PARIS MODERN THE SWEDISH BALLET 1920-1925 Nancy Vim Norman Baer with contributions by Jan Torsten Ahlstrand William Camfield Judi Freeman Lynn Garafola Gail Levin Robert~.~urdock Erik Naslund Anna Greta Stahle FINE ARTS MUSEUMS OF SAN FRANCISCO Distributed by the University of Washington Press ~~ETS SJ". ~~ v~ .:z;.~ ~0 f.... ~ RIVALS FOR THE NE-W Lynn Garafola n the early 192 0S the Ballets Russes faced a rival had been a "turn" on the English music-hall stage, while that challenged its monopoly of avant-garde ballet its grand postwar comeback at the Paris Opera early in I -the Ballets Suedois. Organized by Rolf de Mare, 1920 had been marred by a two-week strike of Opera the new company made its debut at the Theatre des personnel. And where the opening season of the Ballets Champs-Elysees on 25 October 1920 with an ambitious Suedois would offer fifty-odd performances, the Ballets program of works choreographed by Jean Borlin, the Russes season that followed would consist of fewer than company's star. Four ballets were given on the opening a dozen. night-Iberia, Jeux (Games), Derviches (Dervishes), and Still, Diaghilev must have found some consolation in Nuit de Saint-Jean (Saint John's Night, or Midsummer the identity-or lack of identity-of the rival enterprise. Night's Revel)-and in the course of the season, which To all appearances the new company was a knock-off of lasted for nearly six weeks, five new ones were added­ the Ballets Russes, from its name, which meant "Swedish Diver1:isse71lent, Maison de flus (Madhouse), Le To71lbeau Ballet," to its repertory, roster of collaborators, and de Couperin (The Tomb of Couperin), El Greco, and Les general aesthetic approach. Indeed, most of the works Vierges folies (The Foolish Virgins). The premiere was a presented during the troupe's maiden season recalled its glamorous affair. Serge Diaghilev, anxious to weigh the Russian predecessor. Iber-ia, for instance, drew on the potential threat to his own enterprise (then performing Spanish idiom of Le Tricome (1919); El Greco on the in London), braved a Channel crossing for a glimpse painterly approach of Las Meninas (1916); and Nuit de of the new company, which ended its season only days Saint-Jean on the stylized neoprimitivism of Le Soleil before his Ballets Russes was scheduled to open at the de nuit (1916). The eighteenth-century setting of Le same theater. To71lbeau de Couper-in (Fig. I) was reminiscent of Le Diaghilev had genuine cause for concern. The Ballets Pavillon d'Armide (1909), while the Chopin music and Russes had managed to survive the First World War, but romantic style of Diver1:isse71lent and Pas de deux invoked financially its position was shaky. Rich Russian patrons Les Sylphides (1909).1 Jeux, premiered by the Ballets had disappeared with the Revolution, German touring Russes in 1913 and now recreated by the Ballets Suedois, venues with the Axis defeat. For months the company testified even more dramatically to de Mares adoption Fig. 2 PAUL COLIN Jean Biidin, I924, cat. no. IS. 68 69 BALLETS SUEDOIS BALLETS SUEDOIS of the Diaghilev recipe. Not only did de Mare model his initial repertory on Sue dais that of the Ballets Russes, he also enlisted a number of donneront leur spec: Diaghilev collaborators. These included the composers taclet' d'ouf:)'l!rture Ie Claude Debussy (]eux and La Botte it joujoux [The Toy­ ~iiliiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiliiiiiii __ 20 Nof:Jemfbre' au~~ ____~iiiO Box]) and Maurice Ravel (Le Tombeau de Coupe1'in), the ~;h'fJt;"e. des Champs=Elysees painter Pierre Bonnard (who designed the scenery for Les ~allets Suedo.is Jeux), and the poet Jean Cocteau (who created Les sont les seuls qui U OSENT" Mariis de la Tour Eifiel [The Newlyweds on the Eiffel Les7Jallets Suedois ' LetS 1jallets J'uedois Tower]). De Mare also drew on key Diaghilev collabora­ sont' les seuls re~ sont les seuls, qlJi tive ideas. Rejecting the nineteenth-century specialist prisentati/s deJa soienf Vraiment Vie c'!ntemporaine contre I'acadi.. tradition, he commissioned stage designs from easel -----.CONTRE m{sme. ' painters and scores from symphonic composers, free­ lancers who formed the company's larger creative com­ TOUS munity. He viewed ballet as a fully collaborative medium L~"S where artists met as equals and performance combined the functions of art gallery, concert hall, and theatrical AC. A' 1) EM. ISI'M ,ES showcase. "Modern ballet," he wrote in 1926, "is ... the synthetic fusion of four fundamentally divergent arts: Les Ballets Suedois Les ~alletsSuedois sont' les seuls qui ne chert:fi'ent pas choreography, painting, music, and literature .... The puissent plaire, au ii 2tre, ~nclims, ne public internatio. c herchen t pas a Swedish Ballet has always held as its principle the inti­ nal' parce que ,2tre modernes; ils Roll de Mar.. ne sont en dehors 'des mate association of the [se] four arts ... [which] mutually pense qu'au plaj. absurditi.s que supplement one another [and] offer the possible sir de l'iVoltltion. I'on nous montre Fig. I sous pretexte approach to a perfect totality."2 Jean Bodin and Carina Ari in Le Tonzbeau de Coupe1'in, Paris, I92O, d'ART THE/J.­ cat. no. I93. TRAL; ils Vont Finally, like Diaghilev before him, de Mare used the propal1er,'la 'RE. exotica of folklore to define the national character of his VOLUTION par VIVE un mouVement enterprise. Even if a number of dancers were actually d'ou les cbnVen. tions sont chaque Danish,) the display of traditional Swedish costumes, dred musicians were hired for the opening season alone. jour detruite~ pour y effie remplacees themes, and dances in works like Nuit de Saint-Jean Posters were commissioned from Paul Colin (Fig. 2), LA VIE par 1'liitlention. and Dansgille (Dance Feast or Dances at a Gathering) Francis Picabia, and Miguel Covarrubias. certified the company's "native" identity. Nonetheless, To ensure the proper environment for his enterprise Fig. 3 like the Ballets Russes, the Ballets Suedois was preemi­ de Mare took a seven-year lease on the Theatre des Publicity leaflet for the Ballets Suedois, I921. nently a showcase for the modern. The company's scores Champs-Elysees, the magnificent art-nouveau theater (apart from the traditional music for its Swedish works) where Le Sacre du printemps had received its premiere. were either new or recently minted; its decors reflected He founded La Danse, the only Paris dance magazine Only the Ballets Suidois "DARES. " impeccable avant-garde credentials, including Prokofiev's current trends in painting and stage design; its choreog­ of the period, which chronicled the activities of the com­ Only the Ballets Suidois represents contemporary life. Chout and Stravinsky's Le Renard, it was only in 1923 raphy explored contemporary idioms and styles. The pany at length, while according the Ballets Russes only Only the Ballets Suidois is truly against academicism. that Diaghilev staged a modernist masterpiece that tran­ organization of the company also followed the lines qf a fraction of the coverage. De Mare also acquired the AGAINST ALL ACADEMICISMS. scended the best of his rival's offerings. Les Noces, proba­ its predecessor. Privately financed, it was a vehicle for publications Le Monsieu1', Paris-Journal, and Le Thiiltn. Only the Ballets Suidois can please an international public bly the greatest dance work of the decade, teamed three its male star, de Mares protege and lover Jean Borlin. This last was a glossy monthly that merged with Comoedia because Rolf de Mar'i thinks only about the pleasure of evolu­ of his closest Russian collaborators: Stravinsky as com­ If imitation is any measure of success, Diaghilev had illustTi in 1922, eliminating another source of publicity tion. The Ballets Suidois seeks neither to be old nor to be poser, Natalia Goncharova as designer, and Bronislava good reason to be flattered by the new venture. for the Ballets Russes, whose programs for years had modern; it stands beyond the absurdities mounted under the Nijinska as choreographer. For the most part, however, The Ballets Suedois had resources, however, of which appeared as inserts in the semimonthly magazine. pretext of THEATRICAL ART; it propagates REVOL U­ the productions of these years reveal a Diaghilev more Diaghilev could only dream. De Mare, a millionaire, The new company quickly struck out on its own. A TION by a movement that eve1Y day destroys convention by closely attuned to the conservative temper of the Right poured a fortune into the company. The dancers wore publicity leaflet (Fig. 3) for its November 1921 season, 1'eplacing it with invention. Bank than to the dadaist atmosphere of Montparnasse. costumes from the ateliers of Marie Muelle and Max which opened in Paris just weeks after the London pre­ LONG LIVE LIFE.4 From Le Mariage d'Aur01'e and Le Spect1'e de la rose, high Weldy, leading Paris costume houses, and dresses by miere of Diaghilev's The Sleeping Princess, announced the points of the 1922 season, to Les Tentations de la be1'gl:n, the couturiere Jeanne Lanvin. The sets were executed change in direction in the provocative tones of a dada Between I92I and 1924 de Mare largely succeeded in Cimarosina, and the series of nineteenth-century by Georges Mouveau, the Opera's head scene painter. manifesto and in terms that cast the Ballets Russes as a edging Diaghilev to the sidelines of avant-garde Paris. operas-Emmanuel Chabrier's Une Education manquie, Guest conductors were sometimes brought in and, on reactionary bogeyman: Although the Ballets Russes produced a few works with Charles Gounod's La Colombe, Le Midecin malgTi lui, and occasion, soloists and even special orchestras: one hun- 7 0 7 I BALLETS SUEDOIS BALLETS SUEDOIS Jean Hugo, his wife, Valentine Gross Hugo, and Irene Lagut; writers Paul Morand and Raymond Radiguet; and the composers of the group recently baptized "Les Six"-Louis Durey, Georges Auric, Francis Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre, Arthur Honegger, and Darius Milhaud.