29 May marks the 100th anniversary of the first presentation of Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) in 1913 in the then newly built Th\u00e9atre des Champs-Elys\u00e9es\u00a0 designed by August Perret in the then new Art D\u00e9co style. \u00a0The music of Igor Strvinsky, the sets and costumes of Nicholas Roerich, the choreography of Vaslav Nijinski \u2014 all brought together by the impresario Serge Diaghilev \u2014 set the stage for the divide between the \u201cold\u201d and the \u201cnew\u201d, made obvious to all by the start of the 1914-1918 World War and the 1917 Russian Revolution.<\/p>\n
The first performance went down in theatrical history because of the reaction of the public between those who championed the new forms of music and dance and those violently opposed. The reactions began with the first notes of music and continued through much of the performance although the theatre lights were turned on, and many people are braver to attack in the dark than in the light.\u00a0 Diaghilev was not unhappy with the publicity which followed, having in part foreseen the reaction and had placed his\u00a0 supporters including the modern composer Maurice Ravel, the poet Leon-Paul Fargue and the artist-writer Jean Cocteau in the first rows to prevent opponents from setting onto the stage.\u00a0 The young and sensitive Stravinsky was deeply hurt by the opposition but, as became his habit, blamed others \u2014 in this case Vaslav Nijinski and his innovative choreography.<\/p>\n
The Sacre du Printemps was the high point of Diaghilev\u2019s career as a person who wanted to create a synthesis of the arts \u2014 painting, music, dance, and literature.\u00a0 He had long proposed such a synthesis as the editor of an avant-guard cultural journal in St-Petersburg Mir Ishousstva. <\/i>He brought people from <\/i>different art forms together.\u00a0 Diaghilev had already introduced Russian painting to Paris \u2014 then the center of the international art world \u2014<\/i> followed by opera and ballet starting in 1909 with his Ballets Russes.\u00a0 Thus the elite public in Paris were already aware of Diaghilev\u2019s epoch-making efforts and of Vaslav Nijinski as a lead dancer, though not as a choreographer as the Sacre was his first public effort.\u00a0 \u201cLe tout Paris\u201d (as government ministers, society hostesses, artists, journalists, couturiers were called) was present for the performance to see new marriages of style and content. <\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>Diaghilev had brought in 1911 the young Stravinsky to work with Nicholas Roerich, already well known as a painter and folklorist-archaeologist who had already done diggings on early mounds in Russia and was highly interested in early Slavic and Nordic migrations in Russia. The two men worked together for two summers on the theme of early Slavic rituals.\u00a0 Roerich and Stravinsky were listed as co-librettists. Nijinsky gave equal rank to the two \u2014 Roerich having suggested some of the ritualistic steps during the rehearsals and the sets and costumes largely suggested the circular forms of the shamanistic ceremonies.<\/p>\n
The 1913 Paris audience was little aware of the traditions and symbolism of early Slavic culture.\u00a0 They took the death of the Chosen Maiden as unnecessary killing, an anti-humanitarian scenario, when, in fact, she is not a victim but a willing sacrifice for the good of the community.\u00a0 Later during the Soviet period in Russia, in one version of the ballet in 1962 a \u201cSoviet soldier\u201d comes to the rescue of the maiden, sweeping her out of danger, thus taking all religious sense from the story.<\/p>\n
The Sacre music was quickly transformed into concert music under the direction of Pierre Monteux who had also conducted the music for the dramatic opening.<\/p>\n
The Nijinski version of the Sacre was only produced in 1913, several times in Paris and then London without strong reactions but with a real public interest.\u00a0 Najinski and Diaghilev were in a homosexual relationship. At a moment when Diaghilev was away, Nijinski married a woman admirer, the Hungarian Romola de Pulsky. Late in 1913, on his return, Diaghilev pushed Nijinski out of the Ballets Russes and asked his new choreographer (and lover) Leonide Massine to create a new, less dramatic version.<\/p>\n
Later, in the 1980s, Milicent Hodson, a US dance scholar and Kenneth Archer, an English art historian and specialist on Roerich, were able to piece together from drawings of Valentine Gross, photos and interviews with Marie Rambert who had been Nijinski\u2019s assistant in 1913 what Nijinski\u2019s choreography was. It was first represented in 1987 in Los Angeles by the Robert Joffrey Ballet.<\/p>\n
The 100th<\/sup> anniversary is a reminder of inter-cultural influences and the way a small group of highly innovative persons can begin a deep and long-lasting trend.<\/p>\n ____________________________<\/p>\n Ren\u00e9 Wadlow, a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and of its Task Force on the Middle East, is president and U.N. representative (Geneva) of the Association of\u00a0World\u00a0Citizens. He is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 29 May marks the 100th anniversary of the first presentation of Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) in 1913 in the then newly built Th\u00e9atre des Champs-Elys\u00e9es designed by August Perret in the then new Art D\u00e9co style.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[167],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}