"Russian Seasons" by Sergei Pavlovich Dyagilev
“And what are you, dear, doing here?” Alfonso, the king of Spain, once asked Sergey Dyagilev during a meeting with the famous Russian Seasons entrepreneur. “You do not conduct the orchestra and do not play a musical instrument, do not draw decorations or dance. So what are you doing? " To which he replied: "You and I are alike, Your Majesty! I do not work. I do not do anything. But I cannot do without me."
Organized by Dyagilev "Russian Seasons" were not just propaganda of Russian art in Europe, they became an integral part of European culture of the early twentieth century. and an invaluable contribution to the development of ballet art.
Prehistory "Russian Seasons"
The combination of legal education and interest in music developed in Sergey Dyagilev brilliant organizational skills and the ability to discern talent even in a novice performer, supplemented, in modern terms, with the vein of a manager.
A close acquaintance of Dyagilev with the theater began with the editing of the Yearbook of Imperial Theaters in 1899, when he served at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. Thanks to the assistance of the artists of the group "World of Art", to which the official on special assignments S. Dyagilev belonged, he turned the publication from a meager statistical body into a real art magazine.
When, after a year of work, the editor of the Yearbook, Dygilev, was instructed to organize L. Delibes ballet Silvia, or Nymph Diana, there was a scandal because of the modernist scenery that did not fit into the conservative atmosphere of the theater of that time. Dygilev was fired and he returned to painting, organizing exhibitions of paintings by European artists and "mirisskissniki" in Russia. The logical continuation of this activity in 1906 was the landmark art exhibition at the Paris Autumn Salon. From this event the story of the Seasons began ...
Ups and downs…
Inspired by the success of the Autumn Salon, Dygilev did not want to stop, and, having decided to start touring Russian artists in Paris, he first preferred music. So, in 1907, Sergei Pavlovich organizes "Historical Russian Concerts", the program of which included 5 symphonic concerts of Russian classics, which took place in the Paris Grand Opera, reserved for the Seasons. The high bass of Chaliapin, the choir of the Bolshoi Theater, Nikish's conducting skills and the amazing Hoffmann piano performance captivated the Parisian public. In addition, the carefully selected repertoire, which included excerpts from Ruslan and Lyudmila Glinka, Nights on Christmas, Sadko and Snow Maiden of Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky's Sorceress, Khovanshchina and Boris Godunov Mussorgsky, made a real sensation.
In the spring of 1908, Dyagilev again goes to conquer the hearts of Parisians: this time with an opera. However, "Boris Godunov" gathered a far from complete room and the money raised barely covered the troupe's expenses. It was necessary to urgently solve something.
Knowing what the then public liked, Dyagilev compromised his own principles. He despised the ballet, considering it a primitive entertainment for the same primitive minds, but in 1909 the entrepreneur sensitive to the public mood brought 5 ballets: “Armida Pavilion”, “Cleopatra”, “Polovtsy Dances”, “La Sylphide” and “Pir”. The striking success of the performances performed by choreographer M. Fokin, who gave great hopes, confirmed the correctness of Dyagilev's choice. The best ballet dancers from Moscow and St. Petersburg — V. Nizhinsky, A. Pavlova, I. Rubinstein, M. Kshesinskaya, T. Karsavina, and others — constituted the core of the ballet troupe. Although a year later Pavlova will leave the company due to disagreements with the impresario, "Russian Seasons" will become the springboard in her life, after which the ballerina's fame will only grow. A poster by V. Serov, made for the tour of 1909 and containing an image frozen in the graceful pose of Pavlova, became for the actress a prophecy about glory.
It was the ballet that brought great fame to the Russian Seasons, and it was Diagilev's troupe that influenced the history of the development of this kind of art in all countries where they had to perform on tour. Since 1911, the "Russian Seasons" contained exclusively ballet numbers, the troupe began to perform in a relatively stable composition and was called the "Russian Ballet of Dyagilev". Now they perform not only in the Parisian Seasons, but also go on tour to Monaco (Monte Carlo), England (London), USA, Austria (Vienna), Germany (Berlin, Budapest), Italy (Venice, Rome).
From the very beginning, the desire to synthesize music, singing, dance, and visual arts into one whole, subordinated to a common concept, was traced in the Dygilev ballets. It was this trait that was revolutionary for that time and it was thanks to this feature that the performance of the Russian ballet of Dyagilev provoked storms of applause and squalls of criticism. Being in search of new forms, experimenting with plastics, decorations, musical arrangement, Dyagilev's enterprise was significantly ahead of its time.
As proof of this, one can cite the fact that the premiere of the Sacred Spring, a ballet based on Russian pagan rituals, held in Paris (Theater on the Champs Elysées) in 1913 was drowned out by the whistles and cries of angered public, and in 1929 in London (Theater "Covent Garden") its production was crowned with enthusiastic exclamations and vehement applause.
Continuous experiments spawned such original performances as “Games” (fantasy on the subject of tennis), “Blue God” (fantasy on the theme of Indian motives), 8-minute ballet “Afternoon Rest of the Faun”, called by the public the most obscene phenomenon in the theater because frankly erotic plastic of the luminary, "choreographic symphony" "Daphnis and Chloe" to the music of M. Ravel, etc.
Dyagilev - reformer and modernist ballet art
When Dygilev's troupe came to the ballet, there was a complete obsession with academic conservatism. The great impresario was to destroy the existing canons, and on the European scene, of course, it was much easier to do than in Russia. In the productions Dyagilev did not directly participate, but he was the organizing force thanks to which his company achieved world-wide recognition.
Dygilev intuitively understood that the main thing in ballet is a talented choreographer. He knew how to see the gift of organizing even in a novice choreographer, as was the case with M. Fokin, and was able to cultivate the qualities necessary for working with his troupe, as happened to 19-year-old V. Myasin. He also invited to his team Serge Lifar, first as a performer, and later made him a new star in the pleiad of choreographers of the Russian ballet troupe.
The performances of the Russian Seasons were strongly influenced by the work of modern artists. The artists and artists of the World of Arts association A. Benois, N. Roerich, B. Anisfeld, L. Bakst, S. Sudeikin, M. Dobuzhinsky, as well as the avant-garde artists N. Goncharova, M. Larionov, Spanish, worked on the sets and costumes. muralist H.-M. Sert, Italian futurist D. Balla, Cubists P. Picasso, H. Gries and J. Braque, French Impressionist A. Matisse, neo-classicist L. Survage. Such well-known personalities as C. Chanel, A. Laurent and others were also involved as costume designers and costume designers in Dygilev's productions. As you know, the form always affects the content, as the public of the Russian Seasons observed. Not only the scenery, costumes and the curtain were striking in their artistic expressiveness, shocking, play of the lines: the whole production of this or that ballet was permeated with modernist trends, plastic gradually drove the plot out of the viewer's center of attention.
The music for the productions of the Russian Ballet Dygilev used the most diverse: from world classics F. Chopin, R. Schumann, K. Weber, D. Scarlatti, R. Shtraus and Russian classics N. Rimsky-Korsakov, A. Glazunov, M. Musorgsky, P. Tchaikovsky, M. Glinka to the Impressionists K. Debussy and M. Ravel, as well as contemporary Russian composers I. Stravinsky and N. Cherepnin.
The European ballet, which experienced a crisis of its development at the beginning of the twentieth century, was gifted with the young talents of the Russian ballet Dygilev, refreshed by its new performance techniques, new plasticity, an unsurpassed synthesis of various types of art, from which something completely different from the usual classical ballet was born.
Interesting Facts
- Although the "Historical Russian Concerts" are counted among the "Russian Seasons", only the poster of 1908 contained this name for the first time. There were 20 more seasons ahead of them, but the 1908 tour was the last attempt of the entrepreneur to do without ballet.
- In order to stage the Afternoon of a Faun, which lasted only 8 minutes, Nizhinsky took 90 rehearsals.
- An avid collector, Dyagilev dreamed of getting A. Pushkin's unpublished letters to Natalia Goncharova. When he was finally handed over to them in June 1929, the entrepreneur was late for the train — a tour in Venice was coming. Dygilev put the letters in the safe to read them after arriving home ... but he was no longer judged to return from Venice. The land of Italy took a great impresario for ever.
- During the performance of the solo part in the ballet "Orientalia" in 1910, V. Nizhinsky made his famous leap, glorifying him as a "flying dancer".
- Before each performance of the ballet "The Ghost of the Rose", the costume designer re-sewed the rose petals to the costume of Nijinsky, because after the next performance he tore them away and gave them away to the numerous fans of the dancer.
Films about S. Dyagilev and his activities
In the film "Red Shoes" (1948), the personality of Dyagilev received an artistic rethinking of the character under the name of Lermontov. In the role of Dyagilev - A. Walbrook.
In the feature films Nizhinsky (1980) and Anna Pavlova (1983), Dyagilev's personality was also given attention. In his role - A. Bates and V. Larionov, respectively.
The documentary film by A. Vasiliev "The Fate of the Ascetic. Sergey Dyagilev" (2002) tells about the founder of the magazine "World of Arts" and the entrepreneur of the Russian Seasons.
A very interesting and fascinating film "Geniuses and Villains of the Era Epoch. Sergey Dyagilev" (2007) talks about little-known facts related to Dyagilev and his production activities.
In 2008, in the cycle “Ballet and Power”, films were devoted to Vaclav Nijinsky and Sergey Dyagilev, however, their ambiguous relationships and the talent of the young dancer were the subject of many films that deserve a separate review.
In the film "Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky" (2009) the theme of the relationship of the entrepreneur with the composer, who wrote music to many of his performances, was touched upon.
The documentary film "Paris by Sergei Dyagilev" (2010) is the most fundamental film work about the life and work of a talented entrepreneur.
The first of the films in the series “The Historical Journeys of Ivan Tolstoy” is dedicated to Sergei Dyagilev - “The Precious Bunch of Letters” (2011).
One program from the cycle “Elected. Russia. 20th Century” (2012) is devoted to Sergey Dyagilev.
The documentary film "Ballet in the USSR" (2013) (the program series "Made in the USSR") partially touches the theme of "Russian Seasons".
The TV release "Absolute Hearing" from 02/13/2013 tells about Dyagilev and the art of the 20th century, and from 01/14/2015 - about the first productions of the ballet "Afternoon rest of the faun".
As part of the series “The Mysteries of Terpsichore”, two films were released - “Sergey Dyagilev - a man of art” (2014) and “Sergey Dyagilev - from painting to ballet” (2015).
Dygileva can rightfully be considered the ancestor of the domestic show business. He managed to play on the shocking performances of his troupe and purposefully sated performances with various modernist techniques at all levels of composition: scenery, costumes, music, plastic - all bore the imprint of the most fashionable trends of the era. In the Russian ballet of the early twentieth century, as in other areas of art of this time, the dynamics from the active search for the Silver Age of new means of expression to the hysterical intonations and broken lines of avant-garde art were clearly visible. "Russian Seasons" raised European art to a qualitatively new level of development and to this day they do not cease to inspire creative bohemia to search for new ideas.
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