• Aboriginals in North America
  • Beast Literature
  • Canadiana.1
  • Dances & Music
  • Europe: Ukraine & Russia
  • Fables and Fairy Tales
  • Fables by Jean de La Fontaine
  • Feasts & Liturgy
  • Great Books Online
  • La Princesse de Clèves
  • Middle East
  • Molière
  • Nominations
  • Posts on Love Celebrated
  • Posts on the United States
  • The Art and Music of Russia
  • The French Revolution & Napoleon Bonaparte
  • Voyageurs Posts
  • Canadiana.2

Micheline's Blog

~ Art, music, books, history & current events

Micheline's Blog

Tag Archives: Sergei Diaghilev

Pushkin, Bilibin, and Rimsky-Korsakov

24 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by michelinewalker in Russian Art, Russian Literature, Russian Music

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Alexander Pushkin, Ivan Bilibin, Mir iskusstva, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Operas, Programmatic Music, Sergei Diaghilev, The Five, The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, The Tale of Tsar Saltan

dadon_shemakha1

Tsar Dadon meets the Shemakha Queen by Ivan Bilibin (WikiArt.org)

The 19th century was the century of nationalism. The Brothers Grimm went from German-language land to German-language land to collect folklore, which they believe would help reveal distinct German roots. Germany had yet to unify and become the German Empire.

As for The Five, our Slavic composers, they attempted to express Eastern Russia. Music in Russia had been westernized since Peter the Great. The Five did not turn their back fully on classical harmony and counterpoint, but they started using whole-tone scales leading Western composers to create new scales.

The Programme

However, the “programme” remained to be established. In the 19th century, several composers favoured “programmatic” music. Music had to tell a story. Despite his early death, in a duel, poet Alexandre Pushkin (1799-1837), wrote poems that were Russian fairy tales, whatever their origin. A nation acculturates folktales.

Our examples are Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas entitled The Tale of the Tsar Saltan, which premiered in 1900, and The Tale of the Golden Cockerel first completed in 1907  and premiere in 1909, with a set designed by Ivan Bilibin. Ivan Bilibin who had gained notoriety in 1899, when he published illustrations of Russian fairy tales, including The Tale of the Tsar Saltan and The Tale of the Golden Cockerel (Le Coq d’or). The Tale of the Golden Cockerel had Arabic roots, the Legend of the Arabian Astrologer. It had been retold by Washington Irving (The Tales of Alhambra), Friedrich Maximilian Klinger (Der goldene Hahn [1785]) and Russian fabulist Ivan Krylov (Kaib [1792]). Yet, it was Russian folklore. It had been acculturated.

“In turn, all of them borrowed from the ancient Copts legend first translated by the French Arabist Pierre Vattier in 1666 using the 1584 manuscript from the collection of Cardinal Mazarin.”

(See The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, Wiki2.org)

Ivan Bilibin had studied at the Anton Abže Art School in Munich and had been influenced by Art Nouveau and Japanese prints. But he also studied under Ilya Repin. However, he became interested in folklore. It was a magnet. He graduated from the Anton Abže Art School after publication of his illustrations of Russian fairy tales. He was associated with Mir iskusstva, an association and a magazine. Bilibin fled Russia, during the October Revolution in 1917. In 1925, he settled in Paris where he worked for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and decorated private mansions and Orthodox churches. But he was homesick. After decorating the Soviet Embassy, in 1936, he returned to Soviet Russia. He died of starvation during the Siege of Leningrad, in the land whose fairy tales he had illustrated.

Ivan Bilibin‘s 1909 stage set design for Act 2: The Tsardom of Tsar Dadon, Town Square (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Comments

At first, we associate The Tale of the Tsar Saltan and The Tale of the Golden Cockerel with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas. But operas are programmatic music or program music. So, the full dimension of the above-mentioned operas is not revealed until we know that their programmes were fairy tales written by legendary poet Alexander Pushkin. The libretto, in Russian and French, of The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, is by Vladimir Belsky.

As for Ivan Bilibin‘s delightful illustrations of Pushkin’s fairly, they are yet another lovely and universally enjoyable expression of a ‘distinct’ Russia.

Sources and Resoources

  • The Tale of the Tsar Saltan (text)
  • The Tale of the Golden Cockerel (text)
  • Alexander Pushkin (information) 💛
  • https://rvb.ru/pushkin/ 💛
  • The Tale of the Golden Cockerel (external links)

The Gallery

(above)
-Tsar Dadon meets the Shemakha Queen
The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, 1906
(below)
–The Merchants visit Tsar Saltan (WikiArt.org.)
–Princess in the prison tower ‘The White Duck’ (WikiArt.org.)
–From the Tale of the Tsar Saltan (The Isle of Buyan; WikiArt.org.)
–The Tsaritsa and Her Son Afloat in the Barrel (WikiArt.org.)
–From the Tale of the Tsar Saltan (WikiArt.org.)

800px-bilibin3_saltan

db503e65f7a67a8252dfa5e71526f79e
397px-ivanbilibin

bilibin_-_the_tsaritsa_and_her_son_afloat_in_the_barrel


Love to everyone
💕


illustration-for-alexander-pushkin-s-fairytale-of-the-tsar-saltan-1905(1).jpg!PinterestSmall
© Micheline Walker
23 December 2018
revised 24 December 2018
WordPress

Micheline's Blog

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Picasso in Paris

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Commedia dell'arte, France, Love, Myths

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Ballets Russes, Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky, Manuel de Falla, Olga Kokhlova, Parade, Paulo Picasso, Pulchinella, Sergei Diaghilev, The Three-Cornered Hat

Olga, 1923

Olga, 1923

(All images may be enlarged by clicking on them.)

Picasso[i] had several relationships, but he was a husband to Russian ballerina Olga Kokhlova (17 June 1891 – 11 February 1955). He met Olga during the production of the Ballets Russes‘ Parade (1917). In the early years of the twentieth century, there was no better creative milieu in Paris than Sergei Diaghilev‘s (1872 –1929) Ballets Russes. The Russian impresario recruited the most talented individuals of his days and, among them, Pablo Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973). When he was employed by Sergei Diaghilev, Picasso was mixing with le tout Paris, or the cream of Parisian society.

The Legend Begins

Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes

Érik Satie (composer)
Jean Cocteau (writer)
Ernest Ansermet (conductor)
Manuel de Falla (composer)
Léonide Massine (choreographer)
Igor Stravinsky (composer)
Léon Bakst (costume and set designer)
Alexandre Benois (costume and set designer)
Marius Petipa (choreographer)
Michel Fokine (choreographer)
Vaslav Nijinsky (ballet dancer and choreographer)
Pablo Picasso (set and costume designer)
 

Parade (1917) 

For instance, the production of the ballet Parade (1917) brought together composer Érik Satie (17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925), legendary writer and future filmmaker Jean Cocteau (5 July 1889 –11 October 1963) and choreographer Léonide Massine (9 August 1896 – 15 March 1979).

Érik Satie (17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925) was one of the main composers of his era. Beginning in 1888, Satie composed the Gymnopédies.[ii] Jean Cocteau is the author of the 1929 novel Les Enfants terribles, which he would transform into a film in 1950.[iii] Finally, when it premièred at Paris’ Théâtre du Châtelet, on 18 May 1917, Parade was conducted by Ernest Ansermet (11 November 1883 – 20 February 1969) who founded l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (1918).

Shown below is Parade‘s curtain, Picasso’s largest work. It features the nimble Harlequin, a recurring figure in Picasso’s artwork,  portrayed here in the artist’s first work as costume and set designer. Parade’s curtain also features mythology’s winged horse Pegasus. Later in Picasso’s career, mythology, the Minotaur in particular, would be a significant motif.

Curtain for the Ballet Parade, 1917

Curtain for the Ballet Parade, 1917

 (Please click on the images to enlarge them.)

The Remains of the Minotaur in Harlequin's Costume, 1936

The Remains of the Minotaur in Harlequin’s Costume, 1936

The Legend Continues…

The Three-Cornered Hat (1919)

In 1919, Ernest Ansermet would conduct Manuel de Falla‘s (23 November 1876 – 14 November 1946) El Sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat or Le Tricorne), a Ballets Russes production choreographed by Léonide Massine with costumes and set designed by Pablo Picasso. The Three-Cornered Hat premièred in London at the Alhambra Theatre, on 22 July 1919.

Pulchinella (1920)

Pulcinella (Polichinelle) is a zanni from la commedia dell’arte. Igor Stravinsky composed the music. The ballet was choreographed by Léonide Massine, who also wrote the ballet’s libretto (the text), and Pablo Picasso designed the costumes and the set. Pulchinella was first performed on 15 May 1920 under the baton of Ernest Ansermet at the Paris Opera (Palais Garnier).

The Ballets Russes would also employ costume and set designers Léon Bakst and Alexandre Benois (both Russian) and choreographers Marius Petipa and Michel Fokine. However, the Ballets Russes had no greater star than Polish ballet dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky (12 March 1889/1890 [Kiev]– 8 April 1950).

Gesamtkunstwerk 

Diaghilev was at times a little too punctilious, but his contribution to what composer Richard Wagner called Gesamtkunstwerk (total art) is exemplary. The Ballets Russes defined an entire era of the twentieth century and Pablo Picasso’s work with the company gave enormous impetus to his career.

Allow me to quote the UK Guardian (Luke Jennings; 10 May 2010), on the Ballets Russes:

This was more than just a dance company; it was a creative movement which, from its inception, drew to itself the greatest musical, theatrical and artistic talents of the day.

Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
27, rue de Fleurus
27, rue de Fleurus

American writer Gertrude Stein lived here with her brother Leo and then with Alice B. Toklas. She received numerous artists and writers from 1903 to 1938.

Americans in Paris: Gertrude Stein

On 4 April 2013, I posted an article entitled Henri Matisse: an Eclectic Modernist. It refers to Picasso’s acquaintance with Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, members of Stein’s family, and the Cone sisters. The next two paragraphs are therefore somewhat repetitive. Yet, it should be mentioned that Picasso’s most fervent aficionados and promoters were Americans in Paris. He owes much of his  relatively early success to Leo Stein and his sister Gertrude Stein (3 February 1874 – 27 July 1946). In fact, we could start a whole new series entitled: Americans in Paris. These Americans were wealthy and became patrons to the Impressionists and all that was avant-gardiste in Paris: Fauvism, Cubism, Surrealism, etc.

Gertrude Stein was a salonnière. Few addresses are as famous as 27, rue de Fleurus, Paris 6. An invitation to 27, rue de Fleurus, Stein’s home and that of her lover, Alice B. Toklas, was almost as much a privilege in twentieth-century Paris as entrée to Madame Geoffrin‘s Parisian salon had been in the eighteenth century.

Madame Stein is the Gertrude Stein of “a rose is a rose is a rose” who entitled her 1933 autobiography The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. As for Alice B. Toklas, Stein’s lover, she is the author of the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook of the famous hashish cookies. Born in 1877, Alice died in poverty, the victim of greed, on 7 March 1967, aged 89. (See Henri Matisse: an Eclectic Modernist.)

Paul as Harlequin, 1924

Paulo as Harlequin, 1924

Portrait of Paulo, 1929

Portrait of Paulo, 1929

Olga Kokhlova

Olga Kokhlova was a socialite and therefore facilitated Picasso’s introduction to Paris’ world of music, design, choreography, dance, and literature. The two married on 18 May 1917 and, three years after Parade, on 4 February 1921, Olga gave birth to Picasso’s first son, Paulo, depicted above as Harlequin and Pierrot (Pedrolino), Commedia dell’arte figures.

Picasso’s marriage to Olga (17 June 1891 – on 11 February 1955) was not a happy union. It seems the two were not suited for one another. In 1927, Picasso entered into a relationship with another woman. Olga left in 1935 and, as is well known, Picasso refused to divorce her because he would have had to give her half of his belongings, including his paintings. That was not acceptable to him. (See Olga Khokhlova, Wikipedia.)

Harlequin, always…

But let us return to Harlequin. In 1906, Picasso depicted him as dead (see below). At that point, reports of Harlequin’s death were premature. Picasso continued to depict Harlequin and other characters from the Commedia dell’arte, which makes him heir to Jean-Antoine Watteau (baptised 10 October 1684 – 18 July 1721).

However, Picasso’s settings of Commedia dell’arte figures are less ethereal than Watteau’s bucolic fêtes galantes. Yet both artists drew part of their subject matter from Italian comedy and from ballet, without portraying disorderly buffoons. Picasso was also influenced by seventeenth-century Spanish artists Diego Velásquez – “Las Meninas” – and El Greco.

In short, despite a failed marriage, Paris was kind to Picasso who remembered Harlequin and other characters from the Commedia dell’arte.

I apologize for not posting more often. The problem is a long and disabling episode of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Kind regards to all of you. ♥

Harlequin's Death, 1906

Harlequin’s Death, 1906

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Picasso’s Harlequin (3 July 2014)
  • Arlecchino, Arlequin, Harlequin (30 June 2014)
  • Leo Rauth’s “fin de siècle” Harlequin (27 June 2014)
  • After a strike, one can expect anything (decorative use; 15 September 2013)
  • Pablo Picasso: Tribute to a Cat and a Dog (16 June 2013)
  • Henri Matisse: an Eclectic Modernist (4 April 2013)
  • A Portrait by Picasso (3 April 2013)

Sources and Resources

http://www.biography.com/people/pablo-picasso-9440021

_________________________

[i] “Pablo Picasso”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 07 Jul. 2014
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/459275/Pablo-Picasso-myth>.

[ii] Érik Satie was one of “les Six,” probably named “les Six” after the Russian “les Cinq.” The “Six” are Emmanuel Chabrier, Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel, Érik Satie, and Richard Strauss.

[iii] Among other films and various works, we owe Jean Cocteau his 1946 Beauty and the Beast, but he is better known for his 1929 novel and 1950 film Les Enfants terribles.

Manuel de Falla (23 November 1876 – 14 November 1946)
El Sombrero de tres picos
Joven Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid (Sergio Alapont, director)
 
Portrait of Paulo

Portrait of Paulo, Artist’s Son, 1923

© Micheline Walker
8 July 2014
WordPress

 

 

Micheline's Blog

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Sharing & the News, 16 September 2012

16 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Sharing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Alexandre Benois, Ballets Russes, Léon Bakst, Michel Fokine, Old Black Joe, Paul Robeson, Saint-George, Sergei Diaghilev, Stravinsky, United States

Alexandre Benois, by Leon Bakst

Ballet

I am forwarding the News mostly unadorned, except for the above painting of Alexandre Benois, by Ballets Russes artist Leon Bakst.  Ballet was born in Italy.  It moved to France.  Louis XIV, the Sun-King, was a dancer.  And it reached what may be its culmination in Russia:  the Kirov, in St Petersburg, and the Bolshoi, in Moscow.  However, Sergei Diaghilev‘s Ballets Russes, an itinerant company based in Paris, spread the love of ballet to several countries, the US, etc. and several artists contributed to its success: Leon Bakst, Alexandre Benois (set and costume designers).  Its most famous choreographers were Marius Petipa (French) and Michel Fokine (Russian) and it starred the legendary Vaslav Nijinsky among other superb dancers.  It provided composer Igor Stravinsky with several commissions.

Le Chevalier de Saint-George

Joseph Bo(u)logne, Chevalier de Saint-George

There is confusion concerning the spelling of Saint-George’s name.  It seems that here George does not require an ‘s’, which is how George is written in English.  However, Joseph’s name is often spelled the way the French spell Georges, with a final ‘s’.  Saint George was/is a location.  Originally, Saint-George(s)’s name was Joseph Bologne.

To my knowledge, the recording featured in a post entitled Comments & the News: 14 September 2012 is one of the finest interpretations of Saint-George’s Violin Concerto, Op. 5, No.2 (Largo).  It is performed by violinist Jean-Jacques Kantorow and the Orchestre de Chambre Bernard Thomas.

Interestingly, while browsing, I somehow entered the British Museum and saw the picture featured in Le Chevalier de Saint-George: the Black Mozart.  That picture is attributed to George IV himself.

President Barack Hussein Obama: posts I reblogged

I reblogged two posts.  The United States has lost four fine citizens under tragic circumstances, but retaliation does not seem advisable.  If at all possible, the US should never again wage war in the Near-East or the Middle-East, or elsewhere.  America and people all over the world mourn the loss of these four lives and the US will cooperate with officials in the Near-East to find their assassins.  Using diplomacy is the better approach.  Besides, can the US afford another war?  Despite its billionaires, the United States is currently rather poor.

Mr Romney and Mr Ryan may be thinking that President Obama lacks “resolve,” but I heard that word in September 2001.  Where did “resolve” get the United States?  More lives were lost and the cost of those wars remains to be paid.  The time has come for people in the Near-East or the Middle-East to stop burning the American flag.

And yes, President Obama is the President of the United States of America.  He has faced considerable obstructionism on the part of extremists in the Republican Party: Tea Party members.  He must now be allowed to help the citizens of his country.  Why should little me in Canada be looked after without paying atrocious amounts of money to see a doctor or buy medication?  I pay my taxes.

It has become abundantly clear that the Romney-Ryan team’s main objective is to be supported by a shrinking middle-class and the poor.  The very wealthy hide their money in offshore accounts and ship too many jobs abroad where products are manufactured at a lesser cost.  They (the very wealthy) are saving money, but you aren’t.  Arithmetic was never my best subject, but it would not surprise me to learn that the price you pay for products manufactured elsewhere is the price you would pay for products manufactured in the United States.  You save on products made elsewhere when there is a sale.

The Concept of Nationhood

Rich people who want tax cuts have yet to understand the concept of nationhood.  The US has not recovered from the financial difficulties created by a former administration, a Republican administration, and Republicans do not want to pay their fair share of taxes.  So who will pay the debt, a Republican administration?  Beware.  “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”  Why should Americans seek a new President when it has the best it can have?  The next face to grace Mount Rushmore should not be President Reagan‘s face, it should be Franklin Delano Roosevelt‘s, a gentleman who cared for the people.  President Obama is walking in his footsteps.

The News

English
The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/
The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The Montreal Gazette: http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html
The National Post: http://www.nationalpost.com/index.html
Le Monde diplomatique: http://mondediplo.com/ EN
 
CBC News: http://www.cbc.ca/news/
CTV News: http://www.ctvnews.ca/
 
French
Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/
Le Monde diplomatique: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/
Le Devoir: http://www.ledevoir.com/
La Presse: http://www.lapresse.ca/ 
 
German
Die Welt: http://www.welt.de/
 
© Micheline Walker
September 16, 2012
WordPress
 
45.408358 -71.934658

Micheline's Blog

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Art of Alexandre Benois & the News

15 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Alexandre Benois, Bronze Horseman, Hermitage Museum, Paris, Peter Ustinov, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Sergei Diaghilev

 

Peter the Great Meditating the Idea of Building St. Petersburg at the Shore of the Baltic Sea, by Alexandre Benois

Photo credit: Alexandre Benois, Wikipedia 
 

Alexandre or Alexander Benois (3 May 1870, St. Petersburg – 9 February 1960, Paris)was born to a family of artists, architects and intellectuals.  His father, Nicholas Benois, born of French parents, was a prominent Russian architect as was his son Leon Benois (born 1856 in Peterhof – died 1928 in Leningrad [St. Petersburg]).  Leon Benois is the grandfather of Sir Peter Ustinov.  Alexandre’s other brother, Albert Nikolayevitch Benois (March 14, 1852 – May 16, 1936 [Fontenay-aux-Roses]) was a notorious painter.

Watercolour Artist: Versailles

As for Alexandre, he started out as a painter in the early years of the twentieth century.  He painted using watercolours mainly.  After visiting Versailles, he was inspired to produce a series of watercolours depicting the Last Promenade of Louis XIV, the Sun-King.  These were historical paintings as is the painting featured at the top of this post.

Alexandre’s Versailles paintings were exhibited and attracted the attention of Sergei Diaghilev and of Ballets Russes artist Leon Bakst.  The three men went on to found a journal, Mir iskusstva (World of Art) and promoted the Aesthetic Movement and Art Nouveau.  Benois was an intellectual.

Scenic Director & Illustrator

Alexandre had a successful career as an artist, but in the broader acceptation of this term.  In 1901, Benois was appointed scenic director of the Mariinsky Theatre, home to the Imperial Russian Ballet, but at that time he also worked for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.  In 1905, he moved to Paris, though not permanently, and worked as a stage designer and decorator. 

During that period of his life, Benois also published several monographs on 19th-century Russian art and Tsarskoye Selo, the Royal Village.  In 1903, he illustrated and published illustrations to Pushkin‘s poem Bronze Horseman, written in 1833.  He therefore gained notoriority before the Revolution of 1917

The Revolution of 1917

After the Revolution of 1917, Benois was appointed curator of the Old Masters in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (the former Leningrad).  However, he did not remain in Russia for very long.  In 1927, he moved to Paris permanently where he worked mainly as a set designer.

Several members of his family, beginning with his brothers Albert Nikolayevitch Benois, an artist, and Leon Benois, a Russian architect, became famous.  His son Nicola Alexandrivoch Benois (1901-1988) also rose to prominence.

The Gallery

 
 
1. Petrushka (ballet)
2. The Bronze Horseman (poem)
3. The Nightingale (opera & ballet)
4. Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (Molière)
5. Alexandre Benois, Leon Bakst, 1894
 
 
 
 
 
Tags  
1. Petrushka: ballet, folklore, Vaslav Nijinsky, Ballets Russes, 1910-11, Fokine (choreographer) music by Igor Stravinsky (revised in 1947), straw puppet comes to life)
2. The Bronze Horseman: narrative poem, Pushkin (1833), illustration, 1904
3. The Nightingale: opera, folklore, Igor Stravinsky, Stepan Mitussov (libretto, based on Hans Christan Andersen), 1914 (as opera), also a ballet (Ballets Russes)
4. Le Bourgois gentilhomme: play, Molière, watercolour, probably for the Turkish
cérémonie décor)
 
composer:  Igor Stravinsky (17 June  1882 – 6 April 1971)
music:  Petrushka
performer: Andrey Dubov (piano)  
 
 

The Late News

English
The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/
The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The Montreal Gazette: http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html
The National Post: http://www.nationalpost.com/index.html
Le Monde diplomatique: http://mondediplo.com/ EN
 
CBC News: http://www.cbc.ca/news/
CTV News: http://www.ctvnews.ca/
 
French
Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/
Le Monde diplomatique: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/
Le Devoir: http://www.ledevoir.com/
La Presse: http://www.lapresse.ca/
 
German
Die Welt: http://www.welt.de/
 
Micheline Walker©
September 15th, 2012
WordPress 
45.408358 -71.934658

Micheline's Blog

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Léon Bakst & Massenet’s “Thais”

22 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Ballet Russes, Diaghilev, Imperial Academy of Arts, Léon Bakst, Michel Fokine, Mir Iskusstva, Paris, Sergei Diaghilev

  
 
Photo Credit: The Red List 
Narcisse, 1911
Comoedia, 1914
Négress, Shéhérazade, 1923
Cléopâtre, 1909
Salomé in La Danse des Sept Voiles, 1908 
 
Music:
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912): Méditation from Thaïs, an Opera based on a novel by Anatole France (16 April 1844 – 12 October 1924)
Librettist: Louis Gallet
Violinist: Michael Rabin 
 

Léon Samoilovitch Bakst (1866–1924)

Léon Bakst was a painter who became stage and costume designer for Sergei Diaghilev‘s Ballets Russes, a prominent private ballet company that was active during la Belle Époque (1890-1914), a golden age in France, and remained active until Diaghilev’s death, in 1929, the year the stock market was allowed to crash.

We have already met the cast, so to speak.  When Sergei Diaguilev produced Scheherazade (1910), his star dancer was Vaslav Nijinski, his choreographer, Michel Fokine (23 April 1880 – 22 August 1942) and his stage and costume designer Léon Bakst, whose art I am featuring today.

Biographical Notes

Léon Bakst was Russian and Jewish.  He was born in Grodno (currently Belarus) to a middle-class family and his real name was Lev (Leib) Samoilovich Rosenberg.  He studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts as a noncredit student, working part-time as a book illustrator.(Wikipedia)  Bakst was his mother’s maiden name.

The Mir Iskusstva art movement

Bakts’s association with Sergei Diaghilev dates back to the mid-1890s.  He was first a member of the circle of writers and artists formed by Sergei Diaghilev and Alexandre Benois, which later became the Mir Iskusstva art movement.

In 1899, Bakst co-founded with Sergei Diaghilev the influential periodical Mir Iskusstva, meaning “World of Art.”  It is at that moment that his graphics started to bring him fame.(Wikipedia)

He started showing his work in 1890 as a member of the Society of Watercolourists.  From 1893 to 1897 he studied at the Académie Julian in Paris, but returned to Saint Petersburg often.

During his visits to Saint Petersburg he taught in Zvantseva’s school, where one of his students was Marc Chagall (1908–1910) and, in 1914, one the eve of the Revolution, he was elected a member of the Imperial Academy of Arts.

After 1909, Bakst lived mainly outside Russia.  As a Jew, he had to live in the Pale of Settlement.  He broke with Diaghilev in 1922, traveled to America where he had a patron in art philanthropist  Alice Warder Garrett (1877–1952).  He worked as her personal interior decorator in her Baltimore residence, Evergreen (now a museum and a gallery).

Two years after parting with Diaghilev, he died in Paris of what seems a lung disease.

With Léon Bakst, we are not looking at landscapes and seascapes, but at human beings in full flight.  No backdrop encroaches on the dancer.

I hope you enjoy these few pictures.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
© Micheline Walker
22 August 2012
WordPress
 
composer: Jules Massenet (12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912)
work: Méditation, Thaïs
violinist: Michael Rabin (2 May 1936 – 19 January 1972)
 
45.408358 -71.934658

Micheline's Blog

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Ballets Russes, Vaslav Nijinsky & George Barbier

27 Friday Jul 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Music

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Ballet Russes, Diaghilev, Enrico Cecchetti, Marius Petipa, Nijinsky, Paris, Sergei Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinsky

 
 

The above picture, a pochoir by George Barbier, shows Mikhail Fokin‘s (23 April 1880 – 22 August 1942) choreography of Schéhérazade, danced to music by Mily Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakoff, and starring Nijinsky.  On 12 July 2012, I published a post on Sergei Diaghilev‘s Ballets Russes, an immensely successful corps de ballet or ballet company, founded in 1909,  whose artistic director was Léon Bakst.

Among its stars, Vaslav Nijinsky was probably the finest.  Nijinsky had acquired skills few male ballet dancers had attained, such as dancing en pointe, on his toes.  However, Nijinsky’s career was very short.  It was interrupted by a mental illness, schizophrenia,  that manifested itself when he was at the height of his career, in 1916, approximately.  He died in London, in 1950.

Vaslav Nijinsky was born Wacław Niżyński, in 1889 or 1890 in Kiev, the Ukraine.  His parents were Polish and he was baptised in Warsaw.  In fact, he considered himself a Pole.  Yet, he was born and grew up in Imperial Russia (before the 1917 revolution) and therefore spoke Russian more fluently than Polish.  But the soul has its laws.  He was a Pole.

Nijinsky was trained at the Imperial Ballet School, where his teachers were Enrico Cecchetti, Nikolai Legat and Pavel Gerdt.  At the age of fourteen, he was selected by famed French choreographer’s Marius Petipa to dance the principal role in La Romance d’un Bouton de rose et d’un Papillon (music by Ricardo Drigo, June 30, 1846 – October 1, 1930.  The Russo–Japanese War made it impossible for the ballet to be performed.  However, during this period, Nijinsky played several solo roles and, in 1910, prima ballerina assoluta Mathilde Kschessinka selected him to dance in a revival of French choreographer Marius Petipa‘s Le Talisman, which brought Nijinsky to the fore.  He created a sensation in the role of the Wind God Vayou.

It is at this stage that Nikinsky met Sergei Diaghilev, an impressario who brought Russian art and ballet to the attention of little less than the whole world.  Diaghilev and Nijinsky had an affair, yet Nijinsky married Hungarian countess Romola de Pulszky  when the Ballets Russes were touring in Latin America.  On his return from Latin America, Diaghilev flew into a rage and fired Nijinsky.

Scandal in Paris

Nijinsky may well have been the most celebrated ballet dancer of his time, but after being dismissed by Diaghilev and working as choreographer and ballet dancer, he scandalized the normally broad-minded le tout Paris.  He did so by showing his character miming masturbation with the scarf of a nymph.  Explicit sexuality was a little much even for a Paris audience. Nijinsky had danced to Claude Debussy‘s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune.  Nijinsky also enjoyed wearing revealing costumes, which was and remains acceptable.

Music and Ballet 

Nijinsky and other choreographers danced to music and, in the case of Debussy, contemporary music.  Nijinsky also danced to the music of Igor Stravinsky (17 June 1882 – 6 April 1971).  In fact, impresario Sergei Diaghilev commissioned three works of music for his Ballets Russes: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913).  Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring changed music forever and so did, in ballet, Nijinsky’s use of angular movements.  He was a modernist, a visionary.

But, to return to music, it should be noted that much of Russian music is music for ballets (or opera).  Pyotr Illich Tchaikovsky (7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) wrote music for several ballets (The Nutcracker, Swan Lake), and so did Sergei Prokofiev, whose Romeo and Juliet is an almost unsurpassed composition for ballet.  Diaghilev also commissioned the Prodigal Son from Prokofiev, but died before he could make it into a ballet.  It was choreographed by George Balanchine.  Serge Lifar created the role and the ballet premièred on Tuesday, 21 May 1929, at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, in Paris.

Back to Nijinsky: A tribute

As for Nijinsky, he was treated, unsuccessfully, by psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler.  He spent the rest of his life in and out of hospitals and asylums and, as mentioned above, died in London, in 1950.  His body was later moved to a Paris cemetery, in Montmartre.  He had one daughter, Kyra, who married Ukrainian conductor Igor Markevitch.  They had a son but the marriage did not last.  Nijinsky’s continued fame, despite an abruptly and tragically shortened career, constitutes an eloquent tribute as to his exceptional talent.

George Barbier

George Barbier (1882 – 1932), an immensely talented and prolific  illustrator, produced extraordinary pictures of Nijinsky.  These prompted me to write this post.  Barbier also illustrated books and worked as a fashion illustrator, which can be discussed in a later post.  The Tamara shown in the video is Tamara Karsavina (10 March 1885 – 26 May 1978).

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Les Ballets Russes & the News (12 July 2012)
  • Un peu, beaucoup, passionnément  (19 July 2012) 

Art featured in this post is by George Barbier (Photo credit: Google images).

 
  
 
© Micheline Walker
26 July 2012
WordPress

 

Micheline's Blog

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Les Ballets Russes & the News

12 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Dance

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Ballets Russes, Gazette, Le Devoir, Le Monde diplomatique, National Post, New York Times, Sergei Diaghilev, WordPress

Clotilde & Alexandre Sakharoff, by George Barbier (1882-1932) Russian dancers, 1921 poster.

I wish I could have found a video featuring Clotilde and Alexandre Sakharov.  But we have done very well.  YouTube provided us with a performance of the grand Pas de deux, from Marius Petipa‘s Don Quixote (music by Ludwig Minkus), executed by Natalia Osipova & Ivan Vasiliev, now stars of the St Petersburg’s Mikhaylovsky Theatre and a married couple.

Barbier’s coloring is impressive.  Note, for instance, how he has used color to separate the bodies of his two dancers.

Artwork

Musée de l’affiche, Paris (Photo credit: Alfredo Dagli Orti / The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY (with permission from Art Resource, NY).

For more information on the Ballets Russes, in Paris, please click on Sergei Diaghilev, Ballets Russes and Vaslav Nijinsky.  The Ballets Russes toured between 1909 and 1929, and Paris loved them.

—ooo—

English
The Montreal Gazette: http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html
The National Post: http://www.nationalpost.com/index.html
The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/
Le Monde diplomatique: http://mondediplo.com/ EN
 
CBC News: http://www.cbc.ca/news/
CTV News: http://www.ctvnews.ca/
 
French
Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/
Le Monde: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/
Le Devoir: http://www.ledevoir.com/
La Presse: http://www.lapresse.ca/
 
German
Die Welt: http://www.welt.de/
 
© Micheline Walker
12 July 2012
WordPress
 

Micheline's Blog

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Europa

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,507 other subscribers

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Categories

Recent Posts

  • Epiphany 2023
  • Pavarotti sings Schubert’s « Ave Maria »
  • Yves Montand chante “À Bicyclette”
  • Almost ready
  • Bicycles for Migrant Farm Workers
  • Tout Molière.net : parti …
  • Remembering Belaud
  • Monet’s Magpie
  • To Lori Weber: Language Laws in Quebec, 2
  • To Lori Weber: Language Laws

Archives

Calendar

February 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728  
« Jan    

Social

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • WordPress.org

micheline.walker@videotron.ca

Micheline Walker

Micheline Walker

Social

Social

  • View belaud44’s profile on Facebook
  • View Follow @mouchette_02’s profile on Twitter
  • View Micheline Walker’s profile on LinkedIn
  • View belaud44’s profile on YouTube
  • View Miicheline Walker’s profile on Google+
  • View michelinewalker’s profile on WordPress.org

Micheline Walker

Micheline Walker
Follow Micheline's Blog on WordPress.com

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

  • Follow Following
    • Micheline's Blog
    • Join 2,475 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Micheline's Blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: