Previous Installments:
I. "Two Characters in the Cast: Serge Diaghilev and Igor Stravinsky"
II. "Enter Emile Jaques-Dalcroze"
III. "Two Trends"
IV. Two New Characters
V. Le Sacre’s Predecessors: L’Oiseau de Feu and Petrouchka
VI. Perspective of Time
Foundations VII
Playing Detective: Whodunnit?
The seventh in a series
of articles tracing the historic convergence of people and ideas that culminated
in the cataclysmic 1913 premiere of Le Sacre du Printemps, and exploring
the impact of that revolution today.
Previous
Installments:
I.
"Two
Characters in the Cast: Serge Diaghilev and Igor Stravinsky"
II.
"Enter Emile
Jaques-Dalcroze"
III.
"Two Trends"
IV.
Two New Characters
V. Le Sacre’s Predecessors:
L’Oiseau de Feu and Petrouchka
VI.
Perspective of Time
In art, as in politics, “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.” So it is that the origin of Le Sacre du Printemps is even more murky than Petrouchka’s. In researching how the basic idea for Le Sacre evolved, I discovered three people who've been credited with the original idea: Diaghilev, Nijinsky, and Stravinsky.
Here are the stories. You decide!
Stravinsky
In his autobiography, Stravinsky claims credit:
One day, when I was finishing the last pages of l’Oiseau
de Feu, in St. Petersburg, I had a fleeting vision which came to me as a
complete surprise, my mind at the moment being full of other things. I saw in
imagination a solemn pagan rite: sage elders, seated in a circle, watched a
young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing her to propitiate the
god of spring. Such was the theme of the Sacre du Printemps. I must
confess that this vision made a deep impression on me, and I at once described
it to my friend, Nicholas Roerich, he being a painter who had specialized in
pagan subjects. He welcomed my inspiration with enthusiasm, and became my
collaborator in this creation. In Paris I told Diaghileff about it, and he was
at once carried away by the idea… 1
Diaghilev
Serge Lifar, a member of the ballet company at the time, gives a different
account in his biography of Diaghilev:
…Diaghilev was passing through a phase of great enthusiasm for Gauguin, the primitive and pictorial qualities of whose paintings interested him deeply. Thus, he made a point of visiting each of the painter’s exhibitions from the very first – held soon after the latter’s return from Tahiti – to the last. Meanwhile, he had himself conceived the idea of producing a primitive ballet, but decided on a Russian setting, and to this end called on Roerich and Stravinsky, the painter and composer most familiar with our ancient folklore, to join hands with him… 2
Nijinsky
Romola Nijinsky’s version, published in her biography of her husband, offers a third version:
Years ago young Stravinsky had, while composing Fire Bird, conceived of a theme. It was too brutal and strong in its manner to be used in the more magical, delicate Fire Bird. This theme suggested to Stravinsky more than prehistoric Russia. The theme at that time was cast aside. Roerich, the great man on archaic Russia, always hoped Diaghileff would produce an essentially Russian Ballet which would represent, not a period or a mood of the Russian race, like Igor, Fire Bird, or Petrouchka, but the very essence of the soul of the Russians, a sort of national epopee. So Roerich dreamed of the rituals of ancient times… the creative urge of Nijinsky became more pronounced, and… Diaghileff encouraged him in every way to compose. He needed Nijinsky more than ever, but Nijinsky felt that creation should come spontaneously. Luckily for Diaghileff and the Ballet, he was now occupied with a new idea, which grew and clarified itself in his mind from day to day, to create a choreographic tableau where his ideas, his school of dancing, could be developed in full. To do this he had to take an archaic period, a primitive emotion. He wished to return to the creative moment, and chose the primitive period of Russia, the worshipping of nature and its rites. He told his idea to Diaghileff, who exclaimed excitedly, “How strange! Roerich’s secret desire.” So he brought the three together, and Nijinsky’s wish that a ballet should not be composed on existing music, scenery, or story could now be carried out. Here the librettist, musician, and maitre de ballet were obeying one and the same inspiration, and so their composition was started simultaneously. 3
Playing Detective: Which account to believe?
We know that Diaghilev interrupted the progress of Le Sacre, after its commission, in order to produce Petrouchka. So we can infer that he wasn’t overwhelmed with inspiration, to the point of hyperfocus, on Le Sacre. It’s certainly possible that the Russian neo-primitive movement in art was a factor in Diaghilev’s thinking, but this was more likely an influence on him rather than his own discovery. The Russian painter Aleksandr (Vasilievich) Shevchenko pioneered the term “Neo-primitivism” as the title of his 1913 book, so the connection to a Russian art movement was already in the air, rather than a new connection made by Diaghilev after studying the French painter Gauguin’s paintings of Polynesia.
Romola Nijinsky’s account is questionable if only because of its context – the context being the rest of her book. From my research, it seems she was prone to embellishing and even inventing events to cast her husband’s life in the light she chose. In the passage above alone, she attributes Diaghilev’s entire artistic vision to Nijinksy; this is not only uncorroborated, it contradicts several sources that describe Nijinksy’s difficulties with the work. So I’d write her off as fairly implausible.
Stravinsky’s version gains some credibility as a first-hand account, rather than a secondary source. The fact that he took the initiative in Le Sacre’s early development also suggests that he may have been its originator. In 1911, he joined Roerich (who was residing at Talashkino, the estate of Princess Tenishev, near Smolensk) where the two discussed the visual aspects of the work and decided upon the sequence of the scenes.
According to some sources, Stravinsky completed the first draft, and revised it with Fokine’s assistance, in 1910;4 however, Stravinsky himself maintains he wasn’t able to work on Le Sacre at that time because of his involvement in Petroucka. 5
The one thing all these versions have in common is Roerich. If only we could ask him today!
P.S. Why Nijinsky?
One more mystery concerns when and why Nijinsky was chosen as choreographer. According to some accounts, Fokine had resigned from the company, and the only other choreographer, Boris Romanoff, was preoccupied. This suggests that Diaghliev may have had no other choice.6 However, Stravinsky wrote that Nijinsky was unable to finish choreography in time for the 1912 season, and therefore Le Sacre was postponed until the following year.7 These two statements present a conflict. Both Daphne et Chloe (Fokine) and L’Apres-Midi d’un Faune (Nijinsky) premiered in 1912. Fokine left the company that year, yet Stravinsky states that this was the year Nijinksy’s Le Sacre was originally to be performed. In other words, it seems likely that Fokine hadn’t yet resigned when Diaghilev appointed Nijinsky to choreograph Le Sacre. In that case, Diaghilev’s motivation for appointing Nijinsky to Le Sacre was not one of necessity, but rather a contemplated choice between the two choreographers.
It’s commonly recognized that Diaghilev was eager to promote Nijinsky as a choreographer, and this influenced Fokine’s decision to resign. Nijinsky was allowed over a hundred hours of rehearsal time for his 11-minute L’Apres-Midi, while Fokine’s Daphne suffered cuts in time and budget. Perhaps Diaghilev’s decision to give Le Sacre to Nijinsky occurred around the same time, and represented Fokine's "final straw."
However these events occurred, the indisputable facts remain: through some inspiration at some time, a work evoking a primitive Russian ritual was envisioned, developed, and evolved. Stravinsky composed the score; Roerich designed costumes and décor; Nijinsky choreographed the movement; and Paris saw the premiere of a revolutionary work in 1913.
Next time: Back to Jaques-Dalcroze, and his perspective on dance in 1912.
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Copyright Monica Dale 2007