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Ballets Russes Redux
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15578 |
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THE ARTS
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| Issue
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2 / 1989 |
2,098 Words |
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Nancy Dalva
Nancy Dalva writes on dance from New York City. |
The 1913 Paris premiere of Le Sacre du printemps is ballet's most notorious opening night, a succes de scandale that turned the Theatre Champs Elysees into Bedlam. (Amid the catcallers and chair bangers, the choreographer's mother fainted in her seat and a single-minded Pierre Monteux continued to conduct his orchestra while the producer demanded from his box that the clamorous audience let the show go on.) Four more performances in Paris, perhaps three in London, and that was that. The Diaghilev Ballets Russes production of Vaslav Nijinsky's ballet vanished.
The New York premiere of the Joffrey Ballet's reconstructed Sacre almost seventy-five years later was the occasion of a gathering of dance critics and historians from around the world and a conference devoted to Sacre studies. Robert Joffrey succeeded in his lifetime in doing what Serge Diaghilev could not do in his: He made Sacre a box office hit. His production was the most longed for, talked about, and debated revival in the history of dance.
It was his penultimate achievement. Already in failing health when Sacre came to City Center in the fall, the founder and director of the Joffrey Ballet was bedridden by the time his new Nutcracker--his last production--first worked its wintry spell. He died March 25, 1988, at 57 a beloved figure throughout the dance world.
Diaghilev Program
Last fall the Joffrey Ballet called the first three weeks of its New York run "The Robert Joffrey Memorial Season." (On the program cover was a photograph of Joffrey, casually attired, standing in front of a giant American flag.) Included were four performances of the "Diaghilev Program," composed of Michel Fokine's Petrouchka and two Nijinsky ballets--L'Apres-midi d'un faune and Le Sacre du printemps.
It was New York's second chance to see Sacre--that is, the second chance to see this Sacre. A staggering number of dances have been choreographed to Igor Stravinsky's landmark score. (Nijinsky's was, of course, the first.) The Rite of Spring can be the longest thirty-six minutes of one's life, or the shortest, depending on the choreographer. Stravinsky himself (according to Bronislave Nijinska's Early Memoris) preferred the Nijinsky version: "Of all the interpretations of Sacre that I have seen," he said in 1967, "I consider Nijinsky's the best."
He was not alone. Somehow, over the years,
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