Drinking Companions – The Prodigal Son: Rex Tilton, Nathaniel King, David Kim, Christopher Anderson, Alexander MacFarlan, Beau Pearson, John Frazer, Aaron Orlowski, Aidan DeYoung and Kate Crews as The Siren

Les Biches – From  Left to Right:  Thomas Mattingly, Silver Barkes, Katie Chritchlow, Josey Silva, Jacquelin Straughan, Michael Bearden, Elizabeth McGrath, Stephanie Fenz, Emily Adams, Jennifer Robinson, Allison DeBona, Elizabeth Murphy, Megan Furse, Jason Linsley, Heather Thackeray  Photo by Beau Pearson

-Mark

In the corps de ballet of The Polovtsian Dances, on the Diaghilev opening night was an 18 year old woman, a recent graduate of the Imperial School in St. Petersburg, Bronislava Nijinska, the younger sister of the great male star of the company Vaslav Nijinsky.  “That evening we were all inspired by the excitement in the Theatre and danced burning with the fire and spirit of wild untamed Tartars.  In the finale, in the mad rush fowards as we made to “attack” the public, I remember that I had a strong feeling that I must restrain my elan or I would end the dance in the orchestra pit!”

Years later, matured by several seasons dancing with both Diaghilev and the Maryinsky Theatre, and having endured the privations of World War I and the Russian Revolution and more personally the loss to insanity of her beloved brother, Nijinska found herself the chief choreographer of the Ballets Russes.  Diaghilev entrusted her with the commissioned Stravinsky score for Les Noces in 1923 and then gave her a very different score by Francis Poulenc in 1924. With decor and costumes by Marie Laurencin, the ballet, finally entitled Les Biches which premiered in Monte Carlo, was essentially very French and Diaghilev had qualms about giving the job to a Russian, although she was admittedly  extremely talented.  He wrote during the rehearsal process to a friend, “The choreography has delighted and astonished me.  But then, this good woman intemperate and antisocial as she is, does belong to the Nijinsky family.”  The ballet, whose ironic title means “the little darlings” was the hit of the season and speaks loudly of its time, the roaring 20′s.  Nijinska herself was “the hostess” and a sofa was considered one of the leading characters.  The simple velvet jacket worn by one of the female leads, created quite a stir at the time.

Bronislava Nijinska with Georgina Parkinson.         Kate Crews as “The Hostess” – the role Nijinska originated.

Carol Shults was Company Instructor/Historian for Oregon Ballet Theatre from 1989 to 1997.

-Mark

It’s going to be stunning!

Christiana Bennett as the Siren – Pamela Robinson Harris, Elyse Borne and Members of Ballet West watching.

Christopher Sellars carried by “Friends” Owen Gaj, Jason Chinea and followed by “Drinking Companions”.

Kate Crews and Thomas Mattingly with “Friends” and “Drinking Companions”.

Christiana Bennett and Christopher Sellars

-Mark

Dear Mark,

I am so happy you have asked me to write about the Ballets Russes for your Ballet West blog.  The spring program, commemorating the hundred year anniversary of the Diaghilev company’s arrival in Paris, is beautifully planned to pay homage to one of the most spectacular events in the cultural history of the 20th century.  In fact, if I were allowed to choose one arts event of the whole century to see in person, I would ask to attend the opening on May 19th, 1909 at the Chatelet Theatre of the Diaghilev Ballets Russes.

“Everything dazzling, intoxicating, enchanting, seductive had been assembled and put on that stage,” wrote Anna de Noailles, poet and member of the first-night audience.  Sophisticated Paris was conquered to a degree we can only imagine by the brilliance and exoticism of the Russian company created by the 37 year-old Russian aristocrat Sergei Diaghilev, who was neither dancer nor choreographer nor musician nor visual artist, but whose instinct for the best, the newest, the most theatrically daring in all the arts was uncanny.

As an impresario he had presented, in the years before 1909, seasons of Russian art and music and opera.  These had laid the groundwork for the ballet season, in which the cream of the Maryinsky and Bolshoi dancers were shown in innovative ballets by the hot young choreographer, Mikhail Fokine, who had been taking on the establishment in St. Petersburg and for whom the greatest dancers – Anna Pavlova, Vaslav Nijinksy, Tamara Karsavina – would simply have laid down their lives.  It was Diaghilev’s genius to surround these artists with the work of the best scenic designers in sumptuous, sexy productions that knocked Paris on its ear that year and continued to do so until his death twenty years later.

On that opening night a hundred years ago the runaway hit was a ballet by Fokine (designed as part of the opera Prince Igor by Borodin), The Polovtsian Dances.  The entire Act III  of the opera was presented (with the great Russian Basso, Feodor Chaliapin) but it was the impassioned dancing of Adolph Bolm as leader of the Tartar horde that swept Paris off its feet.  The decor and costumes were the work of Russian artist Nicholas Roerich (whose work would again electrify Paris a few years later in Le Sacre du Printemps.) Part of the impact of these virile male dancers had to be due to the fact that male dancing in Paris had been eclipsed for over half a century by the dominance of the “ballerina.”  The best French male dancers and choreographers (Perrot, St. Leon, Petipa) had simply gone to Russia to practice their art!

Carol Shults was Company Instructor/Historian for Oregon Ballet Theatre from 1989 to 1997.

-Mark