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PARTISAN REVLEW
resulted in an unlikely group of guarantors: the Societe des Bains de Mer
in Monte Carlo, where the Ballets Russes was in residence for part of
each year; Lord Rothermere and other sponsors of the London seasons;
and the Paris art world. Garafola argues that the disparate character of
such patronage was at least partly responsible for the loss of aesthetic co–
herence and stability which at that point began to characterize the com–
pany. The principal works of the twenties exhibited an unlikely assort–
ment of styles, the "retrospective classicism" of the 1921 revival of
Petipa's
The Sleeping Princess,
the "choreographic neoclassicism" of
Les
Noces
and the "lifestyle modernism" of
Le
Train BierI.
The one artistic constant in the years after the war was the progres–
sive subordination of dance to design, which replaced music as the center
of gravity in the new works. "The true dance in
Les Fachellx,"
Jean
Cocteau noted, "was the play of [Braque's] beiges, chestnuts and grays."
Each successive wave of the avant-garde was represented in what Lincoln
Kirstein has called "seasonal novelties" that "acted as a succession of one–
man shows for post-Cubists, Constructivists, Neo-Romantics, Surrealists,
and Metaphysicals, who often adorned summary choreography or trifling
music." This led composer and critic Constant Lambert to observe that
although Diaghilev was able, in the company's early seasons, to create a
vogue for the Russian ballet, in the period after the armistice he "merely
created a vogue for vogue."
"Dancing," Arlene Croce has observed, "leaves nothing else behind -
no record, no text." Choreography is only slightly less evanescent. Yet,
although sixty years have passed since its final performance, interest in the
Ballets Russes continues undiminished. The catalogue of memoirs, remi–
niscences, and theatrical chronicles is now quite a lengthy one.
Unfortunately, the recollections of aging ballerinas which form the heart
of these works tend to resonate with the rattling of teacups and the
whispers of deprecatory remarks delivered in tremulous Russian accents.
The response of many readers has often been one of exasperation. Croce
has complained of the failure of writers about Diaghilev and his circle
ever
to
take them seriously. All of this makes Garafola's book an espe–
cially welcome contribution, one of the first sustained attempts to apply
to dance the disciplines of social and cultural history, which by now
form the prevailing orthodoxy in most other branches of historical in–
quiry. As she demonstrates: "To create a ballet company from scratch is
never easy; to create a vital producing organization even harder. To do
both in a commercial arena is almost a miracle . This near-miracle
Diaghilev performed again and again for twenty years."
Peter Dailey
