ROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE COSTUMES FOR THE BALLETS RUSSES 1909-1933 • national gallery of australia © National Gallery of Austral ia, Ca nberra ACT 2600, 1998. Thi s publi cation accompanies the ex hibition From Russia with Love: All rights reserved. No pa rt of th is publication may be reproduced Costumes for the Ballets Russes 1909- 1933 orga nised by the or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or National Gallery of Australia and curated by Roger Leong mechanica l, including photocopy, record ing, or any information and Christine Dixon, National Ga llery of Australia. retr ieva l system, w ithout permiss ion in w riting from the publisher. Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth Ed ited des igned and produced by the Pub li cations Department 6 Feb ruary- 5 Apri I 1999 of the National Gi:dl ery of Austra lia, Ca nberra. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Des igned by Kirsty Morriso n 15 May- 1 August 1999 Edited by Susa n Hall Co lour separations by Co lou rboxDigita l Printed by Lamb Printers LENDERS TO THE EXHIBITION CONTRIBUTORS The Australian Ballet, M elbourne Roger Leong is Ass istant Curator, Intern ational Decorative Arts, A.A. Bakhrushin State Centra l Theatre M useum, Moscow Nati onal Gallery of Australi a, Ca nberra. Comi te Andre Masson, Paris Natalia Metelitsa is Deputy D irector, Hea d of Research and Intern ational Relations at the St Pete rsburg State Museum Musee national d'art moderne- Centre de creation industr iell e, ofTheatre and Music, St Petersb urg. Ce ntre Georges Pompidou, Paris Nancy Van Norman Baer was Curator, Th eater and Dance National Film and So und Archive, Ca nberra Collection, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Osterreichisches Th eatermuseum, Vienna Lynn Garafola is a free lance dance critic and historian livi ng in New Yo rk. St Petersburg State Museum ofThea tre and M usic Sarah Woodcock is Research Ass istant at the Theatre M useum Theatre Museum, Victori a and A lbert Museum, London of the Victoria and A lbert Museum, London. Victori a and Albert Museum, London Michelle Potter is Manage r of the Keep Dancing project, Nati onal Film and Sound Arch ive, Ca nberra. Cataloguing-in-Publication-data From Ru ss ia w ith love: costumes for the Bal lets ru sses 1909- 193 3 ISBN 0 642 5411 6 7 1. Diaghilev, Serge, 1872 - 1929 - Exh ibitions. 2. Ballets russes­ Exhibitions. 3. Ballet - Costume - Exhibitions. 4. Ball et - Stage­ settin g and sce nery - Exhibitions. I. Leong, Roger, 1961 - . II. National Gallery of Austra li a. 792.80940749471 (front cover) Alexandre Benois Costu me for a musician in Le Pavilion d'Armide (deta il ) National Ga llery of Australia, Ca nberra © Alexandre Benois, 1909/ADAGP, Reproduced by permi ss ion of VISCO PY Ltd, Sydney (back cover) Michel Larionov Costume des ign for the Chief Clown in Chout Victoria and A lbert Museum, London © M ichel Lari onov, 1915/ADAGP. Reproduced by perm iss ion of VISCO PY Ltd, Syd ney (fronti sp iece) Count Jean de Strelecki Portrait of Serge Diaghilev St Pete rsburg State Muse um of Th eatre and Music U HE SEXUAL ICONOGRAPHY OF THE BALLETS RUSSES The Ballets Ru sses transformed just about every aspect of ballet during th e twenty yea rs of its existence. From the art of ball et to its enterpri se and audience, nothing was left untouched. In the wake of Serge Diaghilev there could be no question of returning to th e past without ackn owledging the profound changes wrought or set in motion by his company. This being th e case, it is indeed curious that the company's influence on th e iconographi c representation of ballet has been largely ignored. Although certain images are invoked ad infinitum, they are seldom viewed within th e larger context of dance iconography or as conveying certain ideas about gender. In fact, th ey are prima fac ie evidence of a newly forged link between ballet and the elite homosexual milieux that were attracted to the Ballets Russes. Ball et before Diaghilev, especially in the West, was a largely fema le world. Most dancers were women, including those who partnered th em pretend ing to be young men, and most ballets had heroines as their protagonists . In Paris as in London, femal e pu lchritude was at a premium. 'Young and pretty dancers required immediately', advertised the Nouvea u-Th eatre in 1897, th e sa me yea r th at Panorama Paris s'amuse- an album of photographs of the Opera's leading dance rs - displayed them, according to an an nouncement in Figaro, in a 'hundred delicious attitudes of coquetry, passion, or gra ce'.' It was the great subject of Edgar Degas, this Opera ballet world of the late nineteenth century, with its evan es cent tulle and careless physicality, a ghetto of the feminine off-l imits to men, except for the occasiona l voyeur. Degas was not alone in treating the Opera this way. However, in the pa intings of Georges Clairin (think of his portrait of Virginia Zucchi in the Bibliotheque de l'Opera ) or the drawings of Paul Renouard , the erotic appeal is overt, as it is in posters of the period and the titillating dressing room photographs. Th e many postca rds of dance rs suggest the popularity and ambiguous appea l of such images. Th e Ballets Ru sses did not bring an end to this trade in images . It did alter their content and the means by w hich they circulated. Rath er than fema le, the subject nearl y always was male and the image usually published in a limited -edition format. Male dancing was certainly one of th e grea t revel ations of Diaghilev's earl y ballet seasons. However, it was not th e 'straights' featured in those seasons - Mikhail Mordkin, Adolph Bolm, Michel Fokin e, the two Koslov brothers - w ho in sp ired the new iconography, but rath er the sexuall y ambiguous Vasl av Nijinsky. To be sure, Nijinsky was a magnificent dancer, the star around whom Diaghi lev built virtually his entire pre-war rep ertory. But he was also Diaghi lev's lover, the only dancer (with th e partial exception ofTamara Kars avina and Ida Rubinstein) to enjoy entree into the privileged circles in w hich Diaghilev trave lled. Among these was the eli te homosexual world of Jea n Cocteau and Comte Robert de Montesquieu, Baron de Meyer and Princesse de Polignac, Marcel Proust and Romaine Brooks - the core, 'insider' audience for the albums by George Barbier, Paul Iribe, Georges Lepape, and Robert Montenegro 2 that now borrowed th e iconography of 'decadence' and Art Nouveau to 'homoeroticise' the body of th e Ba ll ets Ru sses star. (left) George Barbier N ijinsky as th e Golden Slave and Rubinste in as Zobeide in Scheherazade from Designs on the Dances o fVas lav Nijinsky National Ga llery of Austra lia Resea rch Library, Ca nberra (oppos ite) Auguste Bert Nijinsky as the Golden Slave in Scheherazade from E.O. Hoppe, Studies fro m the Russian Ballet National Ga llery of Australia, Ca nberra 56 57 58 60 Beaumont goes on to contrast Nijinsky with Adolph Bolm, 'the true embodiment of manlike vigour and masculine virility'. He recalls Bolm, the company's principal character dancer, as he appeared in his most famous role, the Polovtsian chief in Oanses polovtsiennes du Prince Igor (The Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor), a warrior 'mad with triumph and excited with the lust of war', leaping wildly, bow held high while amid arrows 'loosed in sheer frenzy'. 'Roles such as [this]', concludes Beaumont, 'are impossible for Nijinsky.'1 2 Although he had a riveting stage presence, Nijinsky was not especially good-looking. This was hardly the case of his successor, Leonide Massine, whom Diaghi lev discovered at th e Bolshoi, made the star of La U!gende de joseph (The Legend of Joseph), and marketed as a beautifu I boy as well as his latest discovery. However Massine, although living with Diaghilev for nearly seven years, did not present himself as homosexual. Where Nijinsky had drawn attention to his body, Massine did just the opposite. Indeed, nearly all the roles he choreographed for himself during this period, from the Chinese Conjuror in Parade to the C~n-Can Dancer in La Boutique fantasque (The Magical Toyshop), either masked his body or made it comic or grotesque in some way, more often than not effectively neutering it. In fact, Massine did nothing to capitalise on his good looks. He refused to be a pin-up, gay or straight. The young men who succeeded him in Diaghilev's affections could not have been more different. For one thing they were savvier: they knew the game and were happy to play it. 13 For another, they had no qualms about flaunting their charms in public. There is a photograph of Anton Dolin as Beau Gosse in the 1924 beach ballet Le Train bleu (The Blue Train). 14 He wears an old-fashioned bathing suit, with straps over the shoulders and cut low in front, revealing well-developed pectorals. His gaze is unabashedly direct, not a question, or an appeal, but a statement and a challenge: Here I am, take me. This gaze, strong, direct and seductive, also appears in the pictures of Serge Lifar taken by Man Ray and other photographers in the years that followed. Lifar was Diaghi lev's last leading man, George Balanchine's first Apollo and Prodigal Son , a diamond in the rough remade as a Deco god.