nothing more truly bizarre
than the opera cloak and silk hat in which he garbs the fantastic
showman for the _dénouement_.

In “Pétrouchka,” as in “L’Oiseau de Feu,” Stravinsky shows himself a
master of the art of writing ballet music. Throughout the four scenes he
displays not only a nice sense of dramatic fitness, but a shrewd
appreciation of character. Whether his theme is the quasi-pathetic
sufferings of Pétrouchka, the dollish coquetry of the Dancer, or the
grotesque humours of the Blackamoor, he never fails to be expressive. In
the treatment of such a subject as “Pétrouchka” (described by the
authors as a series of “burlesque scenes”) his humorous perception is of
large assistance. In the trumpet dance, for instance, by which the
Blackamoor is first inveigled 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. Conceive a tender, sentimental passage between
two grotesque dolls, and in these engaging little melodies you have the
exact expression of the absurd situation. Even more ingenious, as a
piece of clever orchestration, is a passage at the outset of the opening
scene, where the composer succeeds not only in reproducing (with the
merest note of burlesque) the peculiar sounds of an antique hurdy-gurdy,
but weaves the opposition between two such competing instruments into a
most entertaining and harmonious discord. As to the music which hurries
the revels of the carnival upon their riotous course, it has the true
note of full-blooded vigorous enjoyment--a rhythmic pulsing quality
which belongs to the fresh and unsophisticated pleasure of simple folk
not too much hampered by conventions.

“Pétrouchka,” however, would fall short of its ultimate effect but for
the subtle art of its interpreters. Kotchetovsky, as the Blackamoor,
wonderfully realises the undisciplined temper and coarse appetites which
are all of humanity that this puppet has acquired; and the Dancer,
whether played by Karsavina or Nijinska, pirouettes or tiptoes with the
exactitude of mechanical action. But to the presentation of Pétrouchka
Nijinsky brings more than mere cleverness. There is a touch of
_diablerie_ in his impersonation of the luckless puppet which most
poignantly conveys the sense of atrophied humanity. It is not merely
that from his jerky half-mechanical motions one can deduce the exact
anatomy of the doll, a joint here, a loosely hung limb there; he puts
the whole character upon a plane above the level of mere grotesquery.
Pétrouchka in his hands acquires a significance which places him amongst
the centaurs and other half-brute, half-human creatures of mythology.
That the ballet is thereby endowed with a meaning, an inwardness, which
it might not otherwise possess, must be accounted as a tribute to the
dancer’s genius.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




THAMAR.

CHOREOGRAPHIC DRAMA BY LÉON BAKST

MUSIC BY BALAKIREV.

SCENES AND DANCES BY MICHEL FOKINE.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY LÉON BAKST.


In no ballet, perhaps, are the resources of the Russians so
characteristically and comprehensively displayed as in “Thamar.” In
certain other spectacles particular aspects of their art receive more
emphasis, are more acutely perceived. But in this barbaric legend from
the far Caucasus their powers are revealed at their ripest and fullest.
There is a “body,” a full-blooded vigour in this swift, fierce drama,
and its vivid enactment, which bespeaks maturity. The miming, the
dancing, the very _mise-en-scène_ draw fire from quickened pulses,
albeit so subordinated to controlling restraint, that of no ballet is it
less possible to resolve into component elements the spontaneous,
arresting whole. The _ensemble_ is perfect. And what “Thamar” lacks in
preciosity is compensated by abounding vitality.

It is possibly not mere fancy which suggests that in “Thamar” the
Russians give peculiarly spontaneous vent to their artistic impulses.
Western Europe has a proverb, which it would scarce be gallant to repeat
here, anent the affinity between a Russian and a Tartar; and it would
certainly seem as if to the presentment upon the stage of this old tale
from the folk-lore of wild Georgia had gone a native appreciation--a
relish--of all that it embodies, which must be wanting to the treatment
of themes more conventional or exotic. Only in the wonderful exuberance
of the crowded Moscow fair in “Pétrouchka” does one find again that
subtle access of spontaneity and vitality which can derive from a
national instinct alone.

For the story of “Thamar” it seems there is some warrant in history. At
least tradition reports that the castle, now in ruins, which stands in
the gorge of Dariol, had once a royal mistress, whose inhospitable
custom it was to lure unsuspecting strangers into her toils, and
presently cause them to be hurled to destruction from a secret door
giving upon a precipitous face of the rocky crag on which the castle is
perched. What measure of historical fact is foundation for the legend,
who shall say? Certain it is that the tale has lost nothing by the
telling, in the handing down from one generation to another; that the
lurid colours in which Queen Thamar’s character has been painted have
lost nothing--have gained, indeed--in intensity. Yet, if time has not
mellowed their barbaric crudity, at least it has arranged them
decoratively. Romance has been busy at her loom, from which at length
has issued a legend so cunningly woven as needs only the gorgeous
embroidery of the Russians’ art to reach an apotheosis.

The master hand of Léon Bakst has designed nothing more startling and
impressive than the great chamber of the castle in which Queen Thamar
holds perpetual court. By some wondrous trick of

[Illustration]

his art he has induced a sense of height that leads the eye upward far
beyond the proscenium’s limit, and creates a loftiness that seems to
dwarf the figures grouped about the floor. Even more remarkable is the
form and colouring of the decorations. Crude is the word that first
presents itself, but crudity ill suggests the ultimate harmony of this
astounding tableau. Violence is rather the note--violence of colour,
violence of form: meet setting for such deeds of violence as are soon to
be enacted. And as with the chamber, so with the dress of its
occupants--the splendid, violent trappings of æsthetic barbarism.
Nothing is subdued; it is the very occasion, as the spectator thrills to
feel, for passions to be loosed, unbridled and untamed.

Something of the same inspiration seems to have prompted Balakirev’s
music, which not only hurries the swift drama to its impending climax,
but seems charged with a sensuous violence of its own that enhances, to
a point of fascination almost dreadful, the orgy of passionate
intoxication on the stage.

Thamar is an exciting experience. In the first few bars of the short
prelude which precedes the rising of the curtain the note of mystery, of
eerie phantasy, is struck. The listener is transported from reality to
the region of legendary lore. To such strains would one choose to read
of witchcraft and of magic spells; at least, the music has that degree
of kinship with those voices of the elements which raise the hair with
unfelt breath, and send a shiver through the stoutest heart.

The curtains, lifting silently, disclose that striking tableau just
referred to--a _coup d’œil_ in a very special sense. Upon a divan at the
back, sinuous, a panther in repose, lies Thamar. At one side, flooding
the head of the couch with evening light, a huge casement gives outlook,
over the river’s turbulent flood, upon the wild snow-covered slopes that
surround the mountain fastness of the Queen. In groups about the
chamber are scattered Thamar’s women, some close in attendance upon
their mistress, others reclining on low cushions, a few watching
intently the distant prospect through the open window. Guarding the
door, tall henchmen.

A steadfast immobility has transfixed all. So, statuesque, stood the
guards and retinue of the Sleeping Beauty. This much the spectator is
permitted, at the lifting of the curtain, to apprehend. The stillness is
noted, lasting for just that brief but appreciable moment which invests
it with significance, and makes dominant that note of phantasy, of
unreality, which the opening strains of music sounded. The illusion
achieved, the spell of stillness is broken. A woman, one of those whose
watchful gaze has been directed through the window, stirs. It is the
merest gesture, but a gesture eager, alert: and on the instant, though
none other yet moves, the scene becomes instinct with life.

The woman looks again at the distant scene; then turns to another with a
whispered word. At the movement heads are turned, figures that seemed
indolent lose their sloth. Something is toward; the whispers are
pregnant with meaning. Thamar alone, recumbent on her couch, gives no
sign of life. One might suppose she slumbered, but for the cat-like
swiftness with which, at a word from one of her attendants, she turns
towards the window. Half raising herself, as a stalking leopard lifts
shoulders and neck to watch its distant prey, she takes a wisp of gauze
from her pillow and slowly waves it above her head. A stranger, errant
among the lonely mountain sides, has espied the castle, and approaches.
Even now he stands below the walls gazing at the fateful casement. Twice
and again the seductive signal is repeated. Its purpose then appears to
be achieved, for the scarf is dropped and Thamar, springing from the
couch, turns to her expectant court.

Orders are issued, but of these there scarce seems need, with such
accustomed readiness do the Queen’s minions set about their tasks.
Without ado the guards stationed at the doors prepare to sally forth,
wrapping themselves in voluminous black cloaks. A subtle touch, those
cloaks. They suggest the bleak, inhospitable wilderness without,
emphasising the warmth and luxury of the brilliant scene within--an
emphasis which is enhanced by the decorative value, considering the
scene pictorially, of the black irregular masses which the shrouded
high-capped figures present against the general riot of colour. When
presently the stranger is led in, likewise cloaked and muffled, that
contrast is again insisted upon. The stranger, it is instantly apparent,
is travel-weary: one divines the curiosity and wonder with which he
finds himself led into an atmosphere of ease and luxury which his tired
senses, despite the bandage over his eyes, must gratefully apprehend.

Meanwhile, the Queen has been preparing for the advent of her guest. As
the escort departs to bring him in, the women busy themselves with
Thamar’s person. Deftly and swiftly she is robed, and ere the door opens
to admit the doomed stranger, she is ready and awaiting her prey.

Wonderful mime that she is, I doubt whether Karsavina in any _rôle_
excels her impersonation of the feline Thamar. Her every movement, under
its sinuous grace, has that suggestion of stealth which fascinates while
it affrights. From the moment that the guileless stranger is brought
before her--for there is that in her attitude, as she awaits his coming,
which proclaims him not guest, but victim--till the fierce climax, she
never relaxes the tension under which his apprehension of her
close-pent, volcanic energy places the spectator. It is as though one
watched a panther sporting with some innocent creature that mistakes the
play for mere kittenish frolic: as beautiful, as horrid, and as certain
in its

[Illustration]

ending is Thamar’s way with her victim. The final pounce one awaits as
inevitable: the interval is filled with the exquisite agony of suspense.

Embodiment of action in arrest is Queen Thamar as, for a brief moment,
she regards the figure of the unsuspecting stranger. Then, loosing
suddenly her restraint, she springs upon him, and reaching up a slender
arm with eager fingers tears the bandage from his face. Fiercely she
scans him: he is fair to see. So, too, is Thamar, and if in that swift
interchange of searching looks the wild blood courses more hotly through
the siren’s veins, be sure that passion scarce a whit less fiery kindles
in the youth, so strangely and suddenly confronted by the glowing,
sinister beauty of the Queen.

At a sign from Thamar attendants come forward to relieve the stranger of
his travelling gear. Disengaging herself from his grasp, the Queen
retires to a table at the side, on which stands a wine cup and flagon.
From the background she watches avidly while her women are busy. The
stranger’s cloak and high-crowned hat are removed, and he stands
revealed--handsome, well-favoured, a very proper figure of a man. He
gazes about him rapt in admiration and delight, but ere he can espy
again the figure of the arch enchantress, a group of dancing girls
advances and encircles him. The graceful measures which they tread
distract his attention as he stands, pleased and diverted, in their
midst.

The bevy of girls gives way to a more potent allurement. Thamar herself,
darting forward, now begins a dance of fascination before the stranger’s
eager eyes. With her first lithe movements she asserts her mastery over
his enraptured senses. As the moth round the flame of the candle, he
hovers on the outskirts of her mazy dance, the reviving blood within him
gaining warmth as he feasts his quickening senses on her beauty and
grace.

[Illustration]

As Thamar continues to dance, so increasingly wavers the young man’s
hold upon himself. She saps his power of restraint to the very verge;
then on a sudden interrupts the dance, and runs to the table. Ere the
stranger can collect himself she is before him, offering with regal
courtesy a brimming wine cup. He hesitates to drink, but held by the
fascination of her eye he suffers her to lead him, unresisting, to the
couch. As they gain the steps of the divan a troupe of dancers enters.
Musicians, with quaint stringed instruments, are already seated along
the walls, and forthwith, a joyous revel is begun.

The lilt of the music, the throbbing rhythm of the dance, complete the
spell which Thamar’s beauty has begun. With eyes intent only upon the
face of his enchantress, the stranger puts the potion to his lips. As he
sets the wine cup down, Thamar eludes the embrace he proffers and glides
away. The youth pursues her through the whirling ranks of dancers, but
at a sign from Thamar the women take him by the hand and lead him from
the chamber. Reluctant to go, he yet submits to be escorted thus, since
the purpose is but to attire him more fitly for the night-long revel.

Left alone amidst her court, Thamar draws inspiration for her
approaching deeds of lust and violence from the savage frenzy of her
followers. Her henchmen crowd around her, goading her willing spirit
with the vigour of their dance. Rapidly the frenzy of that dance
increases; the armed men draw their daggers, hurling them points
downward to the floor in the midst of their whirling evolutions. Thamar,
aloof, looks on with heaving breasts. As she watches her excitement
grows, till at length with an imperious gesture she bids her attendants
bring the stranger in once more. The women fly at her behest, and
Thamar, with sudden resolution, masters her outward evidences of
passion, and gains the divan just as the stranger, in rich gala attire,
is ushered in.

The dance of armed men has ceased, and the entering youth is greeted by
a bevy of girls, each with a tabor in her hand, who dance before him,
and presently lead him to the royal couch. The youth advances gladly;
but Thamar, stealthily immobile, affects to ignore him. Spurred thus to
ingratiate himself, the stranger essays a dance before the object of his
passion. He is tall, he is shapely, he is active; his leaps and nimble
movements display to advantage his virile elegance and grace. Thamar,
watching him intently, is swept past all restraint and casts
dissimulation aside. Swiftly she darts upon him, and joins him in the
dance. The swaying measure which they foot in concert sets their pulses
throbbing to the point beyond endurance. As the music swells in volume,
the women are caught by the intoxication of the moment, and as the armed
men in their turn join the dance, the stranger finds himself supporting
the form of Thamar in their midst. The moment of ecstasy, of abandon, is
reached. A pregnant pause--then Thamar has flung herself upon the
stranger, fastened her lips upon his, and fleeing from the chamber,
drawn him in pursuit.

The disappearance of the two protagonists is the signal for resumption
of the revels. Violently and yet more violently throbs the music, wilder
and yet wilder rages the furious dance. The casement which earlier
admitted the sunset rays has long been closed, and one may believe the
night to be far spent ere the revels have reached this pitch of bacchic
frenzy. The orgy is at its height when the stranger, alone, re-enters
the chamber. His breath is laboured, his gait unsteady, as he staggers
under the heady influence of overmastering passion. At sight of him the
dancers pause, eyeing him askance, curious but aloof. The wretched
youth, at grips with his passion, pays no heed to them, but even as he
yields and turns again towards the door, the object of his thirsting
desire confronts him. The Queen takes him by the hand and fawns upon
him, savagely seductive. The youth is wax beneath her fierce caress, and
though the watching eyes of all the court are upon him, he can but gaze,
spell-bound, upon his Circe.

[Illustration]

Thamar, not less than her victim, is in the clutch of over-whelming
passion. The hour is at hand, and as the fateful moment approaches, she
thrills with fearful expectancy. Bemused, the luckless stranger sees not
the dagger which Thamar with stealthy motion of the hand withdraws from
her girdle; neither does he note the yawning abyss, revealed through a
panel in the wall a watchful guard has rolled noiselessly aside, towards
which his unheeding steps are being surely and relentlessly guided.
There comes at last the climax. Even as the infatuated youth leans
towards her, with a tigerish spring the Queen stabs him to the heart. He
is already on the brink of the open precipice; and as he reels backward
under the blow, a push from the minion at his elbow sends him hurling to
the rushing torrent far below. Thamar with outstretched neck watches, in
gloating ecstasy, the consummation of her fell design.

The panel in the wall slides back again. The guards resume their posts
of duty. The courtiers, grouped about the chamber, relapse into
immobility. The appointed doom is achieved. What was to be, is. Once
more the sense of fantastic unreality asserts itself in the spectator’s
mind. Mere ghouls, dread phantoms in human form, this dazzling throng of
courtiers--not creatures of warm flesh and blood as in the midst of
their simulated revelry he had almost deemed them. Thamar alone exhibits
emotion. It is not remorse, however, which sets her shivering as with an
ague, and turns her knees to water. Reaction must follow action, and the
hideous spectre that treads so close upon the heels of indulgence has
her in its grip. The hour has passed, the supreme moment has gone; and
Thamar, like every true artist, is plunged in depths that are measurable
only by the heights she has erstwhile scaled.

The court, regarding her attentive but impassive, is dismissed with a
gesture, and the great chamber is cleared of all save Thamar and her
women, by whom she is now unrobed. As the festal garments drop from her,
the Queen’s exhaustion, physical and mental, seems to verge upon
collapse. Slowly she gains the head of her couch, as the arras is drawn
from before the window. Night has fled and the purple rays of the dawn
pour into the room. The Queen steps into the midst of this luminous
flood, drinking deep of the morning glory. Her senses revive, she
imbibes new vigour, the black shadows are lifted from her. As presently
she lays herself upon the couch, her women sink to rest upon their
cushions.

Thus from supreme climax the action of the ballet subsides gradually to
statuesque immobility once more. Stillness broods over the quiet figures
of Thamar and her women. Realisation comes suddenly to the spectator
that the scene is now identical with that which the lifting curtain
first disclosed. And at that moment of quick apprehension--a woman
stirs! In a flash of inspiration the spectator’s eye, outrunning the
action on the stage, foresees the inevitable happening. Is not the whole
ghastly round yet fresh and vivid in his mind? The woman looks again,
whispers to another. A third bends to the Queen’s ear, and as the
curtain slowly descends the treacherous scarf is being once more lightly
tossed into the air.

[Illustration]




LE CARNAVAL.

PANTOMIME-BALLET BY MICHEL FOKINE.

MUSIC BY ROBERT SCHUMANN,

ORCHESTRATED BY RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, LIADOV, GLAZOUNOV AND TCHEREPNIN.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY LÉON BAKST.


“Le Carnaval,” which has been built upon Schumann’s well-known music, is
a ballet of the type which defies pedestrian description. If one may
term “incident” so trifling an affair as, let us say, a butterfly’s
flirtation with a flower, then “Le Carnaval” is full of incident. But it
has no story, no dramatic development of a plot, to give a theme for
narrative. The very characters bear relation to each other only as the
_personæ_ of a carnival.

The characters, indeed, are scarcely to be regarded as actual men and
women. Harlequin, Columbine, Pierrot and the rest who flit across the
scene, are no mere impersonations of those traditional figures of fancy
by gay revellers at a _bal masqué_, but themselves--living embodiments
of different phases of irresponsible humanity. The spectator is
conscious of an atmosphere of unreality, a sense almost of illusion. On
the wings of fancy he is transported far from the realm of adamantine
fact, and in a region of pure sentiment sees materialised the whole idea
of Carnival.

It is to the appearance of unreality, perhaps, that the ballet owes its
peculiar appeal and charm. Elsewhere some explanation has been attempted
of the fascination which the puppet exercises on the human mind, and
similar comments apply in the present case. For though the figures of
“Le Carnaval” are not, as in “Pétrouchka,” poor dolls aping humanity, in
essence they are puppets just as much--embodiments in miniature of
various human traits at which we can afford to laugh without offended
vanity. Watching “Le Carnaval,” indeed, we are verily in puppet-dom; so
completely is a severance from matter-of-fact reality achieved.

[Illustration]

This note of fantasy is maintained in chief by the exceeding deftness of
the performers, and the sensitive lightness of their touch. But not a
little is owed to the bold simplicity of Bakst’s _décor_. There is no
scenery; merely an immense green curtain for background, and for
furniture a couple of odd little striped sofas. The bareness of the
stage, the great height of the curtain behind, have the effect of
dwarfing the figures of the dancers; the elimination of all superfluous
detail produces a needed concentration of attention on their movements.
There being no dramatic action to unfold, sentiment rather than
passion--and that of the most artificial kind--being the matter for
portrayal, gesture and the dance are here submitted to the severest test
as means of expression. Artificiality demands, in representation, the
most deft and polished art--of course, of a strictly conventional and
academic kind. That formal perfection the Russians achieve in “Le
Carnaval”--a perfection so absolute that formality is forgotten,
eclipsed in its own apotheosis. So nicely do the performers exploit,
while never transgressing, the conventions by which the ballet is
conditioned, that for once artifice seems natural, and sentiment as real
as passion.

[Illustration]

The costumes devised by Bakst are of the Victorian period--crinolines
and peg-top trousers, of which the quaint prim style, so far removed
from modern tendencies, exactly suits the dainty little puppets that
flit magically across the stage. Pierrot, of course, appears as ever in
voluminous white clothes, but Columbine and Harlequin, though instantly
to be recognised, are dressed a little differently from the mode which
the harlequinade, as it used commonly to be presented in this country,
has stereotyped. But then, neither Columbine nor Harlequin in “Le
Carnaval” are the stilted, meaningless creatures to which the base usage
of the English so-called “pantomime” has degraded them. Their true
characters are restored: they intrigue the eye as airy figments of
irresponsible fancy--she the embodiment of freakish sentiment, he of
freakish humour. Columbine is no longer a well-favoured wench attired in
a scanty _tu-tu_, pirouetting with moderate skill upon her toes, but the
incarnation of feminine mutability and charm: bespangled Harlequin has
lost the silly wand with, which he was wont to slap about him
indiscriminately, and has become Arlecchino, the spirit of unbridled
mirth and mischief. The dance (in which general term one includes the
supplementary art of pantomime) alone perhaps can express these
conceptions of modern mythology, and the embodiment, the reality, which
Karsavina and Nijinsky give to them is possible only through their
perfection in that art. Than Nijinsky’s performance in “Le Carnaval,” no
more complete exposition can be imagined of all that the dancer’s art
comprises.

Three times have separate couples--fantastic, irresponsible
figures--flitted lightly across the stage in arch retreat and gay
pursuit, when the curtains at the back are parted and Pierrot’s white
face protrudes. Dismally he glances left and right. No one is near, and
with every motion of his dejected figure eloquent of suffering, he
advances from his hiding-place. A few paces taken, he pauses, the victim
not only of misery, but of indecision. Poor

[Illustration]

Pierrot, “temperament “ personified, in everything it is all or nothing
with him. Just now he finds himself deceived--and his abandonment to
grief reaches the utmost limits of despair. He has no longer zest for
anything in the world--and his vacillation is equally intense. Why
should he go forward--or backward--to left or right? Why stand up--why
sit down? Why do anything, _be_ anything? So he stands there, the
picture of indetermination, his baggy clothes hanging anyhow about him,
his very limbs so loosely jointed that they seem to be without definite
control.

[Illustration]

Sprightly and agile, extremity of contrast to nerveless, flabby Pierrot,
there enters Harlequin. Mischief, all spry and self-contained, is
ignorant of pity, and Folly becomes an instant butt for mockery and
ridicule. Poor witless Pierrot, defenceless against the shafts of
raillery, takes a few wild steps in blundering flight. But even that
impulse fails him and he collapses in an inert heap upon the floor. And
as he lies there, a huddled heap of misery, there passes before his
dismal gaze all the mirth and gaiety in which he cannot pluck up heart,
for all his longing, to join. He sees the sentimental pairs go by in
elegant procession, each swain intent upon his mistress, and never a
look, demure or bold, from bright eyes in his direction: he is witness
of the pleasant melancholy of lovelorn youth, seeking and in ecstasy
finding the object of its tender passion. He is present unobserved at a
declaration of love, and it is this which spurs him at length to a
spasmodic effort. For as the amorous pair, the declaration made and
enchantingly accepted, trip gaily from the scene, Pierrot, with sudden
zeal for emulation, dashes madly after them.

It is but a fitful flash of energy, however, and hardly has another
sentimental passage ended betwixt a gallant and his fair, when Pierrot,
disconsolate, returns. But even as he slouches mournfully in, he
encounters Papillon, whose fluttering butterfly grace fills him with
instant rapture. Gloom is banished on the instant: the fickle Pierrot is
in a transport of delight. Clumsily he pursues her, hat in hand, seeking
like a loutish boy to capture her. But her fluttering steps elude him;
she leads him here and there in a dizzy maze and is gone, out of reach,
at the very moment when the foolish oaf flings his hat down and thinks
to have imprisoned her. With grotesque excess of cunning he lifts the
hat’s brim, an eager paw ready to pounce upon the pretty captive. But
nothing is there! The idiotic leer fades from his face, his whole figure
sags as the momentary zest dies out, and plunged once more in the
depths of despondency, he drifts aimlessly away.

[Illustration]

The gay and sentimental revelry goes on. Columbine appears, with
Harlequin dancing attendance. Hardly have they come upon the scene when
they encounter Pantalon--an odd little figure of fun with yellow coat,
green gloves, and a preposterous stripe down the length of his trouser.
Concealing her roguish escort behind her petticoat, Columbine makes an
easy victim of the senile Pantalon, only to hold him up to ridicule when
he plunges into fervent protestations. Heartlessly she mocks her
unfortunate dupe as, whirled off his feet by the agile Harlequin, he is
made to beat an ignominious retreat.

[Illustration]

There follows not only an enchanting _pas de deux_ by Columbine and
Harlequin, but some delicious pantomime between the two. Harlequin
makes as if to lay his heart at Columbine’s feet (he verily seems to
pluck it from his bosom and place it before her): she receives the
tribute with becoming favour, and retiring to one of the sofas in the
background, continues the flirtation. Whilst the pair are still seated,
there trip on to the stage some score of couples, and amongst them
Pierrot, once more animated, and again seeking vainly to capture
Papillon. His new attempt is no more successful than his first, and in
the dance to which all abandon themselves he alone is partnerless.

[Illustration]

In some degree inspired out of his melancholy, however, Pierrot capers
awkwardly amongst the rest, till Harlequin and Columbine spy a chance
for further mischief. They join him in the dance, one on either side,
and seizing an opportunity when Pantalon, as undeterred by his first
rebuff as a moth whose wings are only singed, is hovering near, they
throw the two into collision, deftly envelop them with Pierrot’s long
sleeves, and secure the grotesque partnership with a hasty knot. As the
curtain descends the two victims of their gay malice are seen stumbling
in each other’s clutch amidst the mockery of the dancing throng.

[Illustration]




CLÉOPÂTRE.

CHOREOGRAPHIC DRAMA IN ONE ACT BY MICHEL FOKINE.

MUSIC BY ARENSKY, TANEIEV, RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, GLINKA AND GLAZOUNOV.

SCENES AND DANCES BY MICHEL FOKINE.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY LÉON BAKST.


It is the supreme merit of “Cléopâtre” that it is of an even and
sustained excellence throughout. All concerned in its production and
performance have surpassed themselves, but since each has risen equally
to the occasion there are no outstanding features to distract the
balance of the whole. The result is merely the elevation of the latter
to a very high artistic level.

It will be agreed that few subjects more suggestive and inspiring could
be found than Cleopatra. For colour, movement and dramatic intensity the
legend of the Egyptian queen affords opportunities which have in no wise
been allowed to slip. Léon Bakst has done nothing more largely fine than
the spacious temple in the desert by the Nile, the deep tawny grandeur
of which, broad and simple, provides a proper setting for the splendid,
gem-like brilliance of Cleopatra’s train. Here is enacted, against a
background of choric dances that have more than a conventional
significance, one of those fierce passionate episodes which the Russians
so vividly present.

Beyond the tall columns which enclose the sacred precinct we see the
desert sand and the waters of the Nile. Hither, as the dusk of an
Eastern night is enveloping the scene, comes Ta-hor, a young princess,
in quest of her lover Amoûn, to whom she has been promised by the high
priest of the temple. She is first at the tryst, but in a moment Amoûn
comes leaping to meet her. The bow he carries in his hand seems
symbolic of his manly youth and virile strength. The lusty vigour of his
agile bounds, the impetuous onrush of his approach to his beloved, are
eloquent of his careless abandon to the joy of life and love.

[Illustration]

But their tender intercourse is broken by the entry of the high priest,
who announces to them the approach of Cleopatra and her train. The great
queen is come to accomplish a vow made to the deity of the temple, and
already is at hand. Soon the head of the royal procession appears, and
to the music of lutes and pipes there files into the precinct a
glittering retinue.

Attended by slaves and guarded by soldiers, a large object, having the
appearance of a painted sarcophagus, is borne in shoulder high, and set
down with ceremony and care upon the temple pavement.

The doors of this strange litter are thrown open, revealing within what
seems to be a mummy tightly swathed in voluminous

[Illustration] wraps. Delicately and reverently the muffled figure is
lifted forth, and stood endwise upon a pair of raised sandals, or
pattens, which have been placed in readiness. The outline of a human
figure is faintly perceived under the gauzy wrappings, which slave girls
now begin gently to unwind. Twelve veils in all, each of rare colour and
design, are thus removed, and as their filmy texture is wafted aside,
the contours of a female figure become more plainly discernible.

[Illustration]

At last a single blue veil only interposes its thin curtain. The hidden
figure, statuesque till now, with a sweeping motion of the hand waves
aside the gauzy cloud, and Cleopatra stands revealed in all her dire
beauty, her queenly dignity and splendour.

Imperiously she stretches forth a hand. Her negro slave, watchful at her
side as any dog, darts forward and stoops to receive the pressure of
her palm upon his head. Thus supported she moves slowly to the divan,
which assiduous hands have placed in readiness at one side. As she
declines upon the cushions, the great fans held above the couch begin
rhythmically to oscillate. Slaves and attendants group themselves about
her, eager to anticipate her lightest command.

Amoûn, unnoticed in the background, has been observant of all that has
passed. Less so Ta-hor, to whose quick feminine intuition the coming of
Cleopatra has been a presage of evil. During all that has passed, her
eyes have been fastened upon her lover in anxious solicitude; she has
noted with a pang of terror the sudden passion with which the dazzling
revelation of the awful queen smote him. Vainly she tries to hold him as
he now strides forward, and approaches the royal couch.

The angry snarl of her negro slave, who bares his teeth like any cur at
the bold intruder, gives warning to the queen of the stranger’s
presence. But she makes no sign of cognisance, and ere Amoûn can utter a
word, or indeed collect his thoughts out of the stupor into which they
have swooned, Ta-hor has seized him and is whispering passionately,
insistently in his ear. For an instant the young man is recalled to
himself, and suffers his betrothed to lead him away. With eyes that
nought escapes, for all that they seem to stare fixedly into space, the
sinister queen observes the lovers, and the yielding of Amoûn to
Ta-hor’s urgent pleading. But she gives no sign except to bid the
ceremonial rites begin.

Ta-hor herself must needs lead the dance which now takes place. Perforce
she leaves her lover, and with what heart she can muster enters upon her
task. Motionless, prone upon her couch, the glittering queen reposes,
and from a distance the fated Amoûn feasts his eyes upon her beauty. An
irresistible lure attracts him; ere he knows what he is doing he is
pressing eagerly through the maze of dancers towards his doom. His
movement is quickly seen by Ta-hor. Again she intervenes, and once more,
though this time with reluctance, Amoûn allows himself to be withdrawn.
But for all Ta-hor’s devotion his destiny is plain.

[Illustration]

The rites proceed, and Ta-hor, with aching heart, must resume her place
amongst the dancers. Amoûn, feeding the fires of passion in the shadowy
background, is forgotten as the dance goes on its way. Suddenly, on a
strident note, an arrow quivers in the ground beside the queen’s divan.
The dancers cease abruptly, soldiers dart forward, consternation and
amazement seize the whole court. Cleopatra alone remains unmoved. Not a
muscle of her body twitches, not a flicker of emotion is discernible in
her face. She is inscrutable as fate, and as patient.

In a moment the guards re-enter, bringing with them Amoûn, the tell-tale
bow in his hand. He shows no fear, but rather eagerness, as they hale
him before the queen, on whom he fixes his fascinated gaze. Already the
arrow has been plucked out of the ground, and a message, writ on
papyrus, found attached to it. As Cleopatra rises to confront the
prisoner, her slave girl reads out the ardent profession of love.
Unabashed, Amoûn awaits his answer or his doom.

[Illustration]

With secret smile the queen surveys this latest victim of her fatal
charms. But here Ta-hor, agonised witness of her lover’s
self-destruction, flings herself passionately between them. Cleopatra,
unmoved even to disdain, turns aside while Ta-hor strives to regain her
hold upon Amoûn. This time her pleading is in vain. The die is cast;
Amoûn, no longer master of his own will, has eyes and ears only for the
siren to whom his whole being is surrendered. Though Ta-hor clings
about his feet, he but tramples her underfoot and presses for sentence
from his more than queen.

From under the low brow, the basilisk eyes of Cleopatra fasten on their
prey. Narrowly she scans her would-be lover, who meets her gaze frankly
and undismayed. He is young, he is brave, he is fair to see. An eternal
night of love, says the queen, shall be his, if he choose to take it.
This night he shall share her couch; at dawn he must drink oblivion from
a poisoned cup. Amoûn hears unflinchingly, unflinchingly accepts.

Slaves busy themselves with preparation of the royal couch. Ta-hor, in a
last frenzy of despair, casts herself upon Amoûn. Love gives her
strength, and by the sheer fury of her onslaught she bears her lover
away from the dreadful presence of the queen. But Amoûn recovers
himself, and with equal fury resists the efforts of Ta-hor to drag him
from the temple. Against his male strength the utmost force of her weak
arms is unavailing; he bursts from their clutch and dashes eagerly
forward to where his implacable enchantress awaits him. Ta-hor, the last
resource of her devotion spent, creeps forth, broken-hearted, to the
desert.

Within the temple music and dance provide voluptuous accompaniment to
Amoûn’s dedication--nay, immolation--of himself. The whirling forms of
the dancers half conceal him as he yields to the seductive embraces of
the queen. Released for the while from their attendance on her person,
slave boy and slave girl of Cleopatra celebrate the amorous triumph of
their mistress in a dance of wild abandon, which gives place to a
_bacchanale_ into which a band of Greek dancers, with attendant satyrs,
fling themselves in an orgy of frenzied movement.

The riot of dance and music has risen to a climax, when the tall figure
of the high priest approaches Cleopatra’s couch. In his hand he bears a
cup, and his gaze is upturned to the stars now

[Illustration]

paling before the coming dawn. The appointed hour is nigh. The queen
rises, and as her lover, hanging on her every motion, gains his feet, he
is confronted by this gaunt minister of fate, death in his outstretched
hands. Memory with sudden shock sobers Amoûn’s intoxicated senses. He
recalls his doom. For a single moment he hesitates, seeking a ray of
hope in Cleopatra’s face. But the queen is adamant, a figure turned to
stone. Resolutely the young man receives the cup from the high priest’s
hand, but never taking his eyes from his mistress’ face. Resolutely he
puts it to his lips, and with his gaze still fixed upon the queen,
drains it to the lees.

[Illustration]

A spasm contorts the victim’s body. He reels, staggers, and clutching
horribly at the empty air, falls writhing at the queen’s feet. The
poison is swift, potent; and though the agony seems long-drawn-out and
dreadful,

[Illustration]

in a few moments only a lifeless corpse remains of what had been so full
of vigorous, ardent life. Silently the train of musicians, dancers and
the rest look on at this dire climax to the night’s fierce drama.

Motionless above the prostrate body stands Cleopatra, with arms upraised
and outward bent palms. Her countenance, inscrutable as ever, betrays no
sign of the ecstasy in which her strange being now exults; more eloquent
is the tension to which her supple limbs are strung. Some moments thus
she remains, then with a gesture summons her slaves, and leaning her
weight upon them departs from the temple. Silently her retinue follows,
none heeding the body of Amoûn save the high priest, who casts a black
cloth over it as he passes.

Empty save for the dark object lying on the pavement, the sacred
precinct glimmers in the growing light of dawn. A small figure appears
at the back, enters, and looks eagerly around. It is Ta-hor come to seek
traces of her lost betrothed. With hurried steps she advances, looking
fearfully from side to side. The dark object arrests her eye; she runs
forward and stoops above it. She seizes a corner of the cloth, but
fears, for an agonising moment of suspense, to lift it. At last she
drags it aside, and finds herself peering into the glazed eyes of her
beloved. She casts herself down, chafing the limp hands, kissing the
still warm lips. But her tender ministrations are in vain. The awful
truth flashes blindingly upon her, and she falls, stricken, across the
inert body.

[Illustration]




LES SYLPHIDES.

ROMANTIC REVERIE BY MICHEL FOKINE.

MUSIC BY CHOPIN,

ORCHESTRATED BY GLAZOUNOV, LIADOV, TANEIEV, SOKOLOV AND STRAVINSKY.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY ALEXANDRE BENOIS.


In some respects the most beautiful, “Les Sylphides” is certainly the
most difficult of the ballets to describe. It defies description, in
fact. To quote the simple words of the Russians themselves: “Amidst a
scene of ruins, a series of classical dances takes place with no purpose
but their musical and choreographic interest.” The statement is bald,
but accurate. The writer might have expressed himself a little less
drily, however; and it may be added here that the choreographic interest
of these beautiful dances is of a quality which more than compensates
the absence of the dramatic. For once the trite definition of dancing as
the poetry of motion acquires a real significance. The music to which
these episodes have been set is Chopin’s, and the result is worthy of
the inspiration.

The stage setting in which “Les Sylphides” is most familiar is simple
enough--a sylvan grove, moonlit, revealing dimly a few fragments of
pillars, walls, as it might be, of some ruined temple. The dancers wear
the formal garb of the ballet, which may seem not quite in place in so
romantic an environment. But the whole affair is frankly artificial; the
conventions of the moment accepted, the scene has a charm and
fascination of its own which perhaps only a Degas could render. The
later scenery which the Russians have employed, though similar in
general character, lacks the element of mystery which enhanced the
value of the earlier setting as a background to the dances.

In all the troupe of dancers Nijinsky is the only man, and he is seen at
first, an appropriate if somewhat effeminate figure with flowing locks
and “æsthetic” attire, the centre of a bevy of female figures. The
nocturne with which the sequence of musical passages begins is made the
excuse for poses, and for the arrangement in harmonious groupings of the
whole _corps de ballet_. It is the preface, as it were, a trifle stilted
and formal, to an anthology of lyric verses.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

The poetry begins with the valse executed by Karsavina, a glorious
expression of abandonment to joy; no intricacy of mincing steps feebly
pattering in the music’s wake, but a generous enlargement to the
rhythmic influence abroad. More delicate and dainty, a thing of dactyls
and trochees, one might say, is the following mazurka by Nijinska,
flitting with the lightness of gossamer in and out the scattered groups
of white-clad maidens.

A mazurka also is the _pas seul_ upon which Nijinsky in his turn
launches himself. Launch is an appropriate word, for there is something
suggestive of abandonment to a tumult of waters in the movements of the
dancer’s limbs. He seems to cast himself loose upon the music’s tide,
which bears him buoyantly, tossed now here, now there, until its ebb.
He is the sport and plaything of the flood of melody; dancing not to it,
but with it or by it--almost, indeed, _on_ it.

[Illustration]

The intoxication of Nijinsky’s solo is succeeded more sedately by new
groupings and posings of the _corps de ballet_, which serve as foil to
the graceful movements of Ludmila Schollar. In the valse which follows
Karsavina and Nijinsky are seen, if not in a display of such virtuosity
as their previous dances have occasioned, in a partnership of conjoint
motion most exquisitely attuned to the inspiring and directing strains.
The passage includes a brief _pas seul_ by Karsavina, some charming
poses, and a concluding duet which is, perhaps, the supreme perfection
of the many perfect things the suite of dances has presented.

The end must needs be hastened after such a climax, and the valse
brillante performed by the entire troupe of dancers ends the spectacle
fittingly upon a lively note. Karsavina, Nijinska, Schollar--all the
principals in turn are thrown into relief against the rhythmically
moving background of the white-robed Sylphides, among whom, embodiment
of a poet’s dream, leaping, swaying, rocking with a vigour no less than
a grace of body to the music’s impelling lilt, “papillone le jeune
Nijinsky.”

[Illustration]




SCHEHERAZADE.

CHOREOGRAPHIC DRAMA BY LÉON BAKST AND MICHEL FOKINE.

MUSIC BY RIMSKY-KORSAKOV.

SCENES AND DANCES BY MICHEL FOKINE.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY LÉON BAKST.


Sensuousness is the note of “Scheherazade” throughout--a sensuousness
that is next-of-kin to sensuality. It is an unbridled affair altogether,
and for this very reason the ballet is among the most _completely_
successful performances which the Russians have given. It contains
nothing that strains the limitations of their art, its essential motive
is simple, even crude, and the condition necessary to its vitality--that
all concerned should let themselves go--has been faithfully observed.
Human passions, if sufficiently elementary, being identical in all men,
there is a sympathy between the methods by which the various authors of
this ballet have treated its twin themes of lust and cruelty which
produces an harmonious whole. The music of Rimsky-Korsakov, though not
composed for the special purpose, has essential qualities which made
easy, and amply justified, the task of adaptation. As an artistic
exposition of violence “Scheherazade” is perhaps unique.

The ballet is of the same _genre_ as “Thamar,” with which it has many
points of similarity. The latter, however, has the advantage of an
elusive charm derived from its legendary basis. One might expect that an
excerpt from “The Arabian Nights” would also possess this magic, but
“Scheherazade” lacks the indefinable something which “Thamar” has. The
distinction, arising out of a difference of treatment, is slight, though
real--a mere matter of emphasis, of heaviness of touch. “Scheherazade”
is the sheer, brute realism of fact, “Thamar” rather the vivid
embodiment of fancy.

Scheherazade, it will be recalled, was the teller of the famous tales
which for a thousand and one nights beguiled the moody Sultan Schariar.
The action of the ballet which bears her name is derived from the
incident which according to tradition led up to the Sultan’s savage
determination to slay every morning a wife newly-wed overnight,--a
practice only ended by the story-telling art of one of the intended
victims. Scheherazade herself does not, therefore, figure in the ballet.
The title of Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic suite has been borrowed.

Reclining upon a divan in the sybaritic apartments of his women, we see
the Sultan Schariar taking his ease. His wife Zobéide is beside him,
soliciting attention with caresses which he scarcely deigns to heed. The
other women, of lesser estate than the Sultana, are grouped around,
sedulous in the flattery of watchful eagerness to forestall their lord’s
least wish. At the monarch’s other elbow sits Schah-Zeman, his brother,
recipient in only lesser degree of similar ministrations.

But the Sultan Schariar is in gloomy mood; his brow is clouded, and the
blandishments of Zobéide elicit no response. Distraction must be sought.
Obedient to a summons, the chief eunuch presents himself, profuse of
service, officious of advice. Fussily he hastens to execute the commands
which he receives, and in response to his signals three odalisques make
graceful entry. They dance before the court, now moving swiftly in a
lively measure, now posing lithe bodies and entwining arms as only long
training in the arts of seduction could teach.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

The women of the harem look on jealously, fearing a skill that threatens
rivalry with their own. But the Sultan takes little notice of the
dancing figures before him, and Zobéide, watchfully intent upon his
face, notes with vague premonitory fears his gloom deepening into
sullenness. From clouds so heavy lightning may presently flash. Ever and
anon the Sultan mutters a secret word into his brother’s ear. They
whisper like conspirators.

The dancing girls are presently dismissed, and Schariar rises to pace
the floor in moody thought, while the women eye him anxiously askance.
Schah-Zeman, too, not without some knowledge of the thoughts which
occupy his brother’s mind, keeps watchful eye upon him, and is quick to
answer the gesture which soon summons him. Increasing uneasiness runs
through the harem, as the royal brothers confer apart, which rises to a
climax as the chief eunuch is sent off upon an errand whose purport is
not overheard.

But the tension is relieved when the Sultan, with an effort to lighten
his brow, turns to Zobéide, and announces his intention of setting forth
upon a hunting expedition. Such a plan inevitably implies an absence
from the palace, and at the intimation sidelong glances of meaning are
covertly exchanged amongst the women. But incipient smiles of
anticipatory pleasure are suppressed, and under a mask of disappointment
and regret, the harem makes as though to turn its master from his
purpose. Is he not their sun? Must the light of his presence be so soon
removed, and joy and happiness thereby eclipsed?

Zobéide alone refrains from this cajolery. Flinging herself upon the
piled-up cushions, she broods darkly upon this whim her husband so
suddenly proposes to indulge. Half hopeful that petulance may succeed
where blandishments have failed, she ignores the glances which the
Sultan casts towards her. Plainly he is loth to go, but the poison
which his brother has instilled works actively within him, and he makes
no sign of condescension to her.

Armed retainers enter, attendants bring habiliments of the chase. With
these the Sultan is invested by the deft fingers of the women, who make
what use they can of such opportunity as this service offers to exercise
their fascinations. Schah-Zeman is attended by the eunuchs, who buckle
his armour upon him and hand him the long hunting spear. Thus equipped,
the Sultan’s brother makes towards the door. Schariar follows him, but
pauses to bestow a last curious glance at Zobéide. The latter makes no
sign, and the Sultan, brushing aside the last fawning attentions of the
women, strides moodily forth. As he passes out of the chamber, Zobéide,
repenting of her petulance and simulated coldness, since they seem to
have failed in their object, springs quickly from her cushions and
hurries after him in a belated effort at detention.

Among the other women, however, no further sign of regret, real or
simulated, is to be seen. On all sides faces are wreathed in smiles.
Excitement seethes in the harem. The violence of suppression which the
presence of their lord demands, on pain of dire and instant punishment,
is the measure of the almost childish glee with which, that menace
momentarily out of mind, the women fly to the illicit pleasures their
appetite for intrigue, unduly nurtured, has devised. On the tiptoe of
expectation they scamper one to another, but ever returning to the three
doors which stand in the background, hiding one knows not what. Before
these mysterious portals the women cluster in chattering groups, while
two of their number are sent upon some urgent errand. Anon the latter
return dragging with them, in hysterical mirth, the clumsy, grotesque
person of the chief eunuch. In the bunch of metal which jingles at the
latter’s side are the keys which alone will open

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

the doors so eagerly besieged, and the women, swarming round him like
busy flies, begin at once to pester him, with arch and fawning
supplications, to turn them in the locks.

But the old janitor refuses. He pretends amazement--is horrified at the
bare idea, and will none of it. The women press coaxingly upon him,
lavishing endearments. But of what avail the whole battery of female
charms against such as he? With knowing leer upon his unctuous, smooth
face, he wags his head and still says them nay. But though he fancies
himself immune from women’s wiles, he has reckoned without the full
measure of feminine cunning. He has his vulnerable point; whatever else
he lacks he has at least male vanity. Is he not _chief_ of the eunuchs?
are not the keys he loves to jingle a visible symbol of the power which
he wields? Look you, he is a person of no small authority and
importance.

With quiet change of tactics the women shift their attack to a different
angle. In place of supplication they heap compliments upon him. They
slaver him with blandishments, flattering him to the utmost of his bent.
The fatuous old fool swallows their fulsome praises with avidity, his
flabby cheeks puffed out with complacency and self-conceit. But then the
women change their tune. Mockingly one hints that his vaunted power is
but a sham; others are quick to press the suggestion home. Plainly it
can be no real authority which he is feared to exercise. They challenge
him with jeers to prove his power; they dare him to use the keys of
which he is so proud.

The poor fool is not proof against this insidious assault. Lacking real
respect, he clings fondly to its shadow; rather than sacrifice that his
vanity will endure any risk. His fat face, but now wreathed in gratified
smiles, grows glum and peevish as praise gives place to irony. He
hesitates, and is lost. The women press their advantage, and their
victim yields. Determined at all costs to demonstrate his power, he
thrusts a key into the first door and petulantly turns it.

The door swings open, and from the corridor behind emerges a band of
negroes, supple swarthy minions clad in copper-ornamented robes. With
stealthy tread they glide among the waiting women, and quickly each
finds a consort, eager for her favourite’s embraces.

Futile the eunuch’s protestations that now he has done enough to
vindicate his authority; impatiently the women who remain demand that
having done so much he shall complete his work. Already repentant of the
rash betrayal of his master’s trust, the wretched janitor would stay his
hand, but the mischief is done, and bowing to the logic of his own
folly, he unlocks the second door. Forth troops a second band of
negroes, decked in ornaments of silver, to be received with not less
complaisance than the others.

No longer assailed by the insistent beseechings of his charges, the
janitor fearfully surveys the scene. Everywhere, dispersed throughout
the chamber, amorous couples meet his eye. With sudden terror in the
realisation of the frightful risk he has incurred, he turns to go. At
least let him make sure that watch is set for his master’s return. But
as he turns he is confronted by the imperious figure of Zobéide, who has
been leaning, observant, during all that has passed, beside the third
door--the door as yet unopened. Avidly she demands the unlocking of this
last, with fierce insistent finger pointing her order.

Here is a pretty dilemma for the luckless janitor, a searching test of
his vaunted power and authority. His servile instinct quails before the
regal mien of Zobéide, her gesture of command and blazing eyes that
brook neither prevarication nor delay. Like the slave that he truly is,
he turns to do her behest; but even as he fumbles for the key the
enormity of that to which he is accessory

[Illustration]

strikes him with horror. The others--that is bad enough, and like to be
paid for dearly if discovery--he trembles at the thought--should ensue.
But the Sultana, his master’s wedded wife.... Panic seizes him, and with
a frantic effort to assert the authority he has boasted, he refuses.

The fires of passion smouldering in the breast of Zobéide leap forth on
the instant. A woman scorned or a woman denied--her fury is a thing few
men, and least of all an emasculate poltroon, can face. A frightful
paroxysm shakes the panting queen. Like a tigress baulked of her prey,
she turns upon the grovelling creature who dares to thwart her thus,
hardly restrained from flinging herself upon him. To a contest of wills
so unequal one ending only is possible. The wretched eunuch cringes
before this awful apparition of his royal mistress, all other terrors
swamped by the urgency of present fear. The long crescendo of the music
rises to a blaring climax as he flings wide the remaining door.

Palpitating with the vehemence of her expectant desires, Zobéide stands
before the open portal, clutching her breasts, with eyes glued to the
dim recesses beyond. There is a pause, which adds a new delicious
torture to her thirsty cravings; then with agile bound, light-footed,
there comes leaping towards her a young negro. Round his naked chest he
wears a broad, gem-studded band of gold, that enhances the smooth and
supple beauty of his dusky arms and neck. Great pearls are pendant from
his ears, a golden turban is twisted round his head. His flowing
pantaloons cover, but do not hide, despite voluminous folds, his perfect
symmetry and grace.

Zobéide feasts her gloating eyes upon her favourite, holding herself
back, as children with a box of sweets reserve the most coveted tit-bit
to the last. But when he turns towards her she can contain herself no
longer. She springs upon him, and clutching his head in both her hands,
peers fiercely into his face. The slave, with lascivious grin, submits
unresistingly; though he is the queen’s paramour, he is not the less her
slave, her chattel. It is she who is the lover, and the slave knows his
place. The episode has no savour of romance.

Full length upon the divan Zobéide flings herself, the dusky favourite
usurping the place of her rightful lord. The hour for revelry has come,
for reckless abandon to the impulse of the moment. Enters a retinue of
youths and girls bearing fruits and other dainties upon gorgeous
salvers. They pair among themselves, they dance, they bring a riotous
infection into the atmosphere of languorous dalliance. The negroes and
their fond mistresses are moved to join them, the silver and the copper
ornaments gleaming amidst the whirl of multi-coloured draperies, as the
fever of the dance increases. Springing from the couch, Zobéide’s
favourite precipitates himself into the moving throng. Before his wild
_élan_ the utmost efforts of the others pale; with one accord they pause
to watch with ecstasy the frenzied leaping of the peerless dancer. From
her cushions Zobéide, too, is watching, the fierceness of her momentary
restraint giving place of a sudden to an equal fierceness of abandon as
she darts upon the object of her desires, and submits herself with him
to the music’s intoxicating rhythm.

At length exhausted, they decline once more upon the silken cushions.
The slave, emboldened, ventures now upon solicitations. But he is wary
in the liberties he takes, fearful lest he go too far ere he has rightly
gauged the mood of his imperious mistress. Cunning tells him there is
peril in presumption.

One may interrupt the narrative here, perhaps, to comment on the
subtlety of Nijinsky’s impersonation of the negro favourite. This is not
a rôle in which his distinction as a dancer is revealed to its fullest,
but in no other ballet is his genius as a mime more strikingly
exhibited. One expects from Nijinsky originality in all

[Illustration]

that he attempts, and his conception of Zobéide’s favourite does not
disappoint. The part is not one which, upon a first consideration, would
seem to demand a very subtle art, but the emphasis, already alluded to,
which the actor lays upon the minion’s _servile_ character is only to be
conveyed by very delicate shades of suggestion. The essential servility
is most convincingly realised, and if Nijinsky’s conception of the part
contains (in some eyes) elements of offence, it is at least a logical
outcome of the premises from which the ballet starts, and in performance
brilliant beyond praise. In Nijinsky’s hands the negro is, indeed,
lasciviousness personified. His ingratiating leer, the furtive roll of
his eyes, his whole insinuating aspect as he plies his shameful
ministrations, impress a vivid picture on the mind. His ready, even
eager, submission to the domination of his mistress, his base delight in
her favour, wears a horrid air; one feels that in his different way the
creature is as little of a man as the poor beardless janitor. He is lust
reft of its virtue, and repels, like lechery, even while he attracts.

But the music’s fevered pulse allows no long quiescence. Again the lithe
figure, starting abruptly from Zobéide’s side, leaps madly into the
dance--a point of focus to which all speedily converge, the centre of a
giddy whirlpool into which the amorous pairs, swept from dalliance to
their feet as by a surging wave, are irresistibly drawn. Intoxication
grows to bacchic frenzy, as the urging music swells to an impending
climax. The eye would reel before the blurr of brilliant moving figures
but for that clue to the shifty mazy dance which the central figures of
the libidinous Sultana and her paramour provide.

Suddenly into the chamber stalks the Sultan. The dancers stop in
mid-career. For a moment they stand fascinated by the apparition of this
grim figure of vengeance. The Sultan, too, speechless and paralysed
with rage, seems rooted to the spot. Then panic seizes the culprits;
helter-skelter they flee in abject terror.

[Illustration]

Schah-Zeman, cynically smiling to see enacted once again the scene which
so lately desecrated his own household, is at his brother’s elbow. Armed
men with naked scimitars have invaded the chamber, and with them are
others whose dress proclaims them eunuchs of the palace, underlings of
the hapless janitor who is now to reap his folly. Women, slaves, young
men, are striving pitifully, in the last extremity of terror, to hide
themselves behind curtains, in alcoves--anywhere that seems to offer any
possibility of concealment. Zobéide, alone of them all, scorns flight.
She crouches apart, with heaving bosom, awaiting the anger of her lord.
Her villainous paramour, like the slave that he is, has fled for safety.

With lowering glance the Sultan sweeps the scene, and signs furiously to
the guards. At once the work of execution begins. Instant slaughter is
the doom of all. The eunuchs seize their traitorous chief, and flinging
his craven body to the floor, throttle him where he lies. To and fro
dash the guards, dragging from vain hiding-places, beneath uplifted
weapons, their helpless victims. The floor is strewn with corpses, and
in very act of stumbling over such dreadful obstacles, some poor
fugitives are caught by ruthless pursuers and put to the avenging sword.
Silent, abashed before her husband’s stern gaze, Zobéide cowers amidst
all the carnage. A violent tremor shakes her as the cowardly partner of
her guilt, vainly seeking to escape his doom, is stabbed in mid-flight
and expires convulsively at her feet; but without attempt at exculpation
she continues to await her doom.

At length the bloody business is finished; or almost finished, for
Zobéide remains. Her the eunuchs and the guards dare not touch without a
further sign. Stealthily they advance to where she stands; scimitars are
lifted, daggers poised. It needs only the Sultan’s signal for the fatal
blow to be struck. But Schariar is torn by a conflict of emotions. Love
for the cherished wife of his bosom urges pardon; jealousy, wounded
pride, the outrage on his kingly dignity cry vengeance! To the dull
minds of his attendants but one issue is possible--were it not for his
restraining gesture the keen blades would fall at once.

Then Zobéide, snatching at a last hope, abases herself before her
husband. She pleads, she implores, she summons all her wits, her arts,
to help her in her dire necessity. Schariar is moved, and as he gazes
at the fair form of the woman he has loved so ardently the sternness of
his look relaxes. He wavers.

But Zobéide has to reckon with an enemy more dangerous, more implacable
than her husband’s wounded pride. Schah-Zeman, self-appointed guardian
of his brother’s dignity and honour, observes the scene with undisguised
hostility. To him, as to the eunuchs, there appears but one conclusion
fit and proper. By no consent of his shall there be any other. Scanning
his brother narrowly, he sees the advantage which Zobéide is momentarily
gaining. Disgustedly he confronts his brother, and, as Schariar turns
his head, with contemptuous foot rolls the dead negro’s carcase on its
back. The dusky face leers grinningly upward.

Livid with rage, the Sultan casts his faithless consort from him, and
motions impetuously to the armed men. A dozen hands are stretched to
seize the victim, but before the threatening blades can fall, Zobéide
swiftly turns upon her executioners. Imperiously she waves them back,
and snatching a dagger from the nearest hand, plunges it into her side.
The thrust is truly aimed, and sinking to the floor before her husband,
with a last vain effort to clutch the hem of his robe, she expires at
his feet.

Averting his eyes, the stricken Schariar staggers from the fatal spot.
In silence, his foot upon the golden corselet of the slave, Schah-Zeman
lets him go.

[Illustration: Le Spectre de la Rose]




LE SPECTRE DE LA ROSE.

FROM A POEM BY THÉOPHILE GAUTIER, ADAPTED BY J. L. VAUDOYER.

MUSIC BY WEBER, ORCHESTRATED BY BERLIOZ.

SCENES AND DANCES BY MICHEL FOKINE.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY LÉON BAKST.


Nothing is more eloquent of the Russians’ art than the distinction they
are able to give to a theme which, less sensitively treated, would be
merely commonplace, if not banal. In no ballet is this refining instinct
more delicately employed than in “Le Spectre de la Rose,” which Nijinsky
and Karsavina dance to the familiar strains of “L’ Invitation à la
Valse.”

It might not be just to call Weber’s music commonplace; but sentimental
it certainly is, and with such a “plot” (if an incident so slight can
thus be termed) as the Russians, inspired by a dainty poem of Théophile
Gautier, have devised for the music’s accompaniment, the faintest excess
would have turned it sugary--and sickly. In the nice restraint which
they display, the two artists vie with each other--Karsavina as a
picture of youth and innocence, of unsophisticated sentiment: Nijinsky
as a phantom, conveying the suggestion of being verily the mere figment
of a dream, without recourse to that note of the bizarre by which one of
less subtle perceptions might seek to insinuate a spectral character.

To the restraint of the dancers is added that of Léon Bakst, whose
setting for this sentimental idyll has that simplicity which the
situation requires. It is a quaint, almost queer, little bedroom which
is disclosed after the opening bars have been played by the
orchestra--an apartment daintily decked, and arranged with a kind of
prim formality as engaging as the crinoline and flounces of Victorian
girlhood: a completely unsophisticated chamber, in short.

Long windows, open to the summer night, show a garden beyond, flooded
with romantic moonshine, and at one of these stands a young girl, loth
to break the reverie in which her thoughts are held. Her backward glance
drinks in the beauty of the night, her pulses more than faintly stirred
by the glamour of the dance so lately ended, her whole self thrilling to
a potent magic but half understood.

Reluctantly she turns her head from the moonlit garden and passes from
the window. She lifts her hands abstractedly to remove the wrap from her
shoulders, and in so doing touches the rose that droops upon her bosom.
Her fingers close upon it: she plucks it from her dress, presses it to
her lips, and though its first fresh fragrance has gone, lingers
tenderly over the faint aroma which remains. The crimson rose gives form
and colour, deep colour, to the vague sentimental imaginings of the
young girl’s mind. She clasps it tightly as she crosses the room,
keeping her gaze upon it as she presently sinks into a chair. It is the
heart and focus of her thoughts. But lassitude overcomes her, her
eyelids droop, and the rose, slipping through her loosened fingers,
falls from her lap to the floor.

ALLEGRO VIVACE.--A spectral form leaps swiftly into the pale moonbeams,
and alights at the threshold of the open window. The visitant thus
lightly appearing, like a leaf before the fitful eddy of a

[Illustration]

summer’s evening breeze, is seen to have the semblance of a comely
youth, but strangely garbed in rose leaves of crimson-purple hue. It is,
indeed, the spectre of the fallen rose, the embodiment of the young
girl’s sentimental impulses and imaginings. An image more material would
be too gross for maiden meditations so innocent and youthful: it needs
must be fantastically that the gentle sleeper’s dream takes shape before
our eyes.

It would be as vain to describe the movements of the phantom visitant,
as to seek to convey the sound of language without regard for the
meaning it expresses. Movements may have an intrinsic grace and beauty,
as words that utter no meaning may possess a splendour of sound. But the
dance is to movement what language is to words: it implies selection and
co-ordination for the purpose of expressing something--in this case the
very essence of the sentimental emotions which the vibrant music of the
strings evokes. Never was the ecstasy of the valse so irresistibly
expressed. Leaping, swaying, its whole being abandoned to the
intoxicating rhythm, the dancing phantom seems to draw the very power
which animates it from the music’s throbbing pulse.

Deep in her romantic dream the young girl slumbers passive in her chair,
till presently the spectral visitant pauses by her side. It leans
towards her, while its hands make gentle passes that subdue her utterly
to the magic rhythm. Obedient to the spell she rises to her feet and,
yielding herself to the tender guidance proffered, she joins her phantom
partner in the dance.

It is a scene of exquisite beauty, this vision of a young girl’s
innocent dream of love and joy. Abandoning herself to the allurement of
the moment, she dances long and joyously until, at length exhausted, she
sinks once more upon her cushions, with her fantastic ideal--climax of
ecstasy--prostrate at her feet. She has but to stretch forth her hand.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

But the throbbing rhythm has died away: the dream is nearing an end.
Swiftly the phantom rises, and makes as if to go. Tenderly it stoops
over the fair face of the sleeper, and imprints a single kiss upon her
brow. The music draws to a close, the appointed hour inexorably
approaches. Longingly the phantom lingers, till a fear assails one, lest
it tarry too long. But at the last moment it turns, and with a swift
run, a magic leap through the open window, vanishes--is gone at the very
instant when the music ends.

There is a brief pause. The sleeper stirs and wakes. She starts from the
chair and casts a startled look towards the window through which her
spectral visitant has fled. But no form, however shadowy, intercepts the
moonbeams which lie athwart the garden. Dazed, she turns her eyes
towards the floor. There lies the crumpled rose which dropped from her
grasp as she fell asleep. At sight of it she recollects her thoughts:
full memory of her dream so lately passed comes flooding into her mind.
She picks the rose from the floor, and as she presses it to her lips,
turns wonderingly to the open window and the still garden beyond.

[Illustration: NARCISSE]




NARCISSE.

MYTHOLOGICAL DRAMA BY LÉON BAKST.

MUSIC BY N. TCHEREPNIN.

DANCES BY MICHEL FOKINE.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY LÉON BAKST.


Without reference to “Hélène de Sparte” and “Daphnis et Chlöe,” two
ballets in their repertoire which the Russians seem chary of presenting
in London, it would be unfair to say that the Greek view of life baffles
them. But their performance of “Narcisse,” despite its many beauties,
suggests no very confident or happy exploration into classic mythology.
One fancies their temperament is too restless, too sensuous, to
appreciate the cool, almost austere, repose of Greek ideas. “Nothing in
excess” is hardly a motto to appeal to the creators of “Scheherazade,”
“Cléopâtre” and “L’Oiseau de Feu.” As a result their treatment is too
florid, and at times clumsy. It is not so much that they do not know
when to stop, as that they fail to strike the right note in starting.

The scene is a sylvan glade containing a shrine of the goddess Pomona.
There is a spring beside the shrine which feeds a glassy pool and gives
that cool humidity to the air which Léon Bakst has well suggested by the
luxuriance of the green vegetation all around. The glade is shrouded in
mysterious twilight when the curtain rises, and the queer forms of
sylvan imps are dimly seen, frolicking to the woodland music of a flute.
The orchestral accompaniment is charming, but it is unfortunate that
the growing light should presently destroy illusion, and reveal what had
seemed true elfin sprites as dancers clad in cloth overalls and wearing
grotesque masks. One resents the needless clumsiness.

But there is a sound of approaching revelry and mirth. The woodland
creatures hasten to their lairs, and a band of Bœotian peasants gaily
troops on to the scene. Two and two, in merry pairs, young men and
maidens enter. All are in holiday attire, come to do honour to the
deities of woods and fields. They make procession round about the mossy
dell, they dance, and offer supplications to the gods. These duties
over, they disperse. Some fling themselves upon the ground to rest,
others gather round the pool, and laughingly splash the water about. The
joyous spirit of holiday animates them all.

There come others presently to the grove--a number of bacchantes who are
celebrating the goddess of the shrine. For these the peasants form
respectful audience while the due rites and ceremonies are observed.
Libations are poured, dances are performed. First the leader of the
bacchantes executes a solemn dance, which concludes with a prostration
before the shrine. Her companions then join her, the bacchic frenzy
begins to work, and a dance of wild energy ensues, which is not
concluded until a climax of intoxication is reached and the dancers,
from ecstasy or exhaustion, collapse.

While the bacchantes still lie prone a sound of distant singing is
heard. The voices draw nearer, the listeners in the dell turn their
heads expectantly. In another moment there enters running, gracefully
eluding the efforts to stay him of two pursuing nymphs, a young
shepherd. It is Narcissus--Narcissus the fair and cold: Narcissus of
whose beauty all are enamoured, but whom no dart of the blind god has
yet pierced.

[Illustration]

Careless of his charms, and of the tender woes which he inflicts,
Narcissus is in merry mood. He dances joyously while not only the two
pursuing nymphs, but every maiden present, hangs in adoration on his
every movement. Narcissus has no eyes for them, no thought of anything
but delight in his own fair limbs and the joy of movement. He is a young
man exulting in his grace and strength, with not a sentiment to dull the
keen edge of sheer enjoyment of the act of living.

But even while Narcissus is thus dancing in self-centred abstraction, a
female form, raven-haired and wrapped in a purple robe, is seen
advancing slowly across the bridge which spans the background. It is
Echo, mournful and lonely. Elusively she approaches, appearing now here,
now there, before at length advancing into the midst of the youths and
maidens. She prostrates herself imploringly before Narcissus. She too is
enamoured of the lovely youth.

Narcissus pauses in his dance, and looks inquiringly at the pleading
figure at his feet. For once his attention is distracted from himself.
He stoops and raises the drooping Echo, gazing into her face. She
returns look for look. The interest of Narcissus is aroused: he
continues to forget himself, as Echo stimulates his curiosity. He takes
pleasure in her, perhaps because in the ardent gaze which she fixes upon
him he finds himself reflected.

But the watching nymphs are quickly roused to jealousy. Though Echo
seeks to hold him, they tear Narcissus from his new-found pleasure.
Derisively they declare that Echo’s love is but a mockery. Incapable of
expressing any feeling of her own, she can but repeat the last words and
gestures of those who choose to challenge her. Narcissus listens,
astonished at so strange a tale. The nymphs, with jealous malice, urge
him to test the truth of what they say. Nothing loth, Narcissus advances
towards the sorrowful Echo. He dances a few gay steps, and pauses.
Falteringly poor Echo repeats the last of them. Again Narcissus dances:
again, on the instant that he pauses, the luckless nymph is constrained
to imitate his final movements. Narcissus tries her with gestures--and
unfailingly he sees, each time he pauses, his last motions repeated
before his eyes.

It is true, then--this odd circumstance which the other nymphs related!
Much amused, Narcissus breaks into a gleeful dance, and with all the
heartless merriment of a wanton boy, indulges the whim of the moment. As
he foots it round the hapless Echo he puts her, with unthinking cruelty,
to every test

[Illustration]

that his nimble wit can devise. In mute agony Echo responds to his
pranks. Does he interrupt the dance to pause before her on tip-toes? She
too, must raise herself into that attitude. Does he wave his arms around
his head? She must copy the very gesture. So the cruel play goes on
until at length Narcissus, wearying of the jest, merrily dances away in
quest of some new sport. With him trip the eager nymphs. The peasant
youths and maidens follow, and Echo is left to indulge her despair in
solitude.

Unhappy Echo! Better to be dumb than condemned in this fashion to play
the empty mime, a sport for idle moments. In gloomy abandonment to grief
the hapless nymph unbraids her hair. The long black tresses fall about
her shoulders, and thus, distraught in spirit, disordered in her looks,
she flings herself in abasement before the shrine of the goddess. The
mockery of her companions still rings in her ears, and in the first fury
of a woman slighted she calls upon the deity to avenge her wounded
pride. From the depths of her tortured soul she prays that Narcissus may
learn something of the agony to which she is doomed, by giving his love
where it can never be returned. The sacred grove darkens, the lightning
flashes, and Echo, the bitterness with which her heart is overburdened
thus discharged, goes mournfully forth.

The light returns, the cool recesses of the leafy glade invite
retirement from the heat of afternoon. Narcissus, weary of his sportive
play, returns alone to rest his tired limbs. He is thirsty, and the
shining surface of the pool is grateful to his eye. He approaches,
stretches his limbs in lassitude upon the sloping bank, and stoops to
drink.

But his lips do not touch the water. He remains poised above the glassy
surface, staring intently downwards. Out of the limpid depth he sees
regarding him a fair and radiant face. Narcissus had never thought that
such beauty existed on earth. He cannot remove his eyes, he is
entranced. He raises his head--the beautiful image retreats. He
stoops--and it comes nearer. He stoops lower--he would kiss the vision.
But at the very moment when his lips meet those others, a ripple breaks
across the still surface of the pool, the image is distorted, almost
vanishes.

The prayer of Echo has been answered. The doom of Narcissus has been
pronounced, and he loves where his love can never be returned. He
scrambles to his knees, he stands erect. Out of the again placid mirror
of the pool his own image smiles upward at him. He makes passionate
protestations of love: his image answers him gesture for gesture. He
seeks to fascinate by his grace and beauty: grace and beauty not less
than his fascinate him in turn. Yet the vision, to his dismay, remains
remote. It will not come to him, and though when he seeks to approach,
it draws near in welcome, the moment of union brings catastrophe.

While the infatuated youth is thus occupied, Echo returns. Her mood of
bitterness has passed, and at sight of the object of her passion all her
love wells up anew. Pleading once more, she runs towards him with
outstretched hands. But Narcissus pays her no heed. He has eyes only for
the watery depths below him, and Echo’s distracted appeal falls
unregarded on deaf ears.

Willingly would Echo now recall her prayer to the goddess. But wishes
are in vain, and vain her efforts to distract Narcissus from his fate.
Once she succeeds in drawing him, reluctant, from the margin of the
pool, but the youth seems scarce aware of her existence. Too evidently
preoccupied to listen to her pleadings, he is back at the water’s edge,
rapturously gazing, as soon as her hold upon him is released. Inexorably
it is borne in on Echo that fate is too strong for her. Sorrowfully she
turns and goes.

[Illustration]

Alone in the gathering gloom, Narcissus continues in rapt adoration of
his own fair image. As presently appears, he is rooted, literally, to
the spot. For as he stands there gazing he slowly sinks downward into
the mossy soil, and in his place there rises a tall narcissus flower,
whose pale petals glimmer luminously in the dusky twilight. From nooks
and crannies the sylvan sprites creep silently forth, to pry with timid,
curious eyes upon this strange apparition. Upon this ghostly scene, and
the forlorn figure of Echo, passing sadly across the leafy bridge, the
curtain gently descends.

One regrets to end this account of what is in many ways a charming
ballet upon an adverse note. But a protest _must_ be entered against the
Brobdingnagian flower, so evidently a thing of paint and paste-board,
which is thrust up from the trap-door cavity by which Narcissus makes
his escape. The whole business is so monstrously crude and childish that
one can scarcely credit its occurrence. In conception the conclusion of
the ballet is admirable, but if trap-doors and cardboard flowers
(popping up from the soil in full bloom and fresh with the property
master’s paint) are the only means by which such an ending can be
accomplished, it seems amazing that such ordinarily nice taste as the
Russians display should tolerate these enormities. There is a sense of
proportion lacking here, as at the opening of the ballet when a clumsy
heaviness of hand, seeking to make the most of the elfin creatures of
the wood, effectually reduces them to nothing. The poignant final
passage between Echo and Narcissus, eloquently expressed by Karsavina
and Nijinsky, is spoilt by this grotesque termination.

Happily these blunders are as rare as they are inexplicable. Only
perhaps in “Le Dieu Bleu,” with its similar resort to the artifice of
the trap-door, its matter-of-fact demons, and impossible flight of
aerial steps, is there a parallel to these which mar the beauties of
“Narcisse.” Too close an attention to the cult of the body is perhaps
the cause of this material, ultra-realistic touch.

“Narcisse” would be best appreciated if one could ignore its blemishes
and enjoy its many excellences individually. The dresses of bacchantes,
nymphs and peasants embody some of Bakst’s most splendid designs, but
these are seen to better advantage in the artist’s original drawings
than on the figures of the wearers in the ballet. (This is the case, of
course, with all Bakst’s decorations--not excepting scenery, which
necessarily loses much in execution from the original scheme--but is
especially applicable to those of “Narcisse.”) The music of Tcherepnin
has a charm and distinction which would lose nothing by an isolated
hearing, while the joyous dancing of Nijinsky is independent of the
environment in which it takes place. Possessed of many charming
features, “Narcisse” yet lacks a something to make it, as a whole,
convincing. The deficiency, one must suppose, is a lack of real sympathy
with their subject on the part of the performers.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




L’OISEAU DE FEU.

BALLET IN TWO TABLEAUX BY MICHEL FOKINE.

MUSIC BY IGOR STRAVINSKY.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY GOLOVINE.


An element of unreality is of advantage in the theme of a ballet. It not
only excuses, but demands, the fantastic, for which the means of
expression at disposal--pantomimic action, illustrative or suggestive
music, for example--provide a suitable vehicle. It eases matters all
round, and converts what are obstacles to the convincing treatment of a
strictly realistic theme into positive aids.

It may be noted that this element of unreality, in varying qualities and
degrees, is present in nearly all the themes which the Russians have
chosen for presentation, and is most pronounced in those ballets which
achieve the greatest artistic effect. Indeed, these dancers and mimes
may be observed to introduce a suggestion of the fantastic,
subconsciously if not deliberately, even where such is not necessarily
required, seeming thereby to recognise tacitly the useful modification
of the restrictions of their art which a remoteness from literal fact
effects. “Le Carnaval” would not be the exquisite thing it is but for
the impersonal, fantastic character with which the gay, flitting figures
of the _bal masqué_ are so delicately endowed. Even when historical
tradition is drawn upon, as in “Cléopâtre,” the episode is treated with
an imaginative licence which removes it very nearly into the region of
fancy.

The plot of “L’Oiseau de Feu” is based upon a folk tale. At least, if
precisely such a story is not to be found in any known folklore, it is
obvious whence its inventor has derived inspiration. To watch a
performance of this ballet is to see one of Grimm’s Tales come to life
before one’s eyes--an experience as agreeably thrilling in these later
(but let us hope not entirely sophisticated) years, as was formerly a
perusal of pages in that immortal book. In some respects, perhaps, it is
an experience _more_ thrilling, for the story of the Fire Bird has the
advantage of being unfolded to the accompaniment of Stravinsky’s
music--an enhancement of its dramatic value which it would be difficult
to over-rate. Stravinsky’s orchestral methods, it may be remarked in
passing, have a special interest of their own, but it is enough here to
comment on the descriptive quality of his music for this ballet, which
is great.

The fantastic note is sounded at the very outset by the overture.
Strange mutterings and uncouth, unexpected harmonies attune the hearer
to an atmosphere of mystery and enchantment; he is ripe, when at length
the curtain rises, for adventure in the gloomy forest whose midnight
depths are disclosed. For the moment the eye takes in but little detail
of the darkened stage. Gradually an open space within the forest depths
is perceived, at the back of which stand high gates, giving upon a
flight of stone steps. Whither the steps lead, what lies beyond, is
hidden by the gloomy shadows. No friendly lamp surmounts the gates to
light and welcome the belated traveller. If not the disused portals of
some derelict demesne swallowed up by the encroaching forest, they must
surely guard the secret lair of sorcerer or ogre. Dimly the wall in
which the gates are set can be descried, but nothing else is visible
save a low tree upon which a pale moonbeam falls slantingly.

Nought is stirring in the forest, but the midnight stillness is pregnant
with mystery. Magic influences are abroad, there is a sense of something
untoward about to happen. Suddenly a queer little _motif_, already heard
in the overture, assails the ear; the music glows (if the image be
allowed) like an ember fanned; and shedding a golden effulgence all
around, the Fire Bird floats downward through the trees. The radiant
object vanishes almost as soon as it is seen; but hardly has it gone
when a stir among the trees attracts attention, and a young man is seen
looking over a low wall that adjoins the mysterious gates. He peers
eagerly in the direction taken by the Fire Bird, then vaults the wall
and dashes impetuously in pursuit. Such wondrous quarry was never seen
before by mortal hunter, and lured by its splendour Ivan Tsarevitch has
ventured far from beaten tracks, heedless in his infatuated quest of the
danger into which his careless steps have strayed.

But as he dashes across the clearing he is arrested by a faint gleam of
something in the moonlight. Wonder fills him as he sees that the tree,
which alone of all surrounding objects is illumined, bears golden fruit.
He is about to satisfy his curiosity by a closer inspection, when again
there is warning of the Fire Bird’s approach.

Quickly Ivan takes refuge beneath the clustered branches of the tree,
and from this place of concealment spies upon the glittering apparition
of the Bird of Fire. Unwitting of his near proximity the latter
disports itself gleefully in the open clearing. Twice it approaches the
tree, as if to seize the golden fruit, and each time Ivan, for all his
daring, is powerless to make the longed-for capture. The brilliant light
which emanates from the radiant creature dazzles and perplexes him. But
once more the Fire Bird nears the tree, and this time Ivan, with a
sudden impulse, springs forward and boldly seizes the coveted quarry.

There follows a passage between captive and captor, which can scarcely
be described as a dance, yet is something more than the mere acting of a
scene. Desperately and repeatedly the Fire Bird strives to escape from
the strong arms which imprison it; again and again the Prince, though
hard put to it to retain the elusive creature in his grasp, frustrates
these fluttering efforts. Though dancing, in the sense of rhythmic
movement, is not the precise descriptive term for these expressive
postures and motions, one needs it to convey the poetic sense of beauty
which Karsavina here reveals. It is no easy thing to suggest the panic
fears, the tremulous attempts at flight of a captured wild bird; yet by
look, by pose, above all by gesture and the motion of quivering,
restless arms and hands, the dancer subtly achieves that difficult
effect.

Frantically the Fire Bird struggles to escape; determinedly, at each new
effort, the strong arms renew their hold. Then the creature has resort
to guile, luring its captor to look full upon its dazzling countenance.
The ruse is nearly successful; half-blinded by his captive’s beauty the
Prince’s grip relaxes, but he doggedly keeps his advantage and release
is still denied.

A ransom only will suffice. With sudden gesture the Fire Bird plucks a
gleaming feather from its body and holds it forth--a talisman against
evil, and pledge of its owner’s aid in hour of need. The Prince,
abashed, accepts it, and as he places it for

[Illustration]

safety in his girdle, the Fire Bird, rejoicing with agile dance in its
regained freedom, vanishes into the recesses of the forest. As it flits
away a momentary compunction pricks the young man. That such a wondrous
quarry should elude him irks his hunter’s pride, and he snatches up his
cross bow with intent to shoot. But even as he draws the string he calls
to mind the compact made, and remembers that he is bound in honour to
abstain from new aggression. With petulant gesture he lowers the weapon
from his shoulder, and turns to go.

The darkness which has shrouded the forest depths is fading now. Through
the no longer impenetrable gloom a sloping bank is seen, to which the
steps behind the closed gates give access. Athwart this bank is now
discernible a castle tower, and through the archway of this, even as the
Prince, with astonished gaze, is wondering whither he should turn his
steps, a young girl suddenly appears. She pauses silently for a moment,
then slowly advances along the bank. Other maidens emerge behind her
from the tower. Flesh and blood, and very fair to look upon, they seem,
but in their long white gowns, so suddenly and strangely appearing, they
have an almost spectral aspect, and the young man, caution prompting,
hastily seeks a hiding-place from which he can watch unobserved.

One by one the maidens, in number twelve, gather upon the bank. The
gates fly open at their approach, and with girlish glee they trip forth
into the forest clearing. A moment later, hurrying to join her
companions, yet another damsel appears, whose mien and richer attire
seem to indicate a lofty rank. She hastens to the magic tree and gently
shakes its bough. Down falls a shower of gleaming fruit, to the delight
of the expectant maidens, who nimbly pursue, helter-skelter, the golden
apples as they roll.

[Illustration]

Sportively they dance and toss the apples to and fro, innocently
enjoying their hour of liberty, and unaware that any stranger’s eye
observes them. But Ivan, in his place of concealment, finds his
curiosity irresistible. Bursting impetuously forth, he appears before
the frolicsome, now startled, group. In dismay, the maidens drop their
playthings and flee in apprehension before the bold intrusion. Ivan
doffs his cap, and with a courtly salutation seeks to allay their fears.
Observing an apple that has rolled to his feet, he picks it up, and with
outstretched hand proffers it gently to the leader of the timid band.
She takes it shyly, obviously not insensible to the grace and handsome
bearing of the stranger; but upon Ivan seeking to improve this advantage
by a nearer approach, all fly from him in fresh alarm. Again he does
them reverence, endeavouring by his attitudes to reassure them, and
presently has the gratification of seeing their confidence return.

The prince-errant discovers now his whereabouts, and the strange peril
of his situation. He is before the castle, it seems, of Kostchei
Live-for-Ever, an ogre of monstrous villainy, who loves to practise
sorcery on such benighted travellers as may chance to ask his
hospitality. Some he bewitches and keeps immured within his dreadful
asylum: others he petrifies--as the stone figures looming in the
background bear grimly silent testimony. His fair companions, Ivan
learns further, are a luckless princess and her attendants, who have
fallen under the ogre’s spell, and though escaping malformation at his
evil hands, remain prisoners pent within his domain. A brief hour of
release nightly is all their respite--and already the moment is at hand
when they must retire into the enchanted castle.

Already between the gallant prince and the lovely Tsarevna tender looks
have been exchanged, and there follows a charming love passage between
the two. The chivalrous constraint of the ardent youth, the shy modesty
of the not less ardent maiden, and the climax of mutual surrender are
romantically portrayed in expressive pantomime.

[Illustration]

But the ecstasy to which the lovers, all intervening barriers broken
down, at last commit themselves is quickly interrupted. Warning sounds
are heard, and though for these the enraptured pair have at first no
ears, the attendants of the Princess are driven by fear to call
attention to them. Hurriedly the maidens pass through the magic gates,
the beautiful Tsarevna lingering for a last embrace. With difficulty she
tears herself from her lover’s imploring arms, and slips through the
already moving gates, only in the nick of time. Impetuously Ivan darts
forward, but the gates clang to in his face. Within, at the threshold of
the dark tower, which is to swallow her up, he has a glimpse of the
Princess’ last fluttering signal of farewell.

[Illustration]

It is light now. All around is plainly visible the fantastic foliage of
the enchanted forest. The stone images of hapless predecessors, who
perchance once found themselves in similar plight, are close at hand.
Prudence dictates an instant flight from the horrid spot. But the young
man is frantic. Warnings are forgotten, caution is ignored. With bold
determination he seizes the iron gates, and shakes them violently. They
yield to his wrench and fly suddenly open.

On the instant there is a loud clanging of bells, discordant music peals
through the air, and forth from the gloomy tower there rushes a
terrifying crowd of extraordinary persons--terrifying alike for the
suddenness of their appearance, the swift fierceness of their irruption,
and the strangeness of their aspect. A horde of savage Indians, leaping
wildly down the sloping bank, has pounced upon the wretched Ivan and
borne him to the ground, even while he recoils before the staggering
result of his temerity. Close upon their heels follow Turks and
Chinamen, clowns and dancers--an odd medley of grotesque figures garbed
in a glittering array of fantastic dresses. Some bear arms--lances,
swords, shields and poniards; others are studded with flashing gems; all
comport themselves in some freakish manner, which inspires horror even
while it moves to mirth. Here is a comic pair who advance with a kind of
jog-trot dance; there waddle a number of wretched creatures with bent,
distorted legs. No monarch of bedlam was ever surrounded by so wild,
incredible a court.

The effect of this sudden development is startling; in the space of a
few brief moments the gloomy forest clearing, now brilliantly illumined,
is filled with this astonishing rout. On the steps behind the gates,
too, and upon the sloping bank to which they lead, the fantastic
assembly is massed. At one side, guarded by his strange captors, and
overwhelmed by the unexpected turn of events, the rash Prince regards
the scene in stupefied amazement.

The riot of senseless movement which the crowd of figures has maintained
continuously from the moment of entry ceases suddenly, and those lining
the bank above the clearing suddenly prostrate themselves. In a moment
all are grovelling flat, with faces turned abjectly to the ground. Their
lord and master, Kostchei Live-for-Ever, approaches--an unclean, hairy
monster, with claw-like avaricious fingers, embodiment of malice and
all evil. Queer hunchbacks, in motley garb and bearing wands of office,
attend him.

[Illustration]

The ogre’s restless eye lights upon Ivan, and the latter is dragged
forward to confront him. Seeing no trace of pity in that evil
countenance, the dismayed Prince makes an effort to fly. But the Indians
and the bent-legged deformities fling themselves upon him and he is
overcome before he can escape. A ray of hope sustains him as at this
moment he sees the beautiful Tsarevna and her maidens hurrying to the
scene. Imploringly the girls intercede on behalf of Ivan, but the ogre
thrusts them aside, determined to add one more to his tale of victims.
He advances to where the Prince stands beside the group of melancholy
stone images.

Vindictively the ogre makes passes in the air. The Prince, bracing
himself to meet the attack, endeavours to resist the magic influence,
and for the moment is successful. But he reels under the strain of
effort, and when a second pass is made it is clear that he is within an
ace of succumbing. At his final gasp, however, Ivan bethinks him of the
feather bestowed upon him by the Fire Bird. He pulls it from his girdle
and brandishes it in his enemy’s face.

The ogre staggers back before the flashing token, his discomfiture
increasing at the apparition, in the same moment, of the Fire Bird,
against whom he knows his black arts to be of no avail. Baffled, he
totters to his hunchback retinue, while the Fire Bird usurps his power
of domination. With rhythmic gesture it stirs the supine crowd to
movement; and the movement it presently excites to a dance, the dance to
a frenzy. Now here, now there, flitting to and fro the dazzling creature
goads to fiercer efforts. Faster with every moment the pace increases,
till the whole mad throng is swept into a wild whirl, which oscillates
obedient to the Fire Bird’s waving arms. All at length collapse
exhausted upon the ground, and yielding further to the Fire Bird’s
mystic influence are presently sunk in slumber. Last to succumb is the
thwarted ogre, but even he is forced to give way to the drowsiness which
assails him.

Standing amongst the prostrate figures the Fire Bird points to the
sleeping figure of Tsarevna, and with signs directs the wondering Ivan
to remove her to a post of safety. The young man obeys, and gently props
the inert body of the Princess against the trunk of a convenient tree.
Then, further following the directions of his protector, he steps into a
hollow tree and fetches from it a casket. As he emerges with this in his
hand the sleepers stir uneasily, and as he places it on the ground and
lifts the lid their torpor swiftly leaves them. Excitedly they raise
themselves, while the ogre, starting from slumber, dashes forward in an
agony of fear.

[Illustration]

From the casket Ivan draws forth a monstrous egg, which he holds aloft.
The ogre’s terror is dire--for the egg contains his soul, and he is
Kostchei Live-for-Ever only so long as the egg remains unbroken. The
strange object exercises an almost equal fascination upon the victims of
the ogre’s malice. Every eye is fixed upon it. Ivan makes as if to drop
it, and a shudder runs through all; when sportively he throws it lightly
from hand to hand, there is pitiful consternation.

The ogre is in the last extremity of fright. Desperately he endeavours
to seize the precious thing, but Ivan is too quick, and raising the egg
above his head he dashes it to the ground. As it breaks in two Kostchei
Live-for-Ever falls dead at his feet. There is a loud crash, and black
darkness.

When presently the light returns, Ivan finds himself still in the forest
clearing. But the Fire Bird has vanished; vanished, too, the ogre and
his strange court. Wonderingly he gazes round. Close at hand, on the
spot where previously was the group of stone effigies, a band of young
men, handsomely attired, is waiting to greet him: opposite there is a
bevy of maidens in whom he recognises the enchanted damsels of his late
adventure. Gladly his eye lights, too, upon the beautiful Tsarevna,
still wrapped in sleep in the place of safety to which he committed her.
The strange scene which lingers so vividly in his mind was not, then, a
mere dream.

But who are these gracious persons now advancing to pay him courtesies?
Gratefully the young men explain that they are victims of the ogre’s
sorcery now released by that monster’s overthrow--no other indeed than
the stones come to life. The maidens give him the joyous tidings that in
similar wise the spell which held them is also broken.

Even while these explanations are going forward, two servants descend
from the castle and fling wide the gates. Forth there comes a gallant
company of men and women, no longer full of grotesque antics or
clownishly bedizened, but clothed with dignity and in their proper
minds. These, too, pay courtesies to their deliverer, who presently
perceives that the Princess, awakened from her trance, has risen to her
feet. He approaches and salutes her; then before the assembled company,
she consenting, embraces her. Pages and attendants bring from the castle
a flashing crown and sceptre, and as the Prince is being invested with
these, the Fire Bird, its mission accomplished, soars upward in dazzling
flight. The joyous climax is reached, and upon the proud figure of Ivan
Tsarevitch, surrounded by a loyal court, the beautiful Tsarevna’s hand
in his, the curtain falls to triumphant strains of music.

There is not the least doubt that they lived happily ever afterwards.

[Illustration]




LE PAVILLON D’ARMIDE.

PANTOMIME-BALLET BY ALEXANDRE BENOIS.

MUSIC BY NICOLAS TCHEREPNIN.

SCENES AND DANCES BY MICHEL FOKINE.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY ALEXANDRE BENOIS.


One reason for the remarkable conquest which the Russian Ballet has made
of London is that for the first time the present generation--at all
events the stay-at-home portion of it--has been given an opportunity of
learning what a ballet really is. For the last few decades, at least,
the native ballet (if one can call it native) has been a poor, debased
thing, clinging to the faded traditions of Taglioni’s day: sadly in need
of a revival, but seeking new vigour from mistaken sources.

For a long time the ballet in London lingered moribund, feebly striving
to escape death by a gradual metamorphosis into a “revue.” Frequent were
the assertions of the wiseacres that neither ballet nor revue were
things which could exist in the peculiar atmosphere of London, the real
fact being that what was offered under either title was neither one
thing nor the other, but a stupidly attempted compromise between the
two. The advent of the Russians changed all that. The ballet proper was
received with instant acclamation, the revue sprang into popular favour
(even to the extent of being imported intact from Paris), and the
bastard entertainment which had previously been fostered under the name
of ballet was killed stone dead.

Yet this sudden change ought not to cause so very much surprise. That
London can claim for practically its own, over a long period, a dancer
so accomplished, an artist so genuine, as Adeline Genée, is surely not
without significance. If the latter was given poor opportunities for the
exercise of her art, that was assuredly no fault of hers. Were
impresarios as shrewd before an event as they invariably are after, they
might have taken a hint from the never-failing support given to Genée in
“Coppélia”--almost the only ballet worthy of the name which had been put
upon the London stage for many years before the Russians arrived. It is
fair to add, however, that even had the latent demand been recognised
(as possibly was the case) the supply would have been a difficult thing
to negotiate. The resources of the London _maître de ballet_ are
limited.

These reflections are prompted by a comparison of the best which London,
a little while ago, could offer with “Le Pavillon d’Armide,” which
approaches in its principal scene most nearly, of all the ballets in the
Russian repertoire, to the formal, somewhat stiff and conventional
pattern which was the vogue at the period when Taglioni, Duvernay,
Carlotta Grisi, and Fanny Ellsler held the stage, and to the faint
traditions of which the so-called ballet in London, of late years,
faintly clung. Although “Le Pavillon d’Armide,” with its succession of
individual dances, suffers by comparison with some of the more closely
knit, more consistently dramatic ballets, it is yet immeasurably above
the level to which London had become accustomed.

The Pavilion of Armida is an adjunct to the castle of a wicked
magician--an elderly Marquis in outward seeming--whose hospitality is
sought by an unsuspecting young man. The Vicomte de Beaugency (the
period of the ballet is that of Louis XIV.) is on his way in a
postchaise to visit his future bride, but is overtaken by a heavy storm
and prevented, through stress of weather, from continuing his journey.
He finds himself in the grounds of a wayside mansion, at which he begs
for shelter. He is courteously received by its owner, the sinister
Marquis, who places at his disposal for the night the Pavilion of
Armida.

This apartment takes its name from an ancestress of the host, as the
latter explains to his guest. A feature of its decorations is the
Gobelin tapestry, whereon the lovely Armida is depicted, surrounded by
her court, and on this the young man gazes long, his curiosity and
interest aroused. His host presently departs with polite wishes for a
restful night, and the Vicomte composes himself to sleep.

It is the witching hour of midnight. Hardly has the young man closed his
eyes when the figure of Cupid, on the clock which marks the hour, begins
to fight with Saturn. The latter, vanquished, disappears--the signal for
the Hours to troop forth and make a mischievous escape. Time, therefore,
is in suspense and nought can challenge Cupid’s sway. The great tapestry
comes to life, the figures move and breathe, and the Vicomte, starting
from his slumber--or is he still only in a dream?--finds himself in the
midst of the fair Armida’s glittering court.

All about him are fair women and brave men, splendidly attired. But
despite the pomp and magnificence of the scene, its lovely mistress is
distraught. Gallant knights attend her, but one who should be of the
number is missing. Armida weeps, seemingly disconsolate, for the absent
Rinaldo. The Vicomte, feasting his eyes upon her beauty, is smitten by
her fatal enchantment. Forgetting all save the glamour of the moment, he
presses forward and devotedly offers himself as candidate for the vacant
place. Armida smiles upon him, grants the favour he desires, and leads
him by the hand, a willing victim, to the dais whereon her aged sire is
enthroned.

It is this scene--the animated court of Armida--which is sometimes
performed as an isolated excerpt. Armida is seen at first reclining on
the dais, from which she descends to give expression to her mood of
_ennui_. The appearance of the Vicomte puts her boredom to instant
flight--at prospect of another victim she is quickly alert to exercise
her age-old fascinations. The old seigneur, her pretended father, who is
in reality none other than the wicked Marquis, joins the company, and
the hapless Vicomte is led to a place upon the dais beside his
enchantress. There enters a master of the ceremonies, with attendant
heralds, and a fanfare of trumpets announces the beginning of the
revels.

These revels provide an opportunity for a series of dances which exhibit
the resources of the Ballet in this purely formal aspect of their art.
At the outset of the scene, before the entry of the master of
ceremonies, there is a long _pas seul_ in which Karsavina displays
something of that almost ceremonial grace which was the delight of
amateurs of the dance of long generations ago. There comes, too, upon
the scene Nijinsky, as Armida’s favourite slave--a _rôle_ intended to
afford him opportunities for dancing rather than miming--while as
confidants of Armida the leading ladies of the company appear.

The composer of “Le Pavillon d’Armide” is Nicolas Tcherepnin, who has
been much associated with the Ballet, and from whom, therefore,
peculiarly appropriate music for the dance is to be expected. Charming
in itself, it lacks nothing requisite to show the dancers at their best.

It would be wearisome to enumerate the several dances which this central
scene of the ballet introduces. The more memorable are perhaps the
_valse noble_, performed by the entire court, the nimble drollery of the
seven jesters, and of course the wonderful efforts of Nijinsky, a superb
exposition of the famous “ballon” style of dancing. Not the least
delightful number is the valse duet between Nijinsky and Karsavina
towards the ending of the scene.

As the revels proceed, Armida leaves the dais to mingle in the throng of
courtiers. The enraptured Vicomte follows at her elbow, and eagerly
submits to be invested with the golden scarf which the fair one casts
about him. Wearing this fateful badge, he suffers himself again to be
led to the dais, this time to receive the blessing of the aged seigneur
on the ardently sought betrothal. Nuptial garments are brought in by
slaves, and as Armida herself knots the scarf upon his breast the young
man swoons in ecstasy.

The brilliant picture fades. Silently the Hours steal back, and Cupid
yields his sway to Saturn. The Vicomte de Beaugency awakes. Gone the
glittering court of Armida, and in its place only the dull tapestry that
hangs before his eyes. It is daylight--and with the memory of the night
still burning hotly in his brain, the young man starts to his feet. A
dream--could it have been a _dream_? He turns impetuously, expectantly,
to the tapestry, but all is still. It _was_ a dream! And yet, and
yet----

As he strives to steady his reeling thoughts, his fingers touch some
object at his breast. He glances down--it is Armida’s golden scarf! And
even as he fingers the fateful knot, there enters the Marquis, urbane
but sinister, come to inquire how his guest has passed the night. The
Vicomte turns distractedly towards his host, and with a flash of
intuition penetrates his disguise. An awful light breaks on him--he
sways, staggers, and drops dead at the magician’s feet. And as he falls
he clutches vainly at the golden knot which has sealed him yet one more
of the witch Armida’s victims.

[Illustration]




POLOVTSIAN DANCES FROM “PRINCE IGOR.”

MUSIC BY A. BORODIN.

DANCES BY MICHEL FOKINE.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY N. ROEHRICH.


The Polovtsian Dances which recur so frequently in the Russian
repertoire belong properly to an excerpt from the second act of
Borodin’s opera “Prince Igor.” But the passage at full length requires
the services of singers, and for this reason it is the usual custom to
present the dances detached.

The long orchestral prelude sounds the necessary warlike and aggressive
note, preparatory of the barbaric Tartar camp which is presently
disclosed. The huts of the nomad tribe are seen grouped about an open
space, round which men, women, boys and girls are lolling at their ease.
The smoke of fires ascends into the evening air; a dusky haze envelops
the distant steppe. This is the encampment of the Khan Kontchak, to
whom, as prisoners of war, after an encounter with the Slavs, have
fallen Prince Igor and his son Vladimir.

In the operatic excerpt which should precede the dances, a daughter of
the Khan, the lovely Kontchakovna, is seen reclining amidst her
companions, who beguile her with music. She herself sings her love for
the captive Vladimir, whose presence she sighs for. The night watch is
heard upon its rounds, and the love-sick maid’s companions retire. But
Kontchakovna, tarrying, hears the voice of Vladimir, who emerges from
his quarters and pours forth a declaration of his passion for her. The
lovers fly to each other’s arms, but are interrupted by the advent of
the Khan, who has come to visit his prisoners.

[Illustration]

Prince Igor is shown much deference by his captor, who presently
suggests that he should purchase liberty at the price of an undertaking
never again to take up arms against the Polovtzi. The Prince, scorning
the offer, maintains an indignant silence, from which he refuses to be
drawn. In the hope of distracting him the Khan summons the tribe and
orders a dance to be begun.

It is at this point that the curtain rises, on occasions when only the
dances are presented. The stage picture disclosed is effective in the
extreme. The camp is crowded with figures, and the gorgeous colours of
the Tartar dresses glow brilliantly in the warm

[Illustration]

light. When singers are available the chorus is massed round the arena
cleared for the dancers, and the added numbers greatly enhance the
general effect.

A long-drawn chant is the signal for the beginning of the dance, in
which a troupe of slave girls, splendidly attired, first perform. They
presently seat themselves, and are joined by a group of warriors. To
these more are added, and at the head of the band their captain places
himself.

A tall, stalwart figure, the captain shakes his bow aloft and leads his
men in the dance with all the furious _bravura_ with which, one fancies,
he would lead them into battle. There is first an amorous passage--a
simulated courtship (or at least abduction!) when the braves steal
softly up behind the expectant damsels, seize them, and lift them
shoulder high in their arms. Then the Tartar girls mingle with the
warriors, and as the dance proceeds it grows more fierce and animated,
spurred on by the exultant war song defiantly chanted by the chorus of
onlookers.

The appetite for vehemence increases, and a knot of young men dash
impetuously forward, slapping their thighs resoundingly as they hurl
themselves about with all the skill and daring of a practised acrobat.
After them the bowmen dart once more into the fray--for fray by this
time it has almost become. Their captain leaps and bounds before them,
tossing his bow high into the air, catching it as it falls in
mid-career, making as if to loose an arrow from the twanging string. The
chanted chorus swells in a triumphant _crescendo_. The warriors, in
strenuous emulation of their leader, goad themselves to still fiercer
transports, until with a succession of mad rushes, rank upon rank of
prancing legs and brandished arms, this wild barbaric display is brought
to its terminating climax.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

The detailed movements of this tribal dance are of no great moment. What
is of interest is the robust expression which they give to the virile
impulses of an untamed race, not yet sapped by civilisation of its
vigour. The movements, violent in themselves, are executed with a
vehemence and energy significant in its savage spontaneity. One has a
sense of latent joy in violence, of every shape and form, for violence’
own sake. Without the songs which should accompany them, the dances
suffer some detraction. They represent the furthest extreme from
formality to which the dance can go, and the tremendous exuberance which
inspires them seems to demand an extra outlet. As one watches the
violent gymnastics of Adolf Bolm, of Fedorowa and the rest, it seems
astounding (and inappropriate) that they should indulge such boisterous
vigour in _silence_. In fact, one wonders how they keep themselves from
shouting! Not even Borodin’s fiercely martial music supplies the
deficiency. If ever there was an occasion when dance and song should be
one, this is it.

[Illustration]




LE DIEU BLEU.

HINDU LEGEND IN ONE ACT BY JEAN COCTEAU AND DE MADRAZO.

MUSIC BY REYNALDO HAHN.

SCENES AND DANCES BY MICHEL FOKINE.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY LÉON BAKST.


It has been previously remarked, in comment on “Narcisse,” that for all
their sense of fitness, the Russians sometimes exhibit a curious
inability to recognise the limitations of the stage, and in considering
“Le Dieu Bleu,” the charge must be repeated. They are at fault usually
when they have to present the supernatural. The criticism applies not so
much to their impersonations of supernatural characters--the sense of
unreality is finely suggested by Nijinsky as the phantom rose, for
example, while nothing could be better than the bizarre characterisation
of the half-human puppets in “Petrouchka”--as to their representation of
the supernatural circumstances by which such characters must generally
be attended. It may seem ungenerous, perhaps, to carp at what are, after
all, mere matters of detail, but lapses from an harmonious _ensemble_
become glaring when judged by the high artistic standard which
disciplines the greater number of the ballets.

One is tempted to think that here and there the Russians have essayed a
task, not perhaps exceeding their powers of conception and intention,
but beyond the capacity of their medium of expression. “Le Dieu Bleu”
is a fair example of such an attempted flight. It does not fail, but
neither does it entirely succeed; and an explanation of the compromise
may be found in the synopsis of the ballet printed in the programme.
There is no need to quote this interesting passage of description; for
the present purpose it is enough to remark that the first thing arising
in the reader’s mind is a puzzled query: How are they going to do it?
The answer is simply that they do not! The mingling of fabulous or
mythical with the real or human is a dilemma upon the horns of which
many a stage producer has found himself impaled, and the Russians do not
escape the inevitable fate. Their realistic method of treatment consorts
ill with the supernatural element in the action of the ballet; and if
this is to be expected, and is deemed negligible for the sake of the
individual beauties of the performance, it is nevertheless regrettable
that, however faintly, a jarring note should be struck. There are
features in this ballet which one could spare not less gladly than the
miraculous flower in “Narcisse.”

Certainly “Le Dieu Bleu” has many beauties. It shows us, in a
multiplicity of radiant dresses massed against a background of daring
colour and design, a rich vein in the decorative art of Léon Bakst. It
shows us Karsavina in a part that gives full play to the fierce and
passionate quality in her miming. But chiefly it is an excuse for the
preciosity of Nijinsky. There is something more than the mere
accomplished dancer in that remarkable personality. Others there may be
(though one doubts it) as graceful, as agile, as versed in all the
_nuances_ of the dancer’s art; but over and above his technical
perfections Nijinsky possesses a selective intelligence. His is not a
merely imitative instinct; he draws inspiration from sources of his own
seeking, and that to which he gives bodily expression is the product of
his own original genius working under the afflatus.

[Illustration]

In “Le Dieu Bleu,” of which the scene is laid in mythical India,
Nijinsky has gone for inspiration to Hindu art, with the manifest
intention of exhibiting by his impersonation of the title _rôle_, of
embodying in himself, the essential principles which underlie the
conventions of that ancient phase of artistic expression. The
imaginative thought, the sympathetic understanding, which he has brought
to his purpose must be judged by the result, of which the subtlety of
conception and the precision of execution are beyond comment.

[Illustration]

The action of the ballet takes place in a rock-girt shrine--a
mosaic-patterned platform shut in by high cliffs of tawny orange hue,
from excrescences of which, in lazy festoons, hang monstrous serpents.
In the middle, at the back, is a pool in which the sacred lotus is
supposed to float; a giant tortoise, with gaudily painted carapace,
leans over its rim in act of drinking. Massive gates to the left bar the
entrance to the shrine which a deep fissure in the cliffs makes
possible: a cleft through which the deep blue of the Indian sky is
visible.

Round the sacred precinct is seated, immobile and patient, a throng of
worshippers. There are shortly to be enacted over a young neophyte the
rites of initiation into the priesthood, and with the opening bars of
the music there enters a long procession of priests, attendants and
others who are to take part in the ceremony. There are men bearing
sacrificial fruits aloft in baskets, others bringing jugs and bowls and
salvers for the lustral water, which is presently poured out by the high
priest before the lotus pool. Then enters a bevy of girls whose sequence
of postures, performed with deliberate care, constitute a ceremony of
obeisance to the tutelary spirit of the place. The high priest in turn
performs a rite of adoration, his tall figure the centre of a group of
strangely posing girls. To these groups are added yet others--girls who
lead forward kids for the sacrifice, more priests, and a great number of
worshippers who crowd in through the opened gates and stand watchful
upon the fringe of the glowing, many-coloured assemblage that is grouped
about the lotus pool and awaits the high priest’s bidding.

The sacrificial fire is lit, the neophyte is conducted to his place.
While the initiation rites proceed a dance is performed by three girls
carrying on their arms peacocks, whose gorgeous trains of eyed feathers
sweep gracefully from the shoulders of the swiftly moving bearers to the
ground. They are followed by another group of girls, whose dancing and
posturing ends with a general prostration of bodies as the neophyte, now
robed in the garments of his new vocation, is paraded before the circle
of approving onlookers.

As he thus submits himself to public scrutiny, the novice offers to all
and sundry a bowl, to the contents of which those help themselves who
list. The young man walks with abstracted gaze, composing his mind to
receive that ecstasy which befits the high solemnity of the occasion.
All, save one, regard him with silent indifference. That one is a girl,
whose suppressed excitement betrays her to a warning movement as the
neophyte approaches. As he reaches the spot where she is seated she
leans quickly forward and looks him eagerly in the face. Entreaty is
expressed in every line of her figure.

The young man meets that passionate look, and halts abashed. Memories
which he thought to have put behind him for ever surge rebelliously into
his mind. He hesitates; but with an effort masters his emotion, and
hastily returns to his appointed place before the high priest. The
incident, occupying but a moment, has passed unnoticed by those around,
and as the girl sinks back in an agony of frustrated hope, a number of
half-demented devotees resume the rites with a wild dance of frenzied
lamentation. As this orgy of self-intoxication swells to a climax, the
sacrificial kids are made ready for slaughter. The final moment of
dedication is at hand.

Once more the neophyte, led this time by the high priest in person, is
paraded before the seated watchers: once more he is obliged to pass the
girl who embodies all that life has held for him in the past, before
ambition and the lust of sacerdotal power turned him from love and joy.
She alone might have the key, perchance, to unlock the door he has so
resolutely shut. She has the key, and with a courage born of desperate
abandon to love and passion she dares to use it. She breaks from her
place, and fiercely casts herself at her whilom lover’s feet. She
grovels in abasement, she implores--then, snatching a hope from the
indecision which she sees written on his face, she cajoles.

The priests, angry and scandalised at this sacrilegious irruption, seize
her and carry her off. But she eludes them, and ere the

[Illustration]

neophyte has time to steel himself, she is again before him dancing with
an allurement, a provocative abandon meant for him alone, which shakes
his resolution to its depths. A second time the priests seize her; a
second time with desperate cunning she evades their grasp and returns to
her passionate attack. The young man is torn with fierce emotions; an
unequal battle rages in him, love and life contending with his pride and
sense of duty. And as he gazes on the beseeching figure before him,
ambition, lust of power, and all his new resolves slip unregarded from
him. Everything that life holds seems centred in the swaying figure of
the girl before him, fount of all the hot-blooded memories which now
sweep unresisted over him. With sudden determination he tears the
priestly vestments from his shoulders, and with glad capitulation yields
himself to the triumphant embrace of his mistress.

Together they dash for freedom. But their passage is barred, priests and
fakirs wrench them apart, and the young man is carried off into durance.
The crowd disperses silently, and the agonised girl finds herself
confronted by the high priest and two of his attendants. A third brings
manacles and these are fastened upon the prisoner’s wrists. Then, in
obedience to the high priest’s directions, the door of a cavern in the
side of one rocky cliff is unlocked, and the janitors depart. The girl
is left alone, and in the dreadful silence which ensues she collapses in
terror before the lotus pool.

The shrine is bathed in moonlight, when at length the prostrate girl
rouses herself from the torpor of despair. Her wits returning, she seeks
a way of escape. She tries the gates, but they are fastened close and
withstand her frenzied shaking. Vainly she looks for other outlet: the
high walls are insurmountable. But suddenly she espies the low doorway
in the rock. She hesitates for a moment: it scarce looks to open on an
avenue of escape. But at least it offers a chance, and on a quick
impulse she rolls the obstacle aside.

[Illustration]

A black cavernous hole is revealed, into which the girl peers anxiously.
For the moment nothing can be descried in the murky gloom, but even as
she summons courage to venture within, a hideous affrighting apparition
looms out of the darkness before her face. She shrinks back, startled:
fear giving place to sheer nightmare horror as a foul and bestial
monster crawls slowly forth from the noisome den. The creature is
followed by others, which with dreadful deliberateness emerge from the
lair their unsuspecting victim has thus incautiously opened. There are
some that drag their black and scaly lengths laboriously, like obese
lizards, along the pavement of the shrine, others with gross heads and
grinning masks that present a dreadful travesty of human beings in
their red, ungainly forms, in the horrid leaps and bounds of squat and
ugly legs by which they move.

The girl has fled in panic to the gates across the fissure in the rocks.
She clings to them in an agony of fright. But leaping clumsily in
pursuit, the crimson monsters seize her in their filthy paws, and bear
her bodily away. She slips from their grasp and darts across the shrine,
only to find herself surrounded by her captors’ crawling allies. The
latter do not offer to seize her, but they eye her with a devilish
intentness, and at every step she takes display a paralysing nimbleness,
for all the seeming inertness of their flabby bodies, in intercepting
her movements and keeping her surrounded by their watchful visages.

In a last paroxysm of fright the girl falls prostrate before the lotus
pool. The monsters range themselves around, motionless, but vigilant and
intent. But as their victim, bethinking herself of prayer, pours forth a
passionate entreaty to the deities of the place, they stir uneasily and
presently retire, writhing, a distance of some paces. A brilliant blue
light irradiates the pool, the lotus flower that floats within it opens,
and slowly there rise into view the god and goddess, tutelary spirits of
the shrine. The goddess is enthroned; the god, with reedy pipe in hand,
sits with legs and upraised arms bent angularly--a painted Hindu
sculpture come to life.

Stepping from the lotus, the Blue God raises and supports the amazed and
awe-struck girl. Then, as confidence returns, he gently seats her beside
the pool, and before the uneasy monsters begins a solemn dance. Dance it
must be called, though it is rather a series of postures--postures
which, executed in the flesh, vivify for the onlooker all that he has
ever seen in Hindu art purporting to represent the human figure. It
becomes apparent that there is a beauty in the harmonious adjustment
of angles not previously realised, or even, perhaps, suspected.

[Illustration]

One by one the monsters are subdued, despite a feeble effort at evasion,
by the power of their intended victim’s divine protector. The goddess
then, descending from her throne, shows by her dancing postures, while
the god plays upon his pipe, that the female form is not less capable
than the male of angular beauty of form. The girl, now reassured, gazes
entranced upon her deliverers, receiving with humble gratitude the
blessing bestowed upon her by the goddess, as the latter presently
resumes her throne.

[Illustration]

Scarcely has the god also reseated himself, when the priests and
worshippers re-enter the shrine, expectant of finding executed the
prisoner’s hideous doom. Stupefied by the dazzling vision which greets
them, all fall prostrate in humble obeisance, the girl alone, assured
of the divine favour, daring to remain standing. The goddess signifies
the protection which she extends, and as the young man for whom the
girl’s love has dared so much is brought in, she bids the two embrace
without fear. With love and life restored to her, the girl finds outlet
for her brimming happiness in a joyous dance, and gladly the reunited
pair exchange their vows before the goddess’ throne.

Her mission ended, the goddess sinks slowly from view into the depths of
the lotus pool. But the Blue God, ere she vanishes, steps into the midst
of the awe-stricken throng. A fragment of the orange cliff rolls
noiselessly aside and reveals a broad flight of golden steps reaching
into the blue infinity of the heavens. With slow, deliberate steps the
god ascends the mystic flight. Momentarily he pauses, and thus is seen,
as the curtain descends, above the bowed forms of the prostrate
multitude, playing upon his pipe.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




PRÉLUDE À L’APRÈS-MIDI D’UN FAUNE.

CHOREOGRAPHIC TABLEAU BY NIJINSKY.

MUSIC BY CLAUDE DEBUSSY.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY LÉON BAKST.


In the preparation of his part in “Le Dieu Bleu,” Nijinsky sought
inspiration, it was remarked, from ancient Hindu art. One fancies him,
with appetite whetted by this excursion, eager to explore another field
of antiquity, and turning naturally to early Greek, Roman and Etruscan
art. His interest already engaged by the strangeness (to modern eyes) of
the Hindu forms, his perceptions having already fastened on their
angular conventions as food for the dancer’s creative or recreative art,
one supposes him readily attracted by the equal peculiarity of such
archaic forms as are revealed on Greek and Roman pottery. The transition
is easy to understand, for a superficial resemblance is apparent,
however great the essential dissimilarity.

What prompted the student to ponder specially the figure of the faun or
satyr it is quite impossible to guess. That he should do so, however, is
scarcely surprising; for interpretation by the dance it is difficult to
think of any conception of classical mythology more likely to appeal to
an artist of Nijinsky’s temperament and talents. Type of what is animal
in man, epitome of all his unsophisticated lusts and appetites, here is
surely an ideal theme for the dancer’s art. Possibly Debussy’s music
first suggested the faun; if not, the appropriate orchestral
accompaniment--for Debussy would seem to be a composer with whose
methods Nijinsky finds himself in close sympathy--was ready to hand;
providing not only accompaniment but scenario and plot.

But this was not enough. In those antique urns and vases, with their
oddly but vividly expressive figures, there was a potent fascination for
the dancer, impelling him to translate into living movement their
arrested grace. When that impulse hardened into a definite attempt, the
result was “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune,” as presented on the stage, with
the assistance of Nelidowa (his partner, as the Goddess, in “Le Dieu
Bleu”) and other ladies of the Russian troupe, and the services of Léon
Bakst as decorator--a performance which may be briefly described as an
endeavour to bring to life an antique bas relief or ceramic painting.

Thus far, it is hardly necessary to confess, is pure surmise; let it be
added that it is quite probably erroneous! But some such processes of
thought, one imagines, must have attended the evolution of this curious
“ballet.” It would be a mistake to take it too seriously, and discuss
solemnly its daring transgression of all accepted canons. Too obviously
it is a wholly individual affair--a freakish whim, if you like--on the
part of its creator, though not the less interesting on that account.

[Illustration]

In pursuance of the main idea, the movements of the dancers--or perhaps
one should say the impersonators, for of dancing, in the ordinary
meaning of the word, there is none--take place all in one plane, their
figures are seen in profile, and when they move they do so with sidelong
action, so as to preserve the semblance of flatness. Except for the
mound upon which the faun is discovered and to which he returns at the
close of the episode, the scene consists merely of a backcloth designed
by Bakst--a riot of colour which however effective in itself as a piece
of pure decoration, is scarcely suited to the peculiar exigencies of the
moment. More successful is the outward characterisation of the faun, for
which the same designer is responsible. The creature’s lithe young body
is mottled with large blotches, dark red in colour, that alternate in
bizarre contrast with the fairness of the rest of his skin. A knitted,
wrinkled brow, beneath small horns that are curled round the top of his
head, suggests a dubious quality of mind--the perplexity of a brain that
hovers indeterminately betwixt mere instinct and a reasoning
intelligence. The suggestion of character thus subtly conveyed is
wonderfully sustained by Nijinsky. By look, by poise and carriage of
his body, rather than by gesture (of which there is practically nought)
he induces a perception of the vague stirrings of a brutish mind,
groping vainly for a realisation of emotions dimly felt.

When the curtain rises the faun is discovered recumbent upon the top of
a low eminence. The latter merely projects sufficiently in front of the
backcloth to form a ledge, and does not detract from the flatness of the
scene. One sees the creature sharply in profile, with head thrown back,
playing idly on a long pipe. A bunch of grapes lies beside him, and
between this and his woodland music he divides his attention. When he
turns from one to the other his movements are quickly executed, so that
a sharp profile is almost continuously presented to the spectator.

While the faun is thus engaged, there appears upon the scene below him
three nymphs, advancing slowly with sideways gait, knees slightly bent,
heads turned in profile, open palms upraised to shoulders. To them
enters a fourth running swiftly, but in the same sidelong manner, and
preserving the same stilted attitude as she moves. Another party of
three is added, and the whole group of seven stand rigidly posed below,
and a short distance from, the faun’s elevated retreat. They are garbed
in flowing draperies, with hair dressed close and tightly bound with
fillets, and as they stand stiffly, angularly posed, in an immobile row,
they seem like figures detached from an antique bas relief and propped
before the footlights.

The keen animal senses of the faun detect some strange presence near at
hand, and peering from his coign of vantage he perceives the nymphs.
Such beings are beyond his ken, but the sight of them awakens a vague
interest. He yields to a subtle attraction, and descending from his
perch approaches the intruders.

[Illustration]

The pantomime, if such it can be called, between the nymphs and faun is
quite impossible to describe. Such gesture as is sparingly used is
strictly conventionalised, and the faces of the performers remain
blankly expressionless. Nothing is allowed to detract from the stiff
formality of their aspect. For all that, the pantomime is curiously
expressive. In his uncouth way, prompted by impulses only dimly
comprehended, the faun seeks to woo the nymphs. They are startled and
flee, but return almost as soon as they are gone, only to dart off again
in sudden alarm. Curiosity alternates with shyness and fear. Only once
are the quaint, indeed laughable, angular movements varied, when the
faun, with quite electrifying effect, makes a single bound into the air.

Eventually discretion overcomes the valorous curiosity of the nymphs.
The last, and most attracted, flees away. The faun is left disconsolate
and puzzled, his slow turbid brain striving to grasp the meaning and
nature of the radiant creatures that so lately stirred his appetites.
Nothing remains of them save a gauzy scarf, dropped in her flight by the
last, at which he stares long and stupidly. At length he picks it up,
and holding it wonderingly in his hands, slowly regains his rocky perch.
A mysterious influence emanates from the scarf, and yielding himself to
it, the faun sinks into voluptuous dreams.

“L’Après-Midi d’un Faune” has earned a great popular success, but it is
chiefly a success of curiosity. It is novel, it is quaint, it is
amusing; but whether it is properly artistic depends upon the
interpretation put upon that word. The whole thing is brilliantly
clever, a _tour de force_ on the part of Nijinsky, and considered as
such one has nothing for it but praise. But as an attempt to vivify
plastic art it fails, for it deliberately adopts conventions and
restrictions which are proper to the latter, but were never intended to
govern the moving human form. Merely to endow with movement a creation
of plastic art seems a futile and superfluous purpose, even if possible
of achievement; really to vivify is the province of the dancer’s art,
which in this “ballet” is crippled by false limitations.

It has been said that Nijinsky, by this recourse to primitive forms,
sought to strip off modern conventions and obtain a more forceful mode
of expression. But in that case it is not enough merely to copy; he
should have adopted the principle, but the treatment founded upon it
ought to have been his own. As it is, the true interest of the piece
lies in the characterisation of the faun, and one regrets all the more
the unnecessary restrictions with which Nijinsky has hampered himself,
when reflecting what his genius as a dancer, given proper scope, might
make of such a _rôle_. If he would but play one of Pan’s goat-footed
progeny legitimately “in the round,” one might anticipate a creation to
supplement, and rank alongside, his wonderful harlequin in “Le
Carnaval.”

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




JEUX.

DANCE-POEM BY NIJINSKY.

MUSIC BY CLAUDE DEBUSSY.

CHOREOGRAPHY BY NIJINSKY.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY LÉON BAKST.


Nijinsky’s curious production called “Jeux” comes next in order after
“Le Dieu Bleu” and “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune.” In the first of the two
latter the dancer was concerned only with his individual _rôle_; his
conception of that was, no doubt, his own, but his part in the ballet as
a whole was subject to the directing influence of Michel Fokine. In
“L’Après-Midi d’un Faune” he was emancipated from control, and the
entire performance was of his devising. Having explored the past, it was
natural that he should turn his attention to the present, and in “Jeux”
we have an avowed attempt to treat the modern aspect of (civilised) life
in terms of the ballet. The result is curious, to say the least, and not
very convincing.

A lot of ridiculous nonsense has been written about “Jeux.” It was first
performed in Paris, and on the strength of descriptions received thence,
it was labelled, long before its production in London, a “lawn tennis
ballet.” As a fact, lawn tennis has nothing to do with it--nor any other
particular sport or game for that matter. It is true that Nijinsky
carries a racquet of some kind in his hand, on his first entry, but it
is speedily laid aside and is nothing but the merest stage “property.”
As for the lost ball which is the _casus belli_, so to speak, it bears
as much resemblance to a tennis ball as does a pumpkin to an apple.

If “Playtime” be accepted as the interpretation of “Jeux” (a translation
which the Russians themselves have adopted), the ballet resolves itself
into a representation of the juvenile frolics of three children.
Certainly Nijinsky in his flannel shirt and trousers, Karsavina and
Ludmila Schollar in their short white frocks, bare legs and little
socks, look a trifle more adult than the costumes seem to warrant, but
that is a circumstance which cannot very well be helped. Léon Bakst has
done his best to dwarf them by his spacious garden, with its high gates
and big flower plots, but inevitably the performers appear somewhat
robust for their parts.

The ballet can only be called such for want of another term. There is no
dancing proper; except for a few leaps and runs, the performers confine
their movements to a series of postures, and a queer, stilted kind of
pantomime. It has been stated that Nijinsky by this “choreography”
intends to express the essential characteristics of the movements of
modern athletes and players of games, but the entire absence of athletic
virility or spontaneous grace and vigour effectively negatives the idea.
Or at least, if this was the idea, it has signally failed of execution.

The “plot” of the piece is the slightest possible. Into this not very
realistic garden, empty when the curtain rises, a large ball suddenly
drops. A moment later the three children enter in pursuit, and in
playful mood begin to look for it. Presently, forgetting the object of
their search, they indulge in juvenile flirtation. Each of the girls in
turn receives the boyish attentions of their companion, and all three
are fast forgetting their

[Illustration]

surroundings when a second ball, dropping unexpectedly amongst them,
recalls them to their senses and sends them scampering away.

This is not much on which to found a ballet. All that it gives scope for
is the presentation of one little scene of no great purport, but the
methods adopted to portray the idle moments of a group of children
render merely eccentric what might be an engaging spectacle. The
intention seems to be, if there is any definite intention at all, to
reduce to their essential elements the characteristic movements of
childhood. The gestures and poses of Nijinsky the present writer
confesses to finding meaningless--at all events in no way suggestive of
unsophisticated childhood. But with those of Karsavina and Ludmila
Schollar there is a difference. There are occasions now and
then--notably when the two girls “make it up” after a tiff prompted by
jealousy over the favour of their boy companion--when there is a
something about their poise of body which evokes quite startlingly, for
all its stilted stiffness, a memory of childish movements sometime
noted. There is nothing, it will be understood from what has already
been said of the performers’ methods, of the unconscious grace of an
eager, impulsive child. But imagine a rapid photographic “snapshot” of
such an incident as the one just mentioned between two little girls--the
instantaneous plate would show, in its arrest of movement, just such
angularity and awkwardness, and also just such a poise, as Karsavina and
Schollar display.

No doubt this is all very clever and ingenious, but it seems likewise to
be a little futile. Even if essays of this sort come within the
legitimate province of ballet, there is very little pleasure, and not a
great deal of interest, to be obtained from so highly sophisticated a
performance. I do not know whether the music of Debussy was written for
the especial purpose of the ballet, or whether Nijinsky, as in
“L’Après-Midi d’un Faune,” devised the ballet to an existing
composition; in any case the music seems as little appropriate to the
theme as the methods of the performers. Debussy indeed is hardly a
composer from whom one expects _dance_ music, and his selection in
connection with these attempted developments of the art of the ballet
seems significant.

[Illustration]

The legitimacy--or, to put it more definitely, the feasibility--of these
new attempts is open to challenge. The methods adopted by the “dancers”
in “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune” have already been described. In “Jeux” the
principle seems to be to resolve movement into a succession of arrested
poses, and make an arbitrary selection of the latter for presentment.
This is as if one were asked to admire some of the individual pictures
which in series make up the film of a kinematograph. Granted that it is
interesting and amusing to be shown how the film is constituted, it is
nevertheless the animated whole which we really want to see.

[Illustration]

But an analogy can only be drawn between the kinematograph and the
dancer if the latter’s art is regarded as standing in the same relation
to the painter’s or sculptor’s as the kinematograph to the ordinary
camera. This indeed seems to be the idea upon which Nijinsky has founded
“L’Après-Midi d’un Faune” and “Jeux.” It was submitted in the
immediately preceding pages that “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune” was based
upon a fundamental misconception of the dancer’s art, and the same
criticism is prompted by “Jeux.” Even if the premises be granted that to
give movement to _poses plastiques_ is a sufficient end, the dancer’s
art, like any other, should conceal art; should build up, not take to
pieces. The human figure may be reducible to geometrical forms, but the
cubist painter would be better employed in proceeding _from_ that
principle, instead of _to_ it.

“Jeux,” in brief, in intention, if not altogether in execution, is as
clever as a parlour trick, and with a public which applauds cleverness
above all things, it would be as popular as “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune,”
if it were but equally obvious. But the cleverness is that of a monkey,
and as misapplied.

[Illustration]




LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS.

PICTURES OF PAGAN RUSSIA BY IGOR STRAVINSKY AND NICOLAS ROERICH.

MUSIC BY IGOR STRAVINSKY.

CHOREOGRAPHY BY NIJINSKY.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY NICOLAS ROERICH.


When three such remarkable talents as those of MM. Stravinsky, Roerich
and Nijinsky form an alliance, something unusual may be confidently
expected as the result. The most eager anticipations can hardly have
been disappointed, on that score, by “Le Sacre du Printemps,” of which
the music is by the first named, the _décor_ by the second, and the
choreography by the third.

One imagines the three collaborators--one had almost said
conspirators--assembling in council. Perhaps they find themselves, in
their several ways, prompted by a common impulse: perhaps they merely
itch to apply their cleverness to something new. Whichever way it is, a
happy notion strikes them. “Let’s be primitive!” They talk it over, make
plans and agree. They will be primitive--starkly primitive. Stravinsky
proceeds, with his practised sleight of hand in the manipulation of an
orchestra, to invent music which shall defy all accepted canons, and
thus presumably be eloquent of a time when “music,” in any conventional
sense, was not; Roerich picks all the primary colours out of his
paint-box and sets to work to devise a _mise-en-scène_ so crude that it
must represent the furthest possible degree of unsophistication; while
Nijinsky, fresh from his meditations on a primitive phase of art, hails
with enthusiasm this new opportunity to apply the principles of
expression by gesture and movement which he believes himself to have
divined.

The result is a sort of “post-impressionism” on the stage. Expression,
it has been said, not beauty, is the aim of the modern school of
painters who, for convenience’ sake, have been dubbed
“post-impressionists”; and this being also the avowed purpose of
Nijinsky and his colleagues, the ballet might not unreasonably be
expected to show some kinship with the products of that recent art
“movement.” Certainly it is ugly--at the least, unpleasing to the normal
modern eye: whether, by compensation, it is expressive, is obviously one
of those matters of individual taste about which dispute is idle.

“Le Sacre du Printemps” consists of two tableaux, which are ostensibly
representative of pagan Russia, but might equally serve as pictures of
primitive civilisation anywhere--or nowhere! The theme is suitably
simple. The season of spring is at hand, and mankind is occupied with
worship of the two great forces apprehended by the primitive mind--the
Earth and the Sun.

The first act shows the Adoration of the Earth. The joy of humankind in
the advent of spring finds expression in the dance, and in the
performance of due rites, in the ceremony of uniting the Sire of all the
Sages to the newly fecund earth. What actually happens is that sundry
groups of persons, attired in picturesque but by no means prehistoric
garb, are discovered prostrating themselves in various peculiar poses
amidst an expansive landscape which is very green, but not much else.
One group, under the instruction of “an old woman of 300 years,” begins
a ceremonial dance, which is to say that the younger members stamp
their feet and jerk their bodies about in an odd, rhythmic fashion,
while the triple centenarian hops spasmodically amongst them. Other
groups in turn spring up from their postures of obeisance and do the
same, with variations. A number of young girls enter, and join the young
men in the performance of the rites ordained. One is to understand that
the strange antics which ensue are the primitive types of those folk
dances and games which peasant children perform to this day in Russia:
but it is doubtful whether even to a spectator familiar with modern
rustic life in the remotest parts of that country, the connection would
be apparent between the traditional games of feast days and the
eccentric contortions of the performers on the stage. A feature of the
games, the only one definitely recognisable (because the only one
specified in the printed synopsis of the ballet) is a simulated
abduction of some of the girls by a number of the young men, which is
premonitory of the sacrifice to Iarilo, god of light--_i.e._, the
Sun--depicted in the second act.

[Illustration]

After the games have been in progress for some time there enters a
procession of elders of this primitive tribe, escorting an old man with
a long beard--the Sire of all the Sages, high priest and venerable
interpreter of the omens. His entry is a signal for everyone present to
be seized with a violent tremor, which sets each figure quivering like
an agitated table jelly. With due form and ceremony the ancient one
pronounces a blessing on the Earth’s unfailing fruitfulness,
accomplishing this act by spreadeagling himself, with the aid of
assiduous helpers, face-downwards in the middle of the stage. If only
the happy thought had occurred to M. Nijinsky to have the beard of the
venerable one pulled forward the latter would have presented a very
interesting travesty of a starfish.

The tremor which has so persistently agitated the tribe now ceases. All
eyes are upturned towards the Sun, whose envious wrath, it is feared,
may be excited by these attentions to the Earth, and to the renewed
thudding of stamping feet the curtain comes down.

The second tableau shows the Sacrifice, by which the Sun’s jealousy is
to be appeased. The scene is a lonely plateau, on which the “Sacred
Stones” are set. There are also three grim-looking poles, on which are
hung what seem to be votive offerings of hides and horns. It is night,
and past the witching hour. The sun has vanished and ere he rise again
the rite of propitiation must be performed. The young girls are
discovered going through the mazy evolutions of a ceremonial dance, the
object of which is the choice by hazard of the destined victim. (Such is
the origin, the authors would presumably have us believe, of the “he” of
the traditional games of childhood all the world over.)

Precisely how the lot falls is not very apparent, but presently one girl
starts forward from the rest and seems, from the curious motionless
attitude which she assumes, to fall into a cataleptic trance. Her
companions gather round, and do her honour in a dance described, for no
clear reason, as “heroic.” They presently depart, leaving her to her
fate.

While the Chosen Victim still stands transfixed in a posture of extreme
ugliness and (one imagines) excessive discomfort, the

[Illustration]

elders of the tribe make their appearance, come to evoke the spirits of
their ancestors and perform the final rites of this mystic bridal
dedication to the Sun. They achieve this by partially covering
themselves with black bearskins, the limp forelegs of which, waggling at
their elbows, give them the appearance of immense grotesque penguins as
they strut solemnly round the object of their scrutiny. After this
lengthy peripatetic inspection is concluded, they seat themselves in
groups, and the Chosen Victim suddenly breaks into a dance--if dance can
be called a series of agonised movements not less ugly and contorted
than the immobile posture in which she has been for so long rigidly
stationed.

It is quite impossible to describe this “dance,” which it is an
uncomfortable experience to watch--not for any offence that it contains,
but for a feeling of sympathy with the unfortunate dancer who has to
indulge such misplaced agility. Suffice it to explain that it
“expresses” the last ecstasy of the Victim--a transition from exaltation
to frenzy, from frenzy to exhaustion. At the moment of expiry, the
watching elders leap to their feet, and seizing the Victim in their
hands, hold her rigid corpse at arms’ length above their heads.

It is thus, we are told, that sacrifice is made to Iarilo, the flaming,
the superb. The ribald will be inclined to retort that it is to be hoped
Iarilo likes it.

In fairness, it must be added that this account of the eccentric
happenings on the stage is quite inadequate to convey any proper
impression of these two tableaux--which are, in fact, quite
indescribable by words. It would be a mistake to suppose that this
extraordinary performance is as wearisome as its unintelligible
character might lead one to infer. According to all ordinary standards
the whole business is completely mad--the music is mad, the dancers are
mad. Yet it does not bore, and the interest which it excites must be
something more than that of mere curiosity to endure through two whole
acts. One suspects this to be merely a tribute to the unquestionable
cleverness of the ballet, though the generous spectator may like to
suppose a more solid reason.

When the present writer witnessed the first production of “Le Sacre du
Printemps” in Paris, the printed synopsis of its action presented to the
audience was of the briefest kind. The spectators were left to unravel
its meaning for themselves--and they signally failed to rise to the
occasion. Briefly, they hissed it. They would not listen to Stravinsky’s
music: the choreography of Nijinsky moved them to unkind laughter. On
the later production of the ballet in London, the management wisely
distributed an amplified synopsis, detailing the incidents (so far as
the ballet can be said to have any), and took the further precaution of
prefacing the performance by a short lecture, in which a distinguished
critic, of sympathetic leanings, endeavoured to expound the principles
upon which the authors of the ballet had proceeded in its creation.

Thanks to this forethought, the ballet received in London the attentive
hearing which was denied to it in Paris. It even received applause,
though how far this was due to the amiability of London
theatre-goers--less impulsive and more tolerant than the Parisian
public--it would be rash to guess. Undoubtedly the ballet, as presented
in London, was more easily followed than when seen in Paris. In part,
perhaps, the certain degree of familiarity helped; in part, the stronger
lighting of the stage during the second act of the London performance
was of assistance. But, chiefly, the greater intelligibility arose out
of the explanations, verbal and printed, with which the spectator was
forearmed. Antics which had been meaningless became invested with the
shadow, if not the substance of plausibility; it became apparent what
they were _intended_ to mean, even if the meaning still seemed to fail
of true expression.

But should such detailed explanations of purpose be necessary? Granting
the abandonment of all ordinary, accepted conventions, ought a work of
art, conceived upon whatsoever unfamiliar principles, to fail to grip
the imagination? It may be noted that in the introductory lecture, the
Japanese colour-print was cited as an example of a form of art scoffed
at, when first seen in this country, because its conventions were
unfamiliar and not understood. But one fancies that upon any mind not
utterly philistine, no matter how unable to _understand_ its peculiar
conventions, the work of a Japanese master made a very definite
impression. The Occidental mind had a sense of the Oriental achievement,
even if it failed to comprehend precisely what had been achieved. If
attempt is not to be confused with accomplishment, one fears that only a
partisan enthusiast could have a similar regard for “Le Sacre du
Printemps.”

It is difficult to discover unity of purpose. To mention a minor, but
glaring inconsistency, the costumes designed by Roerich (though one is
grateful for the vividly decorative groups which they produce) are
scarcely consonant with his “primitive” scenery, and certainly not
characteristic of ultra-primitive humanity. A people that had acquired
such arts as the possession of this clothing postulates can scarcely be
reckoned typical of “the Muscovy of dimmest antiquity,” and it is at
least doubtful whether at their comparatively advanced stage of
civilisation (accepting as historically accurate Nijinsky’s theory of
primitive modes of expression) gesture and movement would be marked by
such uncouth and awkward characteristics.

The fact would seem to be that the authors of this ballet have chosen to
be a law unto themselves. No doubt it is possible under

[Illustration]

such conditions to devise many curious things, momentarily engaging--the
workshops of Bedlam are full of them--but they can hardly hope to give
the satisfaction, or enjoy the permanence, of art. A work of art is
governed, at bottom, by the laws of Nature: it must have its roots
somewhere in reality, and grow upward and outward. One fails to detect
out of what “Le Sacre du Printemps” arises, or whither it leads. Its
tendency, if it has any at all, is retrograde, and there is something
almost pathetic in the spectacle of such highly-cultivated men as MM.
Stravinsky, Roerich, and Nijinsky applying their brilliant talents to
this inversion. It is surely a little ludicrous that the utmost
resources of a modern orchestra, comprising over a hundred complex
instruments, should be taxed by what is reported to be some of the most
difficult music ever scored, in order to “express” the impulses and
emotions of man in his most primitive state. A fitting parallel to
Stravinsky’s efforts is provided by those of Nijinsky, laboriously
instructing a highly-accomplished _corps de ballet_ in mimicry of the
awkward poses exhibited in sculpture of pre-classical days, when the
sculptor was not so much expressive as struggling for expression. It may
be true that under modern accepted conventions in art, expression has
been stifled by undue attention to form, but this is hardly the way to
demonstrate it. Curtailment is not the same thing as simplification.

“Le Sacre du Printemps” certainly exacts a good deal from the ordinary
spectator. The latter finds himself at sea from the very beginning, and
quickly realises that if there is any solid meaning at all to be arrived
at, he can only reach it by jettisoning all previous standards and
conventions. Even when he has succeeded, by the aid of a detailed
synopsis, an introductory lecture, and a strongly developed faculty of
assimilation, in acquainting himself with the authors’ premises, it is a
matter of opinion whether MM. Stravinsky, Roerich, and Nijinsky give
him much in return for what he has abandoned.

If this astonishing ballet is to be taken seriously, one may compliment
its authors on a very gallant attempt to embody a view of art which is
arresting, if not convincing. If, on the other hand, it is merely a _jeu
d’esprit_, they are to be congratulated on one of the most elaborate and
cleverly sustained hoaxes ever perpetrated. There is possibly a third
solution, that the authors have been imposed upon and mesmerised by
their own sheer cleverness, and all too nimble dexterity of mind. In
that case there must be laughter among the Muses.

[Illustration]




LA TRAGÉDIE DE SALOME.

FROM A POEM BY ROBERT HUMIERES.

MUSIC BY FLORENT SCHMITT.

DANCES BY BORIS ROMANOV.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY SERGE SOUDEIKINE.


Salome furnishes the theme of yet another ballet in the Russians’ later
style. Though Nijinsky has no connection with it the influence of his
example is evident throughout. “La Tragédie de Salome” takes a place
very fittingly in the same gallery as “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune,” “Jeux,”
and “Le Sacre du Printemps.” That is to say, it has no story to unfold
by means of music and the dance. Salome is not so much the theme, as a
mere central figure of a stage picture to which motion is imparted.
Nijinsky in “Le Sacre du Printemps” went to Gauguin and the
post-impressionists for inspiration. Boris Romanov and Serge Soudeikine,
who are responsible respectively for the choreography and the _décor_ of
“La Tragédie de Salome” have singled out Aubrey Beardsley for attention.

“Pure Beardsley” was the popular phrase with which the ballet was summed
up on its first production. It is, of course, nothing of the sort--at
least, if the phrase is to be strictly interpreted. If it were _pure_
Beardsley the ballet would be a good deal better than it is. One has
some difficulty in imagining Aubrey Beardsley staging a ballet, and
probably, if such a thing had happened, the result would have been very
different from that which the Russians have imagined. But even supposing
that Beardsley had produced on the stage something resembling what is
shown us, it is perfectly certain there would have been a distinction
which the present performance lacks. To put it shortly, “La Tragédie de
Salome” is nothing but an aping of Beardsley, a reproduction (or shall
one say, a travesty?) of certain superficial aspects of that artist’s
designs, entirely uninspired by any sympathy with, or apparently even
understanding of, the peculiar genius of which they were expressions.

It is unfortunate, perhaps, that the assimilative Russians, when they
play the sedulous ape, do so with such polished ease and _aplomb_. Their
cleverness amuses, even if it fails to impress. In sheer theatrical
effect this ballet of Salome is quite dazzling. Its bizarre decoration,
and the eccentricity of the action, capture the eye, as the music
captures the ear, by sheer audacity of assault. It is only when a
conclusion is reached that the whole appears to have been a profitless,
if dazzling diversion.

Soudeikine’s act-drop is beyond my comprehension. So also is the scene
upon which it rises--a platform enclosed by giant foliage of formal
design. Much exuberance is suggested, but exuberance of _what_ is not so
clear. In the middle of the stage is a tall column, upon the top of
which an object, presumably the Baptist’s head, is dimly seen. Behind
stands a curious pyramidal staircase.

Eight negro slaves are discovered grouped about the column and its grim
burden. Their woolly pates are white, white ostrich plumes are girt
about their middles, and round their ankles are clasped what look
suspiciously like white spats. The limelight streaming on their naked
bodies imparts a greenish tinge to the brown flesh, and gives them quite
as nasty an appearance as one supposes their designers intended.

To strident music which one feels sure must be expressive of hectic
passion and horror, the green and white negroes posture

[Illustration]

and run about the stage. Their antics are engaging, and expressive of
just whatever the spectator chooses to think. They are joined presently
by four executioners who would do credit to any professional dreamer of
nightmares. Like the negroes, these also have spats on their bare legs.
They wear very little else, but carry large swords which obviously are
meant for dark and bloody deeds. They are tall and lank, frightfully
grim, and thoroughly sinister. And the business-like manner in which,
having divested themselves of the awful weapons of their office, and
completely eclipsed the efforts of the negroes in the game of
Here-we-go-round-the-Baptist’s-head, they assume attitudes of
terror-striking unexpectedness, indicates a praiseworthy determination
to uphold the ghastliest traditions of their high calling.

The music now, with relentless importunacy, insists upon an impending
climax. Negroes and executioners fall beautifully into place, a portion
of the blackcloth drops swiftly, and Salome is seen standing on the top
of the staircase-pedestal before a dim background of blue and mysterious
starlit depth. She is shrouded in the voluminous folds of an immense
cloak, and at first sight might be taken, as a witty observer remarked,
for Mrs. Grundy come to put a stop to the proceedings.

Having got this climax over, the music is now breathing more easily, and
Salome slowly comes down the staircase. It is seen that the robe with
which she is covered has an immense train--black with glittering
embroidery of gold. As she descends the steps the train drags
magnificently behind her. One suffers an uncomfortable anxiety lest it
should topple down before its time and sweep its hapless wearer off her
feet. But MM. Soudeikine and Romanov have seen to this, and it is not
until Salome has reached the stage, and is already advancing across it,
that the enormous garment, with proper effect, comes flashingly tumbling
after.

[Illustration]

Salome with her grotesque retinue circles in solemn procession round the
central column, and the train makes the most of its opportunities. Then
the negroes leap forward, fastenings are loosened, and as the robe falls
into her attendants’ outstretched arms, Salome steps forward for the
dance.

Regard Beardsley’s drawings as fashion plates, and the reader will
arrive at a very fair idea of Karsavina’s appearance as Salome. Her
costume is exiguous--even allowing for the lace-edged undergarment which
appears round one thigh but not round the other. Her legs and arms are
bare, but with a blood red heart and other devices stencilled on them. A
high head-dress surmounts the tiny

[Illustration]

face of one of Beardsley’s women, with blue smudges for eyes and wee
vermilion lips.

Of Karsavina’s dance, in the character of Salome, it is quite impossible
to write with any detail. It is devised in the same pseudo-macabre
spirit as the rest of the ballet, and is more remarkable as a feat of
acrobatic agility and physical endurance than as an artistic
performance. One is told that the dance is “at first frantic and insane;
then more proud and sorrowful, more remote and ecstatic. It is the
expression and avowal of her sensual torment and of her atonement
through the very misery of her unassuageable desire.” Well, maybe it is
all that: perhaps something more, perhaps a very great deal less. For
myself, I should have been interested to learn at what point the
insanity died down and pride and sorrow took its place. Of ecstasy I
could find no real suggestion, though the counterfeit was plausible; and
the only remoteness was when the dance unexpectedly ended and the
curtain came down.

“La Tragédie de Salome” might serve, in company of those other
productions with which it was classed at the outset of these notes, as
an answer to the question, When is a ballet not a ballet? In all these
latter performances which the Russians have staged, they appear not only
to misconceive the functions of ballet, but to overlook its limitations.
This is the more remarkable since in the earlier productions those
limitations were plainly recognised, and the restraint which every art
exacts scrupulously observed. There is now a lack of perspective, which
one suspects to be the result of the dancer turned ballet-master. A
journalist may write brilliantly, yet be quite incapable of editing a
paper.

The sooner the controlling influence of Michel Fokine is restored to the
Russian Ballet the better. Otherwise there seems imminent danger that so
much fertility will merely run to seed.

[Illustration]




LE LAC DES CYGNES.

PANTOMIME BALLET BY M. TCHAIKOVSKY.

MUSIC BY P. TCHAIKOVSKY.

DANCES AND SCENES BY M. PETIPA.

SCENERY AND COSTUMES BY C. KOROVIN AND A. GOLOVIN.


The outstanding feature of “Le Lac des Cygnes” is undoubtedly the music
of Tchaikovsky, which is worthy of something better. For this is a
ballet which falls within the same category as “Le Pavillon d’Armide,” a
survival of the formality of an earlier day. It has a story, and a good
one; it is not, indeed, without dramatic passages; but mainly the ballet
is a mere background for a number of isolated dances having little
bearing on the real action. The “fairy tale” which forms its subject has
been treated much as the classic tragedies, one imagines, were treated
by Noverre towards the end of the eighteenth century. The dances are
imposed upon it, rather than made the means of unfolding it. As a result
“Le Lac des Cygnes,” regarded in its entirety, falls short of the level
achieved in such a ballet as “L’Oiseau de Feu,” though in the matter of
subject it has many points of familiarity with the latter. It lacks
proportion: the drama is nugatory, and the spectator retains in memory
rather a succession of dances, graceful, lively, and astonishing, than
an impression of a coherent and progressive whole.

This is the more to be regretted since the music, when occasion serves,
is splendidly dramatic. The occasions are only few, however, the real
purpose of the story being to provide, as in “Le Pavillon d’Armide,” a
court scene which can be made the appropriate setting of a series of
dances. Certainly the poses of Karsavina and the ladies of the _corps de
ballet_ in their guise as swans of the enchanted lake, in the opening
scene, and the astounding performance of Nijinsky in the court episode,
go far to compensate the loss of unity, but such dramatic moments as do
occur make the mostly protracted action seem very nearly tedious.
Incidentally the ballet presents Nijinsky in the kind of _rôle_ more
definitely associated with Adolf Bolm, and it is interesting to note the
emphasis which it lays upon the essential difference between the two
artists. Bolm is an actor who can dance when occasion demands; Nijinsky,
a dancer who seems almost ill at ease when constrained to limit his
movements to the actor’s pedestrian paces. One would prefer to see the
part of the Prince taken by Bolm, and an excuse found (as in “Le
Pavillon d’Armide”) for Nijinsky’s appearance, in his true function as
dancer, in the court scene.

The lake to which the title of the ballet refers is an enchanted mere,
beside which a number of swans dance nightly by the light of the moon,
in the semblance of young girls. The birds are the victims of the evil
sorcery of a wicked genie of the place, from whose clutches they are
powerless to escape. The opening scene discloses the wooded margin of
the lake, the shining surface of which stretches before the eye to a dim
further shore. The swans are seen upon the water, and while the
orchestral prelude is in progress, they pass slowly across the gap in
the trees, through which the shimmering lake is visible. At their head,
more stately than her fellows, and distinguished by the tiny crown upon
her head, swims the Queen Swan.

The birds vanish. The ripples of their passage subside. Moonlight floods
the still lake and its wooded bank. There enters a young man, armed for
the chase, whose dress and mien proclaim him noble. Retainers follow
him. They cast searching glances around, and scan the placid surface of
the lake. But whatever it is they seek eludes their vigilance. A second
young man joins them--the Prince of the realm--who has been benighted in
the course of a hunting expedition. He, too, looks eagerly about him,
but is no more successful in his quest than the companion who preceded
him. They take counsel together, and in the very midst of their
conference are startled by a distant apparition. They peer anxiously
into the heart of the wood which fringes the lake’s edge, and obedient
to the Prince’s order, all retire stealthily into hiding. The Prince
himself, cross-bow in hand, follows his men.

A moment later there enters a young maiden. She is fair to look upon,
with a beauty that has a fatal quality of fascination. She is indeed the
Queen Swan, wearing her temporary human guise, and only to be associated
with her true form by the fillet of swan’s-down in her dark hair, and
the snowy plumage with which her dress is adorned. This is the
mysterious apparition which the Prince and his men have seen, lost, and
now again discovered.

Lightly the fair creature flits across the glade, and as she nears the
spot where he lies concealed, the Prince starts forth and confronts her.
The Queen Swan would fly, but is held back. The Prince, already a
willing victim to his captive’s beauty, would fain have the mystery of
her appearance explained. Who is she? What does she here, and at this
hour? Reluctant at first to confess her true nature, the Queen Swan
yields to the passionate emotion which she, too, feels stirring within
her, and relates a part, at least, of her strange history. She tells of
the machinations of the evil genie by whose enchantment she and all her
companions are bound, of their alternation between human guise and that
of birds. The prince listens in horror, jumping too readily to the
conclusion that his captive is a maiden doomed to periodic metamorphosis
into the semblance of a swan, rather than a bird permitted now and
again to assume a human shape. At mention of the ogre by whose spells
this strange tyranny is maintained, he fingers his weapons menacingly,
eager for an opportunity to attempt deliverance.

Such a chance presents itself with startling suddenness. In the midst of
her narration the Queen Swan clutches her captor’s arm, and points
upward into the trees. Peering down upon them, from a branch overhead,
is some strange object, only half visible amidst the foliage. The Prince
seizes his cross-bow and makes as if to shoot. But ere he can be sure of
his aim, the apparition moves stealthily, and is gone.

The young man lowers his weapon and turns to expostulate with his
captive. Again the colloquy is interrupted, this time by the invasion of
a grim, gaunt monster, which silently regards them from a mound upon
which it has suddenly emerged. Again the Prince seizes his bow and
strives to launch a bolt at the intruder. But he is powerless to release
the trigger. The genie’s magic paralyses him. The monster recedes
unharmed into the woody depths, and the Prince, perturbed by this
discovery of unseen influences encompassing him, impetuously urges his
captive from the scene.

Hardly has the Queen Swan fled when her companions enter--a score of
maidens in similar attire, scarcely less fair than their leader. As is
their nightly practice, they dance in the moonlit glade, but have scarce
begun when the Prince’s friend, followed by the huntsmen and attendants,
break in upon these mystic revels. The swan-maidens, frightened, fly to
one another for mutual protection, while the intruders, scarce knowing
what to make of such unexpected objects of the chase, finger their
weapons hesitatingly. Some, indeed, are fitting bolts to the cross-bows,
but the hasty return of the Prince, who bids them stay their hands,
prevents the wanton slaughter. Even as he gives his orders, two more
swan-maidens join their frightened sisters, and with them comes the
Queen Swan herself, who has sped the Prince from her side to avert the
threatened disaster, and now comes herself to lead the petition for
mercy which the hapless maidens pleadingly urge.

The Prince needs little persuasion to grant the boon, and the
swan-maidens resume their dancing before the enraptured eyes of the
Prince and his friend. In the midst of her companions the Queen Swan,
unchallenged in the supremacy of her charms, completes the fascination
she has already exercised upon the too susceptible Prince. With
infatuated gaze he hangs upon her every movement, drinking in her
beauty, the grace of her dancing, the elegance of her form. Every moment
that she pauses, while her companions continue the movement of the
dance, he woos her passionately, urging his suit with an eagerness that
increases as the reluctance which she strives to maintain appears to
give way.

The throbbing valse rhythm of the music hurries the young man’s hectic
passion to a climax. Inspired by the ardour which the Prince’s impetuous
wooing kindles in her, the Queen of the Swan-maidens surpasses herself
in a dance which turns passion into ecstasy. She abandons herself to her
lover’s arms.

But at this fateful moment the dreaded hour has struck. The swan-maidens
are seized with nervous apprehension. They beckon their Queen, and as
they see her recalled to her surroundings, hurry timidly away. The
huntsmen watch them go, too much surprised by this sudden flight to
attempt to intercept it. Not so the Prince. As the Queen Swan strives to
release herself from his embrace, he seeks to detain her. Reluctant to
go, yet fearful to stay, she persists in the effort to disengage
herself. Ardently the Prince implores her to remain, but just as he
would enforce the entreaty by strength she slips from his grasp and
gains the bank that leads into the wood. Her lover would dash forward
and restrain her, but she motions him back, waves a tender farewell, and
is gone from his sight.

Mystified, the Prince and his men peer wonderingly across the enchanted
mere. And as they look there glides across their vision a number of
snow-white swans, swimming in stately procession toward the further
shore. In advance of the rest moves one, which bears upon its head, so
delicately poised on the slender sinuous neck, a golden crown. Upon the
agonised Prince and his astounded retinue, watching in silence this
strange portent, the curtain swiftly falls.

       *       *       *       *       *

One sees next an apartment in the royal palace, where festivities are in
progress, to celebrate the coming nuptials of the Prince with the
heiress of a neighbouring realm. To the gay music of a festal march, the
royal guests are marshalled to their appointed places by a master of
ceremonies; there are stately greetings, and a formal interchange of
courtesies. The Prince enters presently, accompanied by the
Queen-mother, whom he escorts to the seat of honour. His betrothed has
then to be greeted and similarly handed to her place.

These ceremonies the Prince duly observes, but with a formality of
manner which indicates that his attention is perfunctory. He seems moody
and abstracted, and when presently he seats himself beside the
Queen-mother, the dances which begin fail to arouse in him more than a
listless interest.

The first of these dances--a valse performed by eight couples--is
scarcely ended when there is a stir at one of the entrances to the hall.
From the press of courtiers the master of ceremonies emerges, ushering
forward a tall man of sinister aspect, richly but strangely attired, who
leads by the hand a fair lady. The Prince rises to welcome the
strangers. Courtesies having been exchanged, the Prince raises his
eyes--and finds himself looking into the face of the Swan-maiden to whom
he lost his heart so lately. He cannot restrain a movement of
surprise--the sudden embodiment of his very thoughts seems beyond
credence. But the recognition, as he perceives, is mutual; the fair
stranger, as she suffers her forbidding escort to draw her aside,
displays not less agitation than he.

Deep in perplexity the Prince resumes his seat. The master of ceremonies
signs for the festivities to proceed, but neither a dashing czardas, nor
the brilliant mazurka which follows, can distract the Prince from the
anxious meditation into which he is plunged. Only when the beautiful
stranger is again led forward does he shake off his abstraction. Eagerly
he offers attendance upon her while she performs a _pas seul_ before the
court.

Standing unobtrusively at one side, the evil genie (for the Queen Swan’s
escort is, of course, none other) watches from beneath his disguise the
consummation of his wicked plan. With every attention that opportunity
allows him to offer to the stranger, the Prince’s newly-fanned passion
burns more ardently. And as with him, so with the luckless Swan-maiden.
The dance but serves to melt the last icicle of her discretion, and when
the Prince, remembering suddenly their situation, conscious of the gaze
of all the court, would leave her and regain the composure he has lost,
she holds and allures him with a beseeching look and gesture that is
beyond resistance. Only when the dance is ended, and the Swan-maiden,
herself awakening momentarily from her all but trance, retires hastily
from the apartment, does the Prince resume command of himself.

The eyes of the courtiers are turned upon him expectantly, for the
Prince himself is an accomplished dancer, and the moment has arrived
when he should entertain the company with his skill. Fired by the
ardour suppressed within him, he launches himself into a _pas seul_
which astounds by its vigorous grace, measured agility, and brilliant
daring of execution. At the very climax of his performance the beautiful
stranger re-enters. Obedient to the Prince’s entreaty she dances once
again; then joins him in the crowning intoxication of a _pas de deux_.

As the infatuated pair thus yield to each other’s embrace an uneasy stir
runs through the watching ring of courtiers. The Queen-mother is
perturbed, the Prince’s betrothed is wrath to be thus publicly slighted.
The climax is reached when the lovers, oblivious of all, abandon
themselves to an impassioned kiss. The Prince’s mother starts
indignantly from her seat, and plucks him by the sleeve; at the same
moment the Swan-maiden’s grim escort strides forward and snatches her
from her lover’s embrace. In vain the Queen-mother urges her son to
recollect the duty he owes to his estate, in vain his betrothed demands
reparation for the affront she has suffered. The Prince has no thought
save for the object of his passion, and is convulsed by overpowering
emotion. Not less is the agony of the fair stranger, who struggles
helplessly in the genie’s evil clutch. Consternation seizes the
courtiers, which is increased as the lights are suddenly dimmed. In the
confusion that ensues, the genie throws the now fainting figure of the
Swan-maiden upon his shoulder, and carries her off. The Prince, seeing
his beloved thus torn away, is nearly bereft of reason, but recovering
himself with violent effort dashes madly through the press in hot
pursuit.

       *       *       *       *       *

The scene changes to the dim night-enshrouded margin of the lake. With
furious haste the genie enters, dragging relentlessly behind him the
drooping figure of the Swan-maiden. Piteously she sinks upon the bank,
as the wicked tyrant urges her onward. She turns a last entreating look
backward, and at that very moment the flying figure of the Prince
appears. He falls upon his knees before her and seeks to hold her with
his hands. But the genie redoubles his force: the hapless Swan-maiden is
wrenched from her lover’s grasp, and borne out of sight.

The despairing Prince bows his head in mute and helpless agony. And
while he yet kneels there, a white swan glides serenely across the
surface of the lake. The prince sees it, and a dreadful thought clutches
his heart. As the swan nears him he looks again--and lo, about its head,
so delicately poised on the slender sinuous neck, is a golden crown!

The young man staggers and falls dead. Smoothly the Queen Swan urges her
placid way across the shining surface of the lake.

[Illustration]




ANNA PAVLOVA.


Nothing can well be written about the Russian Ballet without some
mention of Pavlova. For though that great dancer has not been associated
with the troupe to whose performances the foregoing pages have been
devoted, it is largely to her art that London owes the revived interest
in ballet which paved the way for these later spectacles.

Much has been written in adulation of Pavlova. Comparisons and metaphors
have been well-nigh exhausted in enthusiastic attempts to convey a full
appreciation of her dancing, and the result has sometimes been
ridiculous. This is almost inevitable, however, for if Pavlova’s praises
are to be sung at all, it must be in a word or else redundantly. Art so
nearly perfect as hers permits of no analysis, and stultifies all
efforts at exposition.

So it happens that with Pavlova one can but state a bare opinion, and
leave her art to speak for itself. Mere description is impossible, since
her method is subjective rather than objective. London has had no
opportunity of seeing her take part in a concerted ballet, at least of
that dramatic type in which the art of the performers is subservient to
the action in which they are involved; and the individual dances in
which she is chiefly seen are to be regarded not so much as occasions
for impersonation as opportunities and means of self-expression. As
already has been said of Nijinsky, the art of Pavlova is something more
than merely imitative; it is creative, her genius acting upon, shaping,
and impressing with the stamp of her own individuality the material
selected.

There is a close analogy between her method and that of the composer of
music. Saint-Saëns, for example, in “Le Cygne,” and Pavlova in the dance
which she has devised for the accompaniment of that composition, have
both taken the curved and undulating grace of the swan for _motif_.
Adorning, amplifying, and elaborating this initial theme, the dancer has
achieved a result which in its complex beauty, yet fundamental
simplicity, is an exact parallel with the composer’s.

Doubtless a _maître de ballet_ might have phrases at command which would
convey, to the initiate at least, the bare sequence of poses and
movements, as one musician could recount to another the main features of
a composition. In neither case, however, would the hearer glean more
than the merest rudiments; with the dance as with music, direct contact
alone is of avail. Even a literary artist would encounter limitations as
severe as those which beset the painter, who can show (witness John
Lavery’s “Le Mort du Cygne”) but a single moment of a single phase in a
thing of prolonged and continuous beauty.

In such a performance as this, Pavlova touches great heights. She is
less happy when she indulges in some of those “interpretations” of music
which of late years have become so fashionable. How, indeed, can the
dancer’s art be expected to interpret music which was never written for
the dance? It is as idle as the similar attempt so often made by the
painter. One work of art may provide inspiration for another, but we
cannot consider them simultaneously since they will not be in the same
plane. To watch the dance, or rather series of poses, by which Pavlova
“interprets,” let us say, Rubinstein’s “La Nuit,” is to delight the eye
with an exhibition of rare grace. But only a very assimilative and
accommodating mind will imagine that the composer’s intention has been
made any clearer to him thereby--and probably it will

[Illustration]

imagine quite erroneously. The critical mind receives no convincing
impression of unity.

In the case of “Le Cygne,” Pavlova is not interpreting Saint Saëns.
Musician and dancer have taken the same theme for treatment in their
different ways, and the welding of their separate efforts is the
legitimate art of the ballet. It may be said, perhaps, that this is the
manner in which the so-called interpretations, to which objection has
been made, have been evolved. But this is to ignore the distinction
between so definite a theme as the graceful movements of a swan, known
and accepted by all men, and such an abstraction as Night, of which the
conception must be arbitrary, and for that reason probably different
from the one upon which the musician, nominally interpreted, has
proceeded.

Pavlova is at her best (inevitably) when limited to the true functions
of her art. As with Nijinsky, the dance is her proper medium of
expression, though perhaps not so wholly. In some of her performances
she displays a facile power of extrinsic gesture suggestive of qualities
as mime which whet the desire to see her in dramatic ballet. The
distribution of her favours betwixt Pierrot and Harlequin, her jealous
partners when she dances, as Columbine, in Drigo’s “Pas de Trois,” is
inspired by coquetry as frivolous and mirthful as the airy gaiety which
her nimble feet express. In “L’Automne Bacchanale” there is a passion
and a fervour which owe something to the actress’ art as well as to the
dancer’s. It may seem idle to attempt a discrimination between two
things so nearly identical, but seeing the view so commonly held in this
country of dancing--that it consists merely of the rhythmic movement of
the limbs according to certain arbitrary rules, the greatest of dancers
being no more than the exponent of a perfect technique--it is perhaps
worth while to lay stress upon the part which temperament must play.

Possibly “L’Automne Bacchanale” is not the best illustration to cite of
the dancer’s conscious art; no one of the least susceptibility, it may
be supposed, certainly not Pavlova, could fail to respond to Glazounov’s
tempestuous music. Who has been spectator of that brilliant episode that
did not feel his pulses quicken, and thrilling through his veins an
echo, however faint, of the pæan of youth and love and joy? Pavlova at
all events, if not her compatriots, has been able to recapture something
of the old Greek ardour.

But Pavlova’s sheer grace can never fail of appreciation. It would be an
egregious philistine who could find her, even in most conventional and
academic vein, other than a delight to the eye. Her superb mastery of
technique, if nothing else, must command his admiration. But it is her
distinction that she delights not merely the eye, but the intelligence;
behind all that she does is the artist’s instinct of selection and
co-ordination. Other dancers one has seen who moved prettily, took
graceful poses, displayed a nice appreciation of rhythm--yet showed
themselves no more than elegant dabblers, failing to achieve the unity
which proceeds alone from a true artistic impulse. Pavlova does nothing
meaningless. Her least step is full of intention, and an intention made
convincingly apparent. It may be the lightest, airiest conceit--a
butterfly’s capricious hovering, for example, so daintily suggested in
“Les Papillons,” or the roguish mirth she reads into the well-known
pizzicato passage of the “Sylvia” ballet music--but her art can make
where a touch less sensitive would mar.

But in such a case as this it is idle to attempt description, and
comparisons are equally futile. One must be content with a single word
of highest praise, and say that Pavlova, like every true artist, is
unique.







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