0064m
Poor frenzied man! What is his secret? Why has he come here to see love through a veil of blood—blood which is his own?
AT the head of the Polovtsien warriors in the dances from Borodin's opera "Prince Igor," Bolm has to dance as well as to mime, and very splendidly and fiercely he dances with his bow. This "Prince Igor" ballet lasts only a few minutes, but in those minutes are crowded enough energy, excitement, lightning swift successions of different movements, true healthy barbarity (not the barbarity of decadence), and splendid music to take away all words, all thoughts, but "wonderful"! But those "Prince Igor" dances ought never to have been given without their accompanying songs. It has been the custom lately to leave out the singing, one of those omissions that matter.
0066m
NOTE: An omission of mine that matters is that I haverecalled "Prince Igor" without mentioning the name of SophiaFéodorova, who holds her own in astounding feats of agility,as in fiery spirit with the adolescents in whose evolutionsshe participates. The girl is a wonder at this man's work!
IN this ballet, in the style of the French ballets of the reign of Louis XIV., there is less distinction, I think, than in the others from which Miss Pamela Colman Smith has derived her pictures. The costumes and scenery are "designed by Benois," but any one with a knowledge of the theatre and a Racinet at hand could have done the same sort of thing. And yet as I write this I know I should make the reservation of that "life" which the Russians know how to breathe into everything. What I mean is that Benois gives us no new creation. Karsavina's bird-like grace in her eighteenth-century guise is captivating (oh, that this talented little dancer had more music in her, and did not dance always a fraction off the beat!), and Nijinsky as a wholly unnecessary slave in white satin gives a wonderful exhibition of dancing in the style of the original Ballon who danced at the opera in Paris at the end of the seventeenth century, and gave his name to the kind of classical dancing which consists in elevation.
0068m
NOTE: Bolm as the lover looks very like one of Louis XIV.'ssons, and mimes perfectly. I like the "pas de trois" (themusic of this ballet by Tscherepnin is fascinating), but Iliked it better when it was originally given at the Coliseumas an extract, and danced by Kosloff, Karsavina and Baldina.Our spirited, bounding Nijinska has not got the eighteenth-century style. Oh, I must not forget those dear Bouffons!Their little dance alone makes "Pavilion d'Armide" worthwhile.
THE last drawing in this book is of Nijinsky as Narcisse, and if Narcisse had been apas seulby Nijinsky I am sure that there would have been more to praise in it. For once, the mosaic was all wrong, and so the centre piece could not be all right. I have read enthusiastic accounts of "L'Apres-midi d'un Faune," which Nijinsky himself arranged, making Debussy's music the vehicle for a display of Greek poses, and from Nijinsky's personal performance in "Narcisse" I believe it to be possible that he has succeeded in doing, in "L'Après-midi de un Faune," what Bakst failed to do in "Narcisse. ' ' When, at the end of the ballet, that colossal stage narcissus was jerked up from the stage pool, and the limelight was turned on it, I regretfully saw in that light a limitation in the Russian art. They could not interpret the tranquil repose, the immanent beauty of Greek ideas.
0070m
The whole treatment of the exquisite story of the youth who fell in love with his own beauty, and was drowned seeking to come near its reflection, was heavy-handed, even a little barbarous and ugly. And all the grave movements imprisoned in stone and marble by the sculptors of ancient Greece, all the joyous silhouettes on Greek vases, seemed to remain remote, and secure from the conquest of the devouring Russian, restlessly seeking material for his ballets in all nations and all times. I had a sudden seizure of distrust; it was as though the disdain of the Greek had sapped the foundations of my belief in the justness of the praises lavished on the new dance; but then memories of gestures, colors, bounding movements, freedom of expression given by perfection of technique, came crowding pell-mell into my mind. The frown on a cold marble forehead could not extinguish my joy in the flame of life which burns so ardently in the work of the Russian ballet.