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PAR.TISAN REVIEW
Diaghilev's Dancers
DIAGHILEV 'S BALLETS RUSSES. By Lynn Garafola.
Oxford University
Press. $29.95.
The Ballets Russes mounted approximately ninety productions, from
1909, when it produced its first seasons of opera and ballet in Paris, until
its demise in 1929. An extraordinary number of them are landmarks not
only in the history of dance, but in that of twentieth-century theater,
music, and art as well. The repertory contained original scores by
Stravinsky, Ravel, Debussy, Prokofiev, Poulenc, Satie, Milhaud, Richard
Strauss, and de Falla. Artists like Matisse, Derain, Picasso, Juan Gris, de
Chirico, Braque, Rouault, and Tchelitchev designed sets and costumes.
And among its roster of dancers and choreographers were many of the
greatest names in ballet history: Nijinsky, Karsavina, Pavlova, Alicia
Markova, Anton Dolin, Spessivtzeva, Fokine, Lopokova, Kchessinska,
Serge Lifar, Alexandra Danilova, George Balanchine, and Leonide
Massine.
At the center of the company was the remote baronial figure of
Serge Diaghilev, administering the affairs of the Ballets Russes through
the group of secretaries,
regissellrs,
rehearsal pianists, and assistants that
Stravinsky likened to a "homosexual Swiss Guard." Many aspects of
Diaghilev's flamboyant personality are familiar, and like the streak of
white hair, monocle, and astrakhan collar that appear so conspicuously
in sketches of him by Picasso, Cocteau, and Larionov, were easily carica–
tured. His essential motivation, however, and the nature of his peculiar
talent have remained elusive. When asked by King Alphonso
XIII
of
Spain what exactly he did, the legendary impresario is reputed to have
replied, "Your Majesty, I'm like you. I don't work, I do nothing, but I
am indispensable."
Lincoln Kirstein, for one, has argued that what made Diaghilev indis–
pensable was his "gift for heroic survival, his command of the fortuitous,
his conquest of circumstances in adversity." Lynn Garafola's important
and innovative study convincingly demonstrates that the impresario's
"intuitive sense of the marketplace, his feeling for its liberating possibili–
ties, and, above all, his grasp of how it might be manipulated to serve
the traditional ends of high art," made the company's most significant
achievements possible.
What limits did the market impose? To what extent were seemingly
autonomous works of genius shaped by economic and cultural forces?
Much of Garafola's book addresses these questions. She observes that
