Behind the Scenes at the Ballets Russes: Stories from a Silver Age 9781350985476, 9781786732057

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Michael Meylac is Professor Emeritus of Russian Literature at the University of Strasbourg. His pioneering publications and articles were responsible for returning Daniil Kharms and other poets of the OBERIU to literary history. He is also the author of works on the Provençal troubadours and has translated Nabokov’s novels into Russian. Rosanna Kelly is an author and translator, based in London.

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‘Behind the Scenes at the Ballets Russes is a fascinating series of interviews with dancers, choreographers and teachers of the diaspora of Russians following the Revolution and subsequently based in America, Australia and Europe. We must be grateful to Michael Meylac for recording these first-hand accounts in the years 1989-2007 from artists involved with the generations of companies generically known as Ballets Russes. To hear their voices is revealing.’ – Jane Pritchard, author of Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes

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Behind the SceneS at the

BalletS R u S S e S Stories from a Silver Age

Michael Meylac

Translation by Rosanna Kelly edited by Michael Meylac

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Published in 2018 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd London • New York www.ibtauris.com Copyright © 2008, 2018 Michael Meylac, Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie Translated from: Michael Meylac. Evterpa, ty? [Euterpe, is that you? Comments on art. Conversations with Russian artists in emigration. Vol 1. Ballet.] Moscow: Novoye Literaturnoe Obozrenie (NLO), 2008 English translation copyright © 2018 Rosanna Kelly The right of Michael Meylac to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The right of Rosanna Kelly to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted by the translator in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in future editions. References to websites were correct at the time of writing. ISBN: 978 1 78076 859 5 eISBN: 978 1 78672 205 8 ePDF: 978 1 78673 205 7 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Typeset by Riverside Publishing Solutions, Salisbury, Wiltshire

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To John Neumeier, choreografo assoluto

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

xi

Foreword by Ismene Brown

xiii

Author’s Preface to the English Edition: The West in Russia and Russia in the West – a Permeable Membrane

xvii

Lineage of the Ballets Russes Companiesxxiii PART I: The BALLETS RUSSES

An Introduction

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IN THE SHADOW OF DIAGHILEV

13

Rachel Cameron on Tamara Karsavina Her whole being shone with a marvellous inner beauty…

13

Tamara Geva Balanchine spotted me at a class and asked me to work with him

19

Alexandra (Choura) Danilova I told Diaghilev, ‘If I’m good enough for the Mariinsky Theatre, I should be good enough for you’

25

REMEMBERING COLONEL DE BASIL’S BALLETS RUSSES: THE ‘BABY BALLERINAS’ 

41

Irina Baronova That nickname stuck to us fast!

42

Tamara Toumanova Anna Pavlova said to me, ‘Oh you are a darling, clever girl!’

57

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Tatiana Riabouchinska We rehearsed on the steamship…

67

REMEMBERING COLONEL DE BASIL’S BALLETS RUSSES: Dancers71

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Marika Besobrasova We left Yalta on the last English steamer

71

Tatiana Leskova One way or another, everything goes back to Diaghilev

83

George Zoritch I was able to step into a role at the last minute…

92

Tamara Tchinarova (Finch) I was roped into opera and ballet translations…

100

Anna Volkova To encourage the Queen of England, the whole company sang, ‘Bottoms up, bottoms up!’

111

Miguel Terekhov It’s every man for himself in ballet

120

Marjorie Tallchief Every country produces its own type of artist

129

Anatoly Joukowsky We lived all of our life in dance

132

Tatiana Stepanova and her mother 

142

Alexandra Stepanova Oh, you just want to pinch more money from me!

143

Tatiana Stepanova Three Russians make a fair, five make a bazaar

147

THE BALLETS RUSSES IN AUSTRALIA

154

Rachel Cameron We Australians…

155

Tamara Tchinarova (Finch) Here I am, and still a dancer!

162

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Contents

THE BALLET RUSSE DE MONTE CARLO IN AMERICA

166

Frederic Franklin An argument started between Nijinska and Dolin – ‘pachimu? [why?]’

166

Nini Theilade I want a childish-looking Venus!

185

Hélène Traïline Prince, would you bring me a glass of water?

192

Nina Novak For me, to work on stage is the same as living and breathing

202

ix

PART II: THE MARQUIS DE CUEVAS AND OTHERS

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Maria Kirillova (de Fredericks) Madame de Fredericks always retains her charm and courage

211

Ethéry Pagava I expect champagne from you, and you give me Coca-Cola

223

Milorad Miskovitch A new style of classical dance alongside a fiery Serbian temperament

231

Hélène Sadowska Très élégant at Egorova’s; très authentique at Preobrajenska’s

238

Vladimir Oukhtomsky I fell in love with dance even before I started dancing

246

Vladimir Skouratoff In France, male dance has always been in the shadows

251

Boris Traïline Boy, come over here, explain it to these blockheads!

255

Nicholas Polajenko Don’t worry, dearie, let’s just dance the waltz

265

Jean Babilée There was something so amazingly lyrical about the Russian ballet training!

272

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Maina Gielgud Rudi said, ‘You come 5 o’clock and bring boy’

284

AFTERWORD

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John Neumeier, Nijinsky and the Diaghilev Tradition

297

John Neumeier Like a tree, the art of ballet has many roots…

301

Dramatis Personae

311

Illustrations

313

Index of Names

321

Index of Ballets

331

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acknowledgements

I

t is my pleasure to express my gratitude to all who have been involved in the creation of this book. First and foremost, to all the interviewees – often very busy people, many of them advanced in years – who found the time and inclination to talk to me. I am especially grateful to those of my many interlocutors who read the texts resulting from our talks and added their corrections. I would also like to thank Prince Nikita and Princess Nina LobanovRostovsky, who generously shared with me the most valuable of gifts – their connections and knowledge of the R ­ ussian art world in the West. I am also grateful to all those who helped me with the painstaking work of going over the transcripts and editing the manuscript, then providing their comments, especially the remarkable ballet historian and critic, Elizabeth Suritz. I owe very special thanks to the New Literary Review and its director Irina Prokhorova, who published the Russian edition, and to Rosanna Kelly, who had started the huge translation work long before it became a publishing project. I am grateful to all my interlocutors who shared with me many photographs from their collections: to A. Korlyakov, the late A. Shlepyanov, L. Weinstein and the late Yury Krassovsky and Vera Krassovskaya; to Mr Michel Brodovitch for permission to publish photographs by Alexey Brodovitch and to Yury and Yana Toropov; to the Archives of the Mariinsky Theatre and of the St Petersburg Museum of Theatrical and Musical Art, as well as to the John Neumeier Foundation. I express my gratitude to all of them for the kind permission to publish these pictures. I thank Nina Stavissky, ­Catriona Kelly, Derek Andersen and especially Sergio Obolonsky, as scientific advisor, for improving, editing and preparing the manuscript for publication. I am grateful to my daughters, Anna and Marie-Michelle, for their help in compiling the indices.

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Rosanna Kelly would like to thank Michael Meylac for introducing her to the captivating world of the Ballets Russes. She is most grateful to Helen Atkinson, Caroline Brooke-Johnson, Sophie Corke, Justin Kelly, David Nice, Jeremy O’Sullivan, Sergei Reviakin and Jan Usvyat for their help and encouragement and especially her husband, Anthony Gardner, for his tireless support and editorial guidance. We are both grateful to Linda and Laurence Kelly for solving many problems, particularly for their help in narrowing down the overabundant original material; to Ismene Brown for her acute observations and for having kindly agreed to write a Foreword; to our editors Joanna Godfrey, Sophie Campbell and Paul Beaney; and to I.B.Tauris, for publishing the book.

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FOREWORD

T

he story of the Ballets Russes’ explosive arrival in Europe in the early twentieth century is one of the most powerful narratives of modern Western culture. At the company’s helm was a boldly open-minded Russian, Sergei Diaghilev, whom we might consider an honorary Englishman, as well as an honorary European and American, so essential was his bequest to the revitalisation of Russian classical ballet and theatrical art by its second, Western wave. In his gourmet choice of choreographers, dancers, composers and musicians, painters and dramaturgs, Diaghilev planted in the heart of Western Europe a cornucopia of orientalism that, having astonished its foreign audience with its elaborate strangeness, immediately collaborated with the continent’s most modern arts. The Ballets Russes became synonymous with eclectic innovation. Immediately after Diaghilev’s death in 1929, inspired acolytes set about founding new platforms in the West – schools and companies – to advance his agenda of high academic tradition exploring contemporary expressive arts. And thus the Ballets Russes, within barely 20 years, became the West’s precious inheritance – while in their own country, under new management from 1917, they were brutally excommunicated. The Soviets would develop their own narrative in ballet, a nationalist counter-argument to Diaghilev’s multidisciplinary, chameleon multiculturalism. What is missing between these two well-known strands of the story is a third narrative: that of the forgotten ones, those who danced with Diaghilev’s descendant companies, carrying the consequences of the Ballets Russes in their bodies and hearts. There were tantalising glimpses of that third strand in Sir John Drummond’s book of interviews, Speaking of Diaghilev, Faber & Faber, published in 1997 in London, which elaborated on the influence of the Ballets Russes on Britain’s ballet by presenting

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discussions with key figures of the original Diaghilev generation. In 2006, a more global picture was sketched by Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine’s US film Ballets Russes, which caught up with some of the surviving members of the various successor companies, vivacious veterans who enchanted a worldwide audience with their personalities and memories. But every day brought fresh obituaries and there remained an urgent gap of witness. What was the story from those dancers who populated a fractured postwar world with their Russian values? And how do postSoviet Russians assess that period today? Had the country’s seismic overturning of its Soviet identity in 1991 enabled a native rediscovery of this globally disseminated history? Could the aftermath of the Ballets Russes be discussed with Russian tongues and evaluated through Russian eyes? Fortunately, in Russia another tale has been unfolding over the past 20 years. Michael Meylac, one of the country’s most eminent literary professors and a scholar of linguistics, grew up infused with a passion for ballet. His work on foreign-published dissident writers had brought a brutal intervention in his life; in 1983 he was arrested by the KGB and imprisoned for four years. After his release he left the dying Soviet Union and settled in France and – as homesick foreigners do – sought out older compatriots, aware of so many untold stories that the USSR had censored. He encountered Ballets Russes dancers everywhere in the world, the relics of a flaming artistic community circling the planet, the migrant Russians who ‘flitted like a bird from one branch to another’, to use Colonel de Basil’s phrase. They told him of the wartime adventures, outbreaks of ego and logistical accidents that had washed them up in the ports of South America or the Antipodes, where, simply by having to find a dance class and continue their daily discipline, they had dropped the seeds of Russian ballet to sprout anew. He asked them for their opinions on the developments that had resulted and the effect of their wanderings on their sense of self and their art. The result is an archive of interviews with Ballets Russes dancers as dramatically human as it is historically valuable: a whirl of personalities, dramas, comedies, tragedies and provocative artistic judgments. Some are interviews that could only have been conducted by a Russian questioner with Russian interviewees for Russian readers – between com­patriots, lips could be unbuttoned, confidences shared, antagonisms aired and candid opinions given about rival dancers or impresarios. The Western seedlings, such as Marjorie Tallchief, Jean Babilée, Frederic

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Foreword

xv

Franklin and Maina Gielgud, testify to the fertility of Ballets Russes multiculturalism. Today, great ballet companies with Diaghilev’s genetic material are found not only in Britain, France and Germany, but right through the Americas from Canada to Chile, in Cuba, South Africa, Holland, Hungary, Lithuania, Turkey, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. The life experiences are fascinating tales in their own right: much courage in the face of gigantic events, loneliness, and a gallows humour peculiar to that generation of Russians, many of them aristocrats, whose imperial-era lives were ripped apart by the Revolution and then by the nomadic life of dancing. Fate and time have gathered for Meylac a cast of voices where hierarchy and rank do not dictate the selection. There is important witness for history in the reminiscences about the competing contenders as Diaghilev’s heirs, the impresarios René Blum, Serge Denham and Colonel Wassily de Basil; and the voices from the corps de ballet and secretary’s office are often more illuminating than those of the stars. But what is novel and challenging is that ‘our’ legacy is discussed from the point of view of the givers, rather than the receivers. The questions are framed differently and answers come with new dynamics and value judgments. The development of world ballet in the postwar period looks very different through a Russian, British or American lens – eyes focus on different objects and facts; and specific cultural traditions, emotional habits, references and tastes shape each person’s perspective on a shared experience. Now, thanks to the initiative and dedication of its English translator, Rosanna Kelly, the Anglosphere can access a stimulating, sometimes surprising perspective on what we consider our artistic identity. Professor Meylac’s book does an exceptional favour to dance history, bringing all the participants in the Ballets Russes story together just in time. He has built up the family tree of twentieth-century Russian ballet and shows how its branches reach from one end of the Earth to the other. The story of the Ballets Russes phenomenon, this book demonstrates, is in the plural. The stories belong not only to Western ballet but to Russian cultural history, too, and they open doors to penetrating new conversations about Diaghilev’s legacy. Ismene Brown, 2017

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Author’s Preface to the English Edition

The West in Russia and Russia in the West – a Permeable Membrane

W

hen i was a child, my parents would often take me to ­Pavlovsk, a suburb of St Petersburg, with its royal palace and beautiful park. There, I would admire the nine marble Muses surrounding Apollo in a lovely dance, revived in the best of Balanchine’s ballets, which he had created for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes just a year before the great impresario passed away. Some scholars insist on the Muses’ essentially demonic or chthonic nature, similar to that of the Wilis in John Neumeier’s version of Giselle. Etymologically, the Muses may be connected to mice, but who is ready to abandon the lovely image of the ‘dear guest with a flute in her hand’, or of a charming winged creature from a Chagall self-portrait? I did not merely learn from Dante, but myself experienced the impossibility of ‘writing a poem’ unless it is heard, unless it comes from somewhere, and a fellow artist, who wished to share with me some secrets of his craft, confessed that in painting he was mostly committed to giving way to something for which there are wonderful Greek and Slavonic words but that can only be paraphrased in English as ‘not-made-by-human-hand’. These days, every quality newspaper has its arts and books pages, but I am not referring to those here. We are immersed ‘in the foam of days’, our minds hover in the future and in the past, but art is able to return us to the present moment. This ballet will be danced only once, only here and only today and, if again tomorrow, it will be a different performance,

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and the underlying vision will be different too. And no matter that a cathedral is built of stone, which endures, while a picture is painted on canvas and a movie reposes on fragile film; for you, they only exist at the moment you are contemplating them, then comes memory-the-sorceress, ready to transform the impressions received into a kaleidoscope, a mosaic, at will. Theatre responds to our primordial desire for ‘another reality’ with disarming simplicity: here is the audience and there is the stage (remaining as yet invisible behind the curtain), and alongside this, of course, theatrical conventions too. To all this, the art of ballet adds a mysterious blend of corporeality and spirituality, or, to put it simply, of body and soul, emerging and enthralling us through the dancers’ strictly verified, controlled steps and positions, either simultaneous or complementing one another, all the more precious in their ephemeral sovereignty. Already the lights have gone out, but the curtain is still down, and what is there, behind the curtain? E se dietro il sipario non c’è niente (what if behind the curtain there is nothing)? I wish to talk about a special affinity with a picture outlining a landscape I have never seen, but recognise nevertheless. Or about the pity piercing us at the first glance when we look at Dürer’s Monstrous Pig of Landser, or at someone’s portrait of an ugly girl; or about when we hear that incomparable leap of a mezzosoprano’s voice down from top A to middle D; or glimpse a close-up after a panoramic traverse in a film by Antonioni; or gaze at the Black Square by Malevich (slightly asymmetrical, and there’s the rub) as the door into the metaphysical void, his White Square being, then, the door to heaven; when we come across a felicitous alliteration before the caesura in the verse; and live through that special moment when the discordant hum of instruments being tuned goes down and the conductor has raised his hands for the ever elusive upbeat, and the curtain is going up, and we see 12, 16, 24 dancers on the dimly lit stage ready to restore the caprice foreordained by the choreographer to eternity, and there we touch another reality, we are temporarily immortal because, paraphrasing Stravinsky, art does not express anything other than its own inherent properties, but, we might add, it assures our alliance with existence. We are a little scared, but the Muse who dictated her dispositions to the artist acknowledges our sentience, a current runs along our spines and goose bumps are crawling on our skin. The conductor has raised his baton,

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Preface

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the music has started, the dancers are in motion, and now we have to surrender to the earthly, seductive harmony. As a child I was taken to ballet matinées at the Mariinsky Theatre and sometimes to the older and smaller Maly (Mikhailovsky) Theatre, close to our home. I watched Petipa’s classical ballets over and over, managing to catch all the Russian stars of the postwar period, starting with Galina Ulanova and Natalia Dudinskaya. When the lights went down, I would inch up from the breast pocket of my suit the head of a doll hidden there, so that he would be able to watch the performance too. For a child, the Maly had another tempting side: from the old times there miraculously survived an ice-cream vendor, whipping by hand his creamy marvels, such as I never ate before or since. My friendship from childhood with Vera Krassovskaya, a former ballerina who became perhaps the best Russian classical ballet historian, and whose insightful comments and descriptions had a unique accuracy and aptness, helped orientate me in the subtle points of choreography. In the early years I also often enjoyed the company of my parents’ friend Yuri Slonimsky, a phenomenal expert on Russian and French ballet, and a master of devastating retorts: his book about Didelot interested me even then, although I also remember his teasing claim to know more about the secrets of fishing than all the subtle intricacies of ballet. From a young age I was constantly present at artistic events; however, except for diary jottings, I never wrote about them: the few attempts to write criticism in my youth convinced me that co-operating with the Soviet press was out of the question. In 1987 I came back from the Gulag, where I had spent four years (having been originally sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment and five in exile: in the pre-perestroika fog it suddenly came to be embarrassing to have political prisoners). The Paris Russian newspaper La Pensée Russe published a series of my poems and invited me to work as a regular contributor, an offer which I accepted, producing about 100 articles over 12 years. At the same time I started to prepare reports for the cultural programmes of the Russian service of the BBC and Radio Liberty in Munich. Meanwhile, in Russia, censorship – albeit not the lesser evil, intrusive editing – disappeared, and I began to be published in Russian periodicals too. For most of my life I lived behind a curtain – not the magic one of theatre, but Stalin’s Iron Curtain between the East and the West. However, it was full of holes. It should, rather, have been called a permeable

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membrane, through both sides of which something was continually leaking. ‘The West in Russia’ and ‘Russia in the West’ – this is what interested me the most. The unstable nature of this curtain was perfectly demonstrated in 1958 when, after decades of isolation, Russia was visited by the Paris Opera Ballet, the company’s first tour to that country. For its director, Sergei (Serge) Lifar, Diaghilev’s associate, who had raised the Paris Ballet to stupendous heights, the curtain turned out to be a real one – Soviet Russia did not grant him a visa. The choreography of the ballets and the skill of the dancers (some of them students of the ballet teachers who had escaped from the Russian Revolution, like Preobrajenska, Egorova, Kshessinska, Volinine, Kniaseff and many former members of the Ballets Russes) underlined the brilliant development of the Russian ballet tradition which, in turn, goes back to the French ballet. Giselle itself, established in the Grand Opéra in 1841 but then dropped from the repertoire 30 years later, returned to Paris in 1924, as an enriched Russian version, thanks to the labours of Nicholas Sergeyev and Olga Spessivtseva. The tours of the Balanchine ballet, which followed soon afterwards, demonstrated the same enduring brilliance. Similarly, the history of painting in the West, if not in Russia, after 1930 is inseparable from the Russian avant-garde. As a counter-balance to the Gulag Archipelago and to the Iron Curtain, many waves of emigration have made Russia part of the global cultural archipelago. Since 1989, when I became free to travel the world, the museums and musical theatres of Western Europe have opened their doors to me. And what a joy it was to recognise paintings that I had already seen at the visiting exhibitions in Moscow and St Petersburg, what exhilaration to attend exhibitions and concerts by artists from Russia! Having settled in France I followed Russian artistic events with still closer attention than before and everywhere I tried to find artists belonging to earlier generations, to speak to them and to record our conversations on tape. Thus I collected many interviews, mostly with major artists abroad: painters, musicians, dancers, choreographers, collectors – some of them born as long ago as the late nineteenth century. These conversations would take place anywhere: in New York and Paris apartments, in country houses, in cafés and hotel rooms, on the bus, on planes, by telephone, in artists’ dressing rooms or on stage after a performance. In a sense, this book wrote itself almost as much as I wrote it: some encounters took place spontaneously, others I sought out, and often the

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first encounters led to more and more connections. In the long run, I decided that the accumulated conversations relating to the artistic life of more than half a century were worth being collected. The original Russian edition in two large volumes included sections dedicated to music, art, theatre and cinema. In this English edition I concentrate on the stories linked with the whole tradition of the Diaghilev ballet, not only with the legendary stars of the post-Diaghilev Ballets Russes, but also with their no-less-interesting successors. There are also some conversations with the Russian dancers who worked during the postwar years in the West, within the parameters of the Ballets Russes, including the Marquis de Cuevas ballet company. As a counter-balance, Western dancers such as Jean Babilée or Frederic Franklin speak about their émigré Russian ballet teachers and colleagues, like Serge Lifar, with the same reverence and admiration, and also about how the Ballets Russes influenced them. No less important are the references to the three great dancers – Nureyev, Makarova and Baryshnikov – through whose consecutive ‘jumps to freedom’ in the 1960s the East and West merged once again (the more voluminous Russian edition contains conversations with two of them, as well as with the outstanding choreographers Pierre Lacotte and Roland Petit, the beloved disciples, respectively, of the Parisian Russians Lubov Egorova and Madame Rousanne). I finish this book with some of my talks with John Neumeier, who, being a pupil of Vera Volkova, carried his love for and faithfulness to the shadow of the great Nijinsky throughout all of his life and creation.

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Lineage of the Ballets Russes Companies

1909–1929 Ballets Russes de Sergei Diaghilev 1929–1932 Th  éâtre du Casino Monte Carlo (Société des Bains sur Mer) and Ballet of the Opéra Russe à Paris 1932 Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo Directors: René Blum and Col. W. de Basil Artistic Advisor: Boris Kochno Maître de Ballet and Choreographer: George Balanchine 1933, London New York

Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo Director General: Col. W. de Basil Artistic Director: René Blum Monte Carlo Ballet Russe

1934, London Ballets Russes de Col. W. de Basil Director General: Col. W. de Basil Artistic Director: René Blum Maître de Ballet and Artistic Collaborator: Léonide Massine (Col. De Basil’s act of putting his own name on the  company caused the breach between him and René Blum) 1935, London Ballets Russes de Col. W. de Basil or Col. W. de Basil’s Ballets Russes Founder and Director General: Col. W. de Basil Maître de Ballet and Artistic Collaborator: Léonide Massine

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New York

Monte Carlo Ballet Russe

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DE BASIL’S COMPANY 1936 London New York

as in 1935 Col. W. de Basil’s Ballets Russes

1937 London as in 1935 New York Col. W. de Basil’s Ballets Russes (de Monte Carlo) 1938 London Russian Ballet, presented by Educational Ballets, Ltd. Directors: Victor André (Chairman), W. G. Perkins, G. Sebastianov (Managing Director) Australia Covent Garden Russian Ballet, Presented by Educational Ballets, Ltd. 1939 London

Covent Garden Russian Ballet, Presented by Educational Ballets, Ltd.

Australia O  riginal Ballet Russe (until the company disbanded in 1951) BLUM’S COMPANY 1936 Ballets de Monte Carlo Founder and Director: René Blum Maître de Ballet and Choreogrpher: Michel Fokine 1938 Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Founder and Director: René Blum Artistic Director: Léonide Massine Managing Director: Serge Denham

Source: “Lineage...”, in: García-Márques, V. Colonel de Basil’s  Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, 1932–1952, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. xvi–xvii.

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PART I THE BALLETS RUSSES

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• An Introduction

N

ot so long ago, Countess de Ségur, who was related to the Russian princely Rostopchin family, was alive and well in Paris, and she recounted to me how in her childhood she used to be taken to the ‘Ballets Russes de Serge de Diaghileff ’ matinees. In my own childhood I had the opportunity to see Serge Lifar and, in my youth, George Balanchine. As an adult I held conversations with Alexandra Danilova and Tamara Geva (Zheverzheieva), both of whom, accompanied by Balanchine, fled Soviet Russia and joined Diaghilev in 1924. In London in 2004, six months before her death, I met the last living Diaghilev ballerina, Dame Alicia Markova, who had started dancing for him as a 13-year-old. Nearly 100, she had kept her charm and elegance and that somewhat capricious smile, like the one described by Proust in his portrayal of the actress La Berma (Sarah Bernhardt). I made several tape recordings with her, but it proved impossible to put them into the narrative; in answer to any question she really began ab ovo – from the first childhood recollections about how every Sunday her father would carry her on his shoulders to watch a football match in the London borough where they lived. However, I remember her words, ‘Though we were paid so little, I thought how privileged I was to be working with such remarkable people.’ In his splendid book Speaking of Diaghilev, John Drummond included his talks with the remaining Sergei Diaghilev dancers and associates who were still alive in the 1960s. In the 1990s, without yet knowing his book, I happened to do something similar with the next, post-Diaghilev

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generation, although I also had the good fortune to interview Diaghilev’s prima ballerina Danilova, as well as Tamara Geva, and to have Rachel Cameron’s unique memoir of her relationship with Tamara Karsavina. Three years after Diaghilev’s death, the Ballets Russes were reborn, with many of the same artists, including the younger choreographers Balanchine and Léonide Massine, and Mikhail Fokine – the veteran who, as well as Diaghilev’s irreplaceable régisseur Serge Grigoriev, remained with the company for another 20 years. The older Diaghilev dancers would gradually be replaced by younger ones, prepared by the Russian ex-stars of the Imperial Ballet, who, in exile, opened schools in the European capitals. Many of those remarkable people had been half-forgotten when, in 2000, UNESCO organised a conference in New Orleans to which they invited 70 Ballets Russes dancers (many of whom were over 80 years old). They came together from Brazil and Venezuela, from Europe, Australia and the USA. Several moments from this reunion, followed by master classes for young dancers, were captured in the richly documented, two-hour film Ballets Russes, which came out in December 2005 and is available on DVD. I myself had entered the Ballets Russes world years earlier and through a back door. Ballet is ephemeral in its very essence and the Ballets Russes, having faded into the past so long ago, seemed to me somehow all the more impenetrable and unreachable. But once, on a visit to London in 1989, one of my friends introduced me to Irina Baronova, by whom I was enchanted and who advised me to meet Tamara Tchinarova, her onetime ballet companion. With no special aim, I recorded my conversations with the two venerable dancers. This led to meetings with their former colleagues scattered around the world and destined to find a place in this book, where they come together again. Thus, new ties sprang up. I began my personal research, immersing myself deeply in their era. This book is a record of conversations I was able to have with the last living dancers of the post-Diaghilev Ballets Russes, whose voyages around the globe had influenced and shaped so much of the world’s ballet. The majority of veterans willingly shared their reminiscences with me. More reserved was Marjorie Tallchief. The only taciturn interviewee was Vladimir Dokoudovsky, nicknamed Duke in the Ballets Russes, who later became a lionised ballet teacher. When I visited him at his

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studio in New York I found a very tired, chain-smoking old gentleman, almost mechanically giving commands to a few shapeless housewives, evidently striving to become ballerinas. Obviously it was doing neither him nor them any good. Still, I had other, more rewarding encounters in America, such as seeing Tatiana Leskova in San Francisco the day after the premiere of her revival of Massine’s Présages. Alas, I never met the choreographer and répétiteur John Taras; nor Nicholas Beriozoff and Sasha Kalioujny, danseurs nobles; nor the founders of the Dutch and Canadian Ballets Ludmila Chiriaeff and Sonia Gaskell; nor Irène Lidova, the patroness of all of the Russian ballet dancers in Paris; nor the friend of the Paris avant-gardistes, Princess Natasha Kirsta, who in later years directed the Australian Ballet; nor the famous ‘ballet mother’ Mamma Toumanova – they had all passed away. In 1929, Sergei Diaghilev died; his ashes repose in the San Michele cemetery in Venice and his tomb bears its epitaph in Russian – Venice, eternal inspirer of our propitiations. These are the words inscribed by Diaghilev himself on the first page of an exercise book, which he gave to Serge Lifar in 1926 for recording Enrico Cecchetti’s lessons. In a way, these words reflect the cosmopolitan outlook that drove Diaghilev’s enterprise and determined its consequences. From 1909, Diaghilev’s Saisons Russes in Paris impressively exposed Russian art to the West. The Ballets Russes acquainted both continents with the achievements of the Russian ballet tradition; Diaghilev’s sensitivity in responding to new ideas in art and attracting the best artists for his stage productions, his aspiration for a synthesis of the arts – music, dance and painting – constituted the very essence of his theatrical enterprise. The company first performed in Monte Carlo in 1911 and would return there after periods of wandering. In 1926, the Diaghilev company was renamed Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo and this new name would become indelibly associated with its later offshoots for the next three decades. The link between Diaghilev’s company and Russia had been broken forever by World War I and the Revolution. After the latter, a whole constellation of dancers of the middle generation, the magnificently trained artists who had already made striking careers in the ballets of the Mariinsky and Bolshoi Theatres, found itself in the West. Several of them joined the ranks of Diaghilev’s company, but they also performed in other European ballet theatres, founded their own troupes (like those of

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Mordkin or Boris Romanov), or, most importantly, opened the schools described on the following pages. First and foremost these were the Parisian schools, started by the former stars of the Mariinsky Theatre: Egorova, Kshessinska and Preobrajenska; Volinine, a Muscovite, also gave lessons in Paris, as did the younger teachers Gsovsky and Kniaseff. Karsavina and Nicholas Sergeyev settled in London, where Nicholas Legat and Lydia Kyasht were already established; in Berlin reigned Eugenia Eduardova and Tatiana Gsovsky. It was to these schools that the Russian émigrés willingly handed over their children and these very schools prepared the next generation, which enabled first Diaghilev, and then his successors and any other ballet company, to benefit for 40 more years from the stream of younger dancers trained in the best Russian ballet tradition. After Diaghilev’s death, his troupe dispersed, but it was never likely that such an array of artistic talent would fail to produce a legacy. The company came to life again three years later, in 1932, on the initiative of René Blum, the director of the Opera Theatre of Monte Carlo, which had already given a home to Diaghilev’s company, and the Russian émigré Colonel de Basil, a Paris impresario for Russian dance and opera. Diaghilev’s three great choreographers George Balanchine, Léonide Massine and Bronislava Nijinska were successively involved and, over the course of the next few years, the best pupils from the aforementioned Russian ballet schools, including the three ‘baby ballerinas’, joined the troupe. Balanchine’s innovations did not impress the classically minded de Basil: within a year he was unceremoniously replaced by the more theatrical Massine and he soon left for America, where a great future awaited him. In 1936, de Basil parted from Blum and the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo split into two companies: the Ballets Russes de Colonel de Basil (from 1939, the Original Ballet Russe), and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, initially run by Blum. Each manager believed he was the true vessel for Diaghilev’s legacy and each enviously poached the other’s dancers, choreographers and repertoire. When Massine broke away with Blum, Fokine and Nijinska moved between the two. In 1938, the troupes’ rivalry came to a head in London, where both performed simultaneously. By then, Blum’s place had been taken by Serge Denham (Sergei Dokuchaev), a banker of Russian origin. The touring activity of both ballet companies was dictated, to a large extent, by World War II, driving them from Europe to the furthest ends

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of the globe and fortuitously seeding an even wider legacy than Diaghilev could have foreseen. They both performed Diaghilev ballets and classical works, as well as commissioning his major choreographers, Fokine, Massine, Balanchine and Nijinska. De Basil’s troupe travelled widely, touring Australia and the countries of North and South America. In 1941 in Cuba, 18 dancers announced a strike over non-payment of salaries and left the company. After the war, the company toured in the United States and had a season in London in 1947, but in November of 1948, at the end of a tour of Spain and North Africa, it faded away. After de Basil’s death in Paris on 27 July 1951, Serge Grigoriev, who had been the company’s régisseur since the early Diaghilev days, with his wife Lubov Tchernicheva, briefly revived the company for the last time during the winter of 1951–2. Curiously enough, the first part of Grigoriev’s memoirs, The Diaghilev Ballet 1909–1929, was published in translation from Russian into English in his lifetime (1953, paperback 2009) and was retranslated back into Russian 40 years later. Quite unexpectedly, by the efforts of Valery Voskressensky (Colonel de Basil’s grandson) and the St Petersburg Museum of Theatrical and Musical Art, the authentic Russian manuscript of the second part, Original Ballet Russe, 1932–1952 (Library of Congress, Washington), covering our period, has just been published in St Petersburg, marked by an event at the 7th Festival of Arts, ‘Diaghilev. P. S.’, in December 2016. After the split, the pivotal creator Massine stayed at first with de Basil, but then quarrelled with him and switched to Blum’s Monte Carlo-based company, joined by several stars, including Toumanova and Danilova. He also kept the rights to several of his ballets and choreographed important new ones, such as Gaîté parisienne and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Once again, however, Massine quarrelled, this time with Blum’s successor, Serge Denham. In 1939, as war gathered in Europe, he moved to the US, and so did key stars such as Markova, Dolin and Youskevitch. After Balanchine had managed to return its bygone glamour to the Ballet Russe, in the postwar years the company faced vigorous competition. Massine, Markova and others spearheaded the new Ballet Theatre in New York, in parallel with the rising success of Balanchine in his new enterprise, soon to become the New York City Ballet (Balanchine had primarily been based in the US from the early 1930s. In 1946 he founded The Ballet Society, which in 1948 became the NYCB at City Centre). Despite the Ballet Russe’s nationwide American tours, these

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developments were drawing the creative talent away from the company: its name was no longer a byword for creativity. Denham founded the Ballet Russe School in New York in 1954, but by then the company’s tours were tired, though it could still call on stars from time to time, such as Maria Tallchief (who had moved by then to the New York City Ballet with Balanchine), Alicia Alonso, Nina Vyroubova and even Yvette Chauviré. In 1962, the company, by then almost entirely made up of American dancers, folded. It is a little-known fact that Denham made one last attempt to revive it in 1967; the troupe danced for a whole season at its native home of Monte Carlo. The lesser-known history of the Ballets Russes’s American period is elucidated in this book from conversations with some of its dancers, first and foremost with Frederic Franklin. The stories of the artists – the dancers and choreographers who brought glory to the Ballets Russes – will be told on the following pages. Meanwhile, I would like to say a few words about those impresarios who, surmounting innumerable difficulties, kept the Ballets Russes afloat. Some evidence relating to the pre-history, both of de Basil and his new company, only became known recently. He served in the White Army in the Caucasus and in 1919 emigrated to Paris, where he married Nina Leonidova, a ballerina for whom, with several professional dancers, he created his first dance company in 1923. In 1925, de Basil joined up with Ignaty Zon, a well-known theatre impresario, and Prince Wassily Tsereteli, to start the theatre agency Zerbazon. Together they created a permanent émigré Russian Opera company with an element of ballet from de Basil’s former dancers. It was this company that, just a few years after Diaghilev’s death, would be the root of the reborn Ballets Russes, under the aegis of de Basil (who deserted his former companions) and René Blum, the refined director of the Monte Carlo Theatre. Of course, the revival of the Ballets Russes was made possible thanks to the authority of Blum, a trusted Diaghilev aide, and to the aforementioned return of the older Diaghilev artists, counter-balanced by the influx of very young people trained by the Russian ballet teachers in Paris. It was said that Blum invited de Basil to join in the reconstruction of the Ballets Russes because he was amazed by his energy: a poster hanging in his office read ‘We overcome the impossible instantly, we work miracles progressively’. But, before long, he started to call him his Colonel-gangster; one can imagine how different they were, our down-to-earth Colonel and

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René Blum, the French Prime Minister’s brother, who had worked with Diaghilev, had promoted from the beginning the publication of Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu (with, incidentally, some enthusiastic pages devoted to the Ballets Russes) and who knew a great number of scores by heart. In 1936, the good-natured Blum, squeezed between de Basil on one side and Massine and Denham on the other, lost the battle for possession of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes heritage. He was arrested by the Germans in Paris in 1941 and perished in Auschwitz. All of his papers, including a rumoured manuscript of his memoirs, were lost. For all their differences, Serge Denham, who came from a cultured family from Samara, a provincial city in Central Russia, was as much an enthusiast as Blum and de Basil were. His father, a banker, died young. The family moved to Moscow, where Serge (then named Dokuchaev) graduated from the Commercial Academy and married a rich merchant’s daughter. But his interests were concentrated on art. He played the piano well and maintained that Scriabin, whom his mother knew well, had overseen his musical education. During the Revolution he left with his family for the Far East, from whence he emigrated to America. On the steamship out of Shanghai he got to know a ballet patron who took him into his circle later on. These contacts served him well afterwards. Denham himself quickly entered the New York bankers’ milieu and soon was appointed vice president of the Bankers Trust – a fund with interests in European capitals whither Denham was often sent. In Paris he met Diaghilev, who inspired him with the idea that America would become the centre of world ballet some time in the future. Some years after Diaghilev’s death, Denham became interested in de Basil and Blum’s Ballets Russes. Taking advantage of Blum’s financial difficulties, and of the rift between the two directors, he bought Blum’s company together with all its props and started managing it; the company kept the name Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In 1938, Denham, helped by the same ballet patrons, created World Art Inc., later to become the Universal Art Corporation, to which the Ballet Russe transferred whilst he became its vice president. Thanks to his energy and contacts, the Ballet Russe could continue to exist for almost two more decades. There were yet more players in the post-Diaghilev Ballets Russes story. In 1944 when, fleeing the war, the de Basil troupe was travelling around South America and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was touring

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the United States, a new ballet company appeared. It was the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo, based once again in Monaco. The company was created and headed by Diaghilev’s star dancer, Serge Lifar, who had been accused of being a collaborator with the Nazis (having been chosen, not without reason – but there were so many of them! – as a scapegoat by the Left). He had to seek refuge in Monte Carlo until 1947, when he left the Nouveau Ballet to return to his position of ballet director at the Paris Opera. That same year, the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo merged with the Ballet International du Marquis de Cuevas, forming the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. It can be seen that the general name of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo embraces a number of ballet companies, sharing origins, traditions, repertoire, choreographers and dancers, who migrated from one company to another. For legal and sometimes financial reasons, Colonel de Basil’s one troupe changed its name 16 times over 20 years, but still the words Ballets Russes and his name were omnipresent. The Ballets Russes, in its wanderings, brought worldwide fame to the Russian ballet tradition, enriching it with innovations by remarkable choreographers and inspiration by notable performers. The Paris Opera Ballet was given a new lease of life by Serge Lifar, who directed it for a quarter of a century. Having created his New York City Ballet, Balanchine defined the style of American (and not only American) ballet for a long time, whilst Mikhail Mordkin founded the second major ballet theatre of the USA, which would become American Ballet Theatre. Dancers and ballet masters who had belonged to Diaghilev’s entourage founded ballet theatres in different countries. The British Ballet and its school were established by Marie Rambert, Ninette de Valois and Alicia Markova, all Diaghilev performers, with the formative influence of Nijinska, Karsavina and the ballet master Serge Grigoriev. Fokine, Boris Romanov and his wife Elena Smirnova contributed significantly to the development of classical ballet in Argentina. Before and after World War II, some of the Ballets Russes dancers stayed behind after tours of the exotic continents (around which Anna Pavlova had travelled long before that). The dancers of the Ballets Russes who had settled in Australia after touring there were directly involved in the formation of ballet in that country, and Tatiana Leskova and Nina Verchinina (but also Igor Shvetsov) were also directly involved in the formation of Brazilian ballet. It is not surprising that the school founded in 1940 in Sydney by Elena Kirsova bore the

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name The Diaghilev Ballet School. Chaboukiani’s student Vadim Sulima and his wife created Chile’s first classical ballet company. After having worked in Belgium, Léonide Kachurovsky established his ballet troupe in Guatemala. In the 1960s, Nina Novak initiated a classical ballet school and company in Venezuela; before the war Tamara Grigorieva started one in Uruguay, whilst Yurek Shabelevsky, the character dancer from de Basil’s Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, ended his career as ballet master in New Zealand. In Yugoslavia, Russian émigrés such as Margarita Froman of the Bolshoi Theatre and Elena Polyakova of the Mariinsky raised the standards of ballet to a high level and, in the years before the Baltic countries were seized by the Soviets, other dancers from the old Russia had laid the foundations of classical ballet in Latvia and Lithuania. Mikhail Fokine’s daughter-in-law Alexandra Fedorova, as well as Ludmila Schollar and Anatole Vilzak, worked in Riga, whilst after Diaghilev’s death Nemchinova, Zvereff and Oboukhoff found shelter in Kaunas as dancers and ­ballet masters, and so did the young Nicholas Beriozoff. Lithuanian-born Sonia Gaskell, who had studied in Paris with Egorova and Leo Staats, was the key figure in the development of Dutch ballet. Ludmila Chiriaeff, a Fokine follower, created the Montreal Ballet, and the Canadian National Ballet emerged from the school and ballet troupe set up by Boris Volkov, a disciple of Mikhail Mordkin. Most of these people had been with the Ballets Russes and many with Diaghilev – and these are only the bestknown examples. However, it is largely accepted that the Ballets Russes, gradually becoming Americanised, underwent a decline. As to the disappearing knowledge of the classical heritage at this time, the London Festival Ballet impresario Julian Braunsweg’s story about a meeting between David Lichine, a Ballets Russes dancer and choreographer, and the aged Alexander Benois, is more eloquent than any ballet review. Braunsweg had invited Lichine to restage The Nutcracker, with Benois to design the production. During their first meeting in Paris, Benois played the whole of Tchaikovsky’s musical score on the piano from memory, asking Lichine questions about each episode. When the exam was over, he delivered his stern verdict, declaring, ‘Lichine knows nothing, understands even less, and Benois will not work with him for fear that a magical dream of his childhood will turn into a pitiful forgery.’ He finally agreed to work on the design and the costumes, on condition that Lichine

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carry out his instructions exactly, and prepared a score for the next meeting in which every bar was harmonised with the choreography. Half-a-century has passed since the curtain fell on the last performance of the Ballets Russes and their story seems to have long since gone into the realm of legend. Nevertheless, I met its dancers and its stars, scattered across the world, in London and Paris, New York and California, Australia and South America. As before, opinions were divided. Some thought that de Basil was a genius, while Alexandra Danilova was sceptical about him. Milorad Miskovitch maintained that Lorca Massine did excellent revivals of his father’s ballets, whilst George Zoritch said nothing could be worse. Some said that whenever Nikolai Singaevsky, Bronislava Nijinska’s husband, repeated the dancers’ words to his deaf wife or translated her Russian remarks into English, he specially misrepresented them in order to cause trouble; others maintain that he, on the contrary, glossed over her rudeness. The majority of dancers do not admire Balanchine’s American period and only a few now consider him a genius. In the same way Milorad Miskovitch enthused over Irina Lidova’s contribution to postwar French ballet, Jean Babilée couldn’t stand her (only poor Ludmila Tcherina, it seems, was universally considered a bad dancer). In any case, no one tries to hide that there were plenty of quarrels and arguments. Another argument, this time between Russian dancers in the West and their colleagues in the motherland, is of an aesthetic nature. The former consider that classical ballet stagnated in Soviet Russia in the academic forms of the nineteenth century, but evolved in the West thanks to the creativity of experimental choreographers like Balanchine or Massine. Their opponents in Russia vigorously maintain that the émigrés kept the system of classical dance frozen for decades (at least where teaching was concerned), whilst it was perfected in the mother country by Vaganova and other talented coaches. But, despite the dissenting views, the love and ardour with which the contributors to this book talk about the Ballets Russes is authentic and the minutiae, known by them alone, are priceless. I dare to hope that the various angles on one and the same events, and the unexpected foreshortenings, create a three-dimensional effect, allowing us to escape the error of believing that one size fits all.

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•

IN THE SHADOW OF DIAGHILEV Rachel Cameron on Tamara Karsavina Her whole being shone with a marvellous inner beauty… London, 2005

I

  came to the West too late to talk to Karsavina – one of the greatest Russian ballerinas, who more than anyone managed to express the genius of Fokine and who greatly contributed to the successes of Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons in Paris; she died in 1978. However, Rachel Cameron, a ballerina and ballet master born in Australia, who became close to Karsavina in London in the postwar years, was able to tell me a few things about her. Please tell me how you first met Karsavina. It was very simple really because, of course, I had read about her and, of course, I worshipped her. Then one year the British Society of Ballet Teachers organised an event to celebrate the work of Enrico Cecchetti, who had worked with Diaghilev, but also with Anna Pavlova, Nijinsky and many others. They asked Lydia Sokolova, who had stayed for 16 years with the Diaghilev company and some time with de Basil’s Ballets Russes, to give a lecture about some of her roles. At that time I was dancing in a small company founded by Molly Lake, a pupil of Cecchetti, and she

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recommended me to Sokolova to demonstrate the steps for her audience, which I did. She was wonderful to work for and she was very generous in her assessment of my work. In fact, Lydia Sokolova was an English dancer who changed her name from Hilda Munnings to a Russian one when she joined Diaghilev’s ballet company. She was the first English dancer under Diaghilev and wrote a splendid memoir about him. Then the British Society of Ballet Teachers asked Karsavina to give a lecture on mime and I was put forward to do a demonstration for her. That was the first time I saw Karsavina. She liked my performance and whenever she was going to give a class she would always ask me to demonstrate for her. She gave the classes at the school run by John Gregory and Barbara Vernon, where the Nicholas Legat system was taught. I should explain that, before this, Barbara Vernon and John Gregory used to invite Kshessinska to give classes there every year. But when Kshessinska decided that she could no longer make the journey to London, they asked Karsavina to take her place. She had a curious effect on me that no other ballet master did; I always remembered the movements easily, but when Karsavina showed me what she wanted, her movements were so perfectly beautiful that I used to feel as if I was in a reverie and, when I tried to reproduce them, I would stumble. Her classes were like a dream come true for me. She also undertook three cycles of ten classes each in Kathleen Crofton’s studio. Gradually, we became friends. In 1945, the Royal Academy of Dance asked Karsavina to create a syllabus for the Teachers’ Training Course. They had wanted to start it just before the war, and everything was set for it in 1939, and then the war came and of course everything was discontinued. The Royal Academy of Dance system ensured a very good slow building of technique – they first taught an elementary and then a more advanced syllabus. But there were quite a number of students who would never reach the advanced standard because of physical difficulties. So the governing board decided that they needed to give the students more opportunity to actually dance and express themselves more personally, while at the same time not diminishing the technical side. For this they asked Karsavina to develop her own course, which she did, on the condition that it would be taught only at the Royal Academy of Dance and not outside it. The reason was that it was not a syllabus to make a dancer (it didn’t go from the beginning of the training to the end) but rather a supplement to the regular

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Rachel Cameron on Tamara Karsavina

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curriculum. And in order to broaden the students’ experience, Karsavina put in that syllabus various exercises from different schools, including those based on Cecchetti’s method, and even some of the steps as she had performed them in Giselle and other ballets. Later on, in 1974, she telephoned me and asked if I would be interested in teaching that syllabus. Of course I  said yes, and I taught it at the Royal Academy of Dance for many years. Might you say a few words about her personality? I could talk about her for hours. If I said that she was absolutely enchanting I haven’t even begun to describe her. She really was one of the greatest people I have ever met. And this you felt in many ways. She was interested in everything. She could talk to you about the latest book; and she could equally talk to you about a piece of music that had been recently composed. There was something in her sympathy for other people, which I still find exceptional. She always looked for the good side in people but she was no fool. She would not suffer liars or cheats but she always tried to find a reason why people were perhaps not at their best. She was remarkably beautiful even towards the end of her life. And what was miraculous was that if you started talking to her about a certain ballet, about a particular role which she had danced many years ago, she would suddenly demonstrate it with her hands, since she could no longer execute the steps, and her whole being and her face shone with a marvellous inner beauty. She was transformed into a woman of about 30. It was beautiful to see. Mind you, she didn’t do it very often and she wouldn’t discuss a lot of things with people that she didn’t feel she could trust. But one has the impression that Karsavina was somewhat lonely in London, or, at least, she was not in as much demand as she merited… I suppose in a way that is true, but I think she withdrew herself from ballet because she had a very happy marriage. But when her husband died and she was left alone she began to receive various invitations. Incidentally, that was the moment when we met. On the whole, young dancers don’t always appreciate the experience of their predecessors. And not only dancers, but even serious ballet institutions. Someone like her, who

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could have given so much, couldn’t have helped feeling that her abilities were not sufficiently valued. On the other hand, a great number of people reached out to her and she considered it her duty to help them, but I think that she didn’t have the same amount of energy. I never understood why the Royal Ballet did not seek her help in reviving what had been done in Diaghilev’s company, like Le Tricorne or The Firebird. It is true that she worked with the dancers when they were doing Le Tricorne, in which she had performed as the Miller’s Wife, but just as she thought she was getting somewhere with obtaining the right kind of movement from the dancers, her rehearsals were stopped. When she saw the production, she told me that it was not as it should have been. When they put on The Firebird, Karsavina, the first legendary Firebird, worked with Margot Fonteyn, but nobody else was allowed to watch the rehearsals, even though there was so much to be learnt there. One doesn’t know why, there may have been many reasons. But they could have profited from her so much more and she was so generous with her help; she wouldn’t have refused. Unfortunately such things happen quite often – indeed, it even happened with Petipa. Karsavina herself revived only two of Fokine’s ballets – Le Spectre de la rose and Le Carnaval. How were her last days and months? Her son and his wife moved away from London, so she was living with a companion who looked after her. But one day she had a nasty fall and the doctors decided that she needed day and night care. So her son arranged for her to go into a home that was closer to where he and his wife lived. We often went to visit her and she seemed to be comfortable and happy. But then she was a great actress, so one never knew if it was not a performance for our benefit. But she listened to the radio and could talk about the music in the latest concert and all sorts of things. I think she was not unhappy. But perhaps she had already removed herself a little from life. How was Karsavina’s English? Her English was remarkably good: very correct, although she spoke with a strong accent. She had a very deep voice and she loved finding new English words, which she used with tact and great exactitude.

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Rachel Cameron on Tamara Karsavina

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Very interesting, except for the accent – this is rarely the case with Russian dancers. There are many stories about their English. But she was, all in all, exceptional! You would never hear her say, ‘Oh I was so wonderful, I held my arabesque for three hours.’ That’s exactly what I heard from one of my famous interlocutors whom I interviewed for this book… She gave a very revealing lecture at the Royal Academy of Dance (they have a recording in their archives), talking about her student days, in the sense of belonging to a family where the tradition was passed from the older students to the younger ones. She describes that in her memoirs Theatre Street. She felt that she belonged to a disappearing noble culture that should be carefully preserved and transmitted to the following generations. Incidentally, Karsavina was the great niece of Alexey Khomyakov, the nineteenth-century writer and Slavophile philosopher. Her father, a pupil of Petipa, danced in his ballets from the 1870s, whilst her godfather was Pavel Gerdt, who danced the role of Prince Siegfried at the premiere of Swan Lake. Although Karsavina herself was not a Bohemian, she was treated as an insider at Stray Dog, the St Petersburg artists’ elite cabaret. On her birthday she was presented with an album called A Bouquet for Karsavina, including verses dedicated to her by famous poets, among them Akhmatova and Kuzmin. Her portrait was painted in Russia by Serov, Bakst, Sudeikin, Serebryakova and Dobouzhinsky, in England by Sargent and in France by Blanche. But did she ever talk about her brother, Lev Karsavin, the philosopher? Sometimes, but not that often, perhaps more with other people. Before World War II, her brother was teaching philosophy at a university in Lithuania, but after the country was seized by the Soviets he was imprisoned in a camp. When I was a political prisoner, I met a Lithuanian priest who had been arrested at the same time as Karsavin, who later died literally in his arms. How sad…

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Did Karsavina meet the dancers who were visiting from Russia? When the Bolshoi Theatre came on tour in 1956, Karsavina did not try to meet them. …or her old colleagues from France, or from America? She held back from many encounters because she didn’t want to be involved in any of the ‘ballet politics’. She loved seeing people, but as soon as she felt that people wanted to use her for their own ends she immediately withdrew.

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• Tamara Geva Balanchine spotted me at a class and asked me to work with him New York, 1992

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  amara geva (zheverzheieva), the daughter of the founder of the Theatre Museum in Petersburg, received me at her flat in New York. I knew that she had left Russia with her husband, George Balanchine, and with Alexandra Danilova, already a prima ballerina with the Mariinsky Theatre. They had all joined Diaghilev’s ballet company. Having disrupted her ballet career, she became famous on Broadway and she was very surprised at my ignorance concerning American musicals, a genre I have never liked. You were born in St Petersburg, were you not? Yes, it was still St Petersburg then, not Leningrad. And now it is St Petersburg again. Yet I was born in a different St Petersburg from today’s, at the corner of Troitsky Street and Grafsky Lane. My father was Levky Ivanovich Zheverzheiev. So your pseudonym is taken from your father’s surname…

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Of course! It’s a long and almost unpronounceable surname, so I cut it in half. My father collected works of art associated with theatre; this was the largest private Russian collection, which he turned into a museum. Before the Revolution he was a wealthy owner of a gold embroidery factory where they painted icons, made brocade, expensive anniversary decorations and all kinds of church ornaments. It was something like our American Tiffany. Father put all of his money into the museum. After the Revolution, everything he had was confiscated, but they let us stay on where we lived since everyone respected my father, even the Bolsheviks. They nationalised the collection and the factory but made father director of the museum. Strange as it may seem, he was very glad to be liberated from all cares connected with the brocade factory and to fully dedicate himself to the museum. It is now called the Theatre Museum. There my father died during the siege of Leningrad. He never left it for a minute – it was his magnum opus. It still exists, and every autumn they have an interesting festival called Diaghilev P. S. But how did you become a ballerina? I’ve had an extraordinary life. I wrote a book about it called Split Seconds: A Remembrance, and have no wish to go back over the same ground. As for ballet, I started too late to join either the St Petersburg or Moscow theatre schools. I took private classes, mostly with Evgenia Sokolova, a ballerina of the old school who had danced in Petipa’s time. Karsavina, Spessivtseva and Egorova were all taught by her. But, nonetheless, after the Revolution the former restrictions were lifted and I was able to complete my ballet training at the Mariinsky Theatre School. Balanchine, who was not allowed to work with the young dancers as he was considered ‘too modern’, spotted me at a class and asked me to work with him. I was like Galatea while he was Pygmalion: he tried everything out with me. So we came together and later on we left Russia together as husband and wife. At first, I danced classical ballet; then I became a star of musical comedies, which are now called ‘musicals’; then I became an actress; then I started painting and had two exhibitions; then I wrote a book; I made films here, in Hollywood, directing six or seven movies. In the book you describe the dramatic episode of your departure from Russia. Did you know at the time that you would not be coming back?

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Tamara Geva

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No, we didn’t think it was forever. We had been given leave for only three months. We didn’t have any money. Of course, in Russia, George was already quite well known by then. During the NEP period – The New Economic Policy, which tolerated private enterprise and lasted throughout the 1920s – there was a clever businessman called Vladimir Dmitriev, a former baritone with the Mariinsky Opera, who knew how to make money as a croupier at a casino. He understood perfectly well that his money would be confiscated but he had an excellent head on his shoulders and managed to convince the top government officials that as a loyal Soviet citizen, rather than spending the money on himself, he would use it for promoting Russian art abroad instead. Later on, the Soviet bureaucrats recognised this as invaluable propaganda. Dmitriev wanted to leave. In 1924, we four ballet artists – Balanchine, Danilova, Nicholas Efimov and myself – set off with him to work for three months in Germany. Lydia Ivanova was also expected to come with us. She was another well-known young ballerina from the Mariinsky Theatre. However, not long before our departure she was drowned in a boating accident with two officer friends who had invited her to come out with them. Both officers survived. There were all kinds of rumours that it was not an accident. After Germany we danced in England where, upon seeing our performance, Anton Dolin recommended us to Diaghilev, who was in search of Russian dancers – but this we learned only later. And at the same time the English, with whom we had signed a contract, gave us a week’s notice and fired us as they were not pleased with our work. Why did that happen? They were unhappy with our slowness, with our style of work. For instance, all of our costumes were held together by little hooks and it took us a long time to change. So the orchestra had to fill in the gaps in the performance whilst we were changing. The English, who were used to working quickly, didn’t like this. We were meant to go back to Russia and the Embassy was already making arrangements for our return journey, but as we had earned a little money we decided we couldn’t leave Europe without having first seen Paris. We went there for three days. Apart from me, nobody spoke any foreign languages, whereas I spoke French and German. So I was the guide everywhere. Two days before our departure

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for Russia we got together for a farewell dinner. (George had a penchant for a drink.) During the dinner, in ran a French neighbour, shouting, ‘Y a-t’il a quelqu’un qui s’appelle Balai… Balance…?’ (‘Is there anyone here called Balai… Balance…?’) I told George, ‘It must be for you, a telephone call for you.’ George went and came back, looking deathly white. He said that the call was from Diaghilev and that he was sending us money and tickets to come and audition for him. Of course, we went without even telling the Embassy; we simply ran away. When Diaghilev saw us in the studio, he gave everyone a contract and we set off for Monte Carlo. That’s how my career started. I was still a schoolgirl, scarcely 16 years old. That was the first work you did with the Ballets Russes? I was too young to find my true self with Diaghilev. There was an unwritten rule of ‘seniority’ that until someone had left the company no one could dance that artist’s roles. Choura (Alexandra) Danilova was already an established ballerina by then, so when Nemchinova left in 1926, she took over all of her parts. Nicholas Efimov danced all of the classical roles with Choura. Balanchine was only interested in the choreography. Although I could dance classical ballet, it was hard to obtain a leading part. It’s true I danced in Sleeping Beauty and George, who had started to stage ballets for Diaghilev, always gave me a part, but by then he had many Galateas and I began to feel there wasn’t enough room for me. And I decided to leave Diaghilev. At the same time I received an invitation from Nikita Balieff to go on tour to America with his theatre, La Chauve-Souris. When I told Diaghilev about it he said that I was mad, that the Americans were barbarians and cavemen. Then he said that Lydia Sokolova was intending to leave and that he would give me all her roles. But it was too late – I had already signed a contract with Balieff. What happened to Efimov after Diaghilev’s death? He was the only one of the four of us to stay in Europe; he became premier danseur at the Paris Opera Ballet. He married Lydia, Vera Nemchinova’s sister. What about Dmitriev, thanks to whom you all got out of Soviet Russia?

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Tamara Geva

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Balanchine felt obliged to him and supported him for a long time. He paid for his apartment in Paris and when George organised his company, Les Ballets 1933, Dmitriev was counted as its director on an equal footing with George and Boris Kochno. He went to America with George but I don’t know what happened to him afterwards. Pending my departure, I danced, with Boris Kniaseff, the ballets that he had staged to Russian music for his small troupe Les Ballets Stylisés and later, in 1932, I danced with him at Paris’s Opéra Comique. I had three separate concert numbers in La Chauve-Souris created for me by George. One was an almost-classical ballet with music by Glazunov; the second was Cordoba by Isaac Albéniz, where I played three characters: the matador, the priest and the bull – in which I killed the bull only to die alongside him; the third was Prokofiev’s Sarcasm, which was quite wild. It was a new development in ballet and a great triumph in America. I started to be written about. Although Balieff invited me to return with his theatre to Europe, I stayed on in New York with Florenz Ziegfeld, who was the world-famous proprietor of the spectacular theatrical revue, Ziegfeld Follies. I had two pieces in the Follies and after that I danced non-stop. Later on I performed with Clifton Webb in two of my first musicals: the first, in 1932, was Flying Colors, which was a huge success. And in 1936 I performed with Ray Bolger in On Your Toes, where the hero wants to help Russian ballet to survive and falls in love with a ballerina; the dance numbers were choreographed by Balanchine especially for me and Ray. The dance called Slaughter on Tenth Avenue was one of the most celebrated episodes in the whole history of musical comedy. Natalia Makarova danced in it when that musical was revived in the 1980s. Did you cross paths with the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in subsequent years? I never met them again. I decided to stay in America. I learnt the language in two years. Now I speak and write better English than Russian. In Diaghilev’s company I was nothing special and suddenly I arrived in America and surpassed everyone. At first I couldn’t believe it. I even went to England to play in a well-known play called Edith’s Delight with Raymond Massey. America gave me a very warm welcome; I wanted to reciprocate and I decided that I would mingle as much as possible with the Americans.

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Nice to hear that. Today’s Russian émigrés try to take everything from the country and abuse it at the same time. Perhaps that is why I have so few friends among the Russians here, almost nobody. Here in America, all of the Russians of my generation suddenly turned into princes and princesses; they all had titles, but in Russia no one had heard of them. In America I always avoided other Russians. Incidentally, at that time it was very difficult to come here. Russians went to Europe, but very few went to America. I would like to ask you about something I ask everyone here. Living in America, did you know about what was happening in Russia? Did you know about the repressive regime? We knew about it before the war. My whole family was killed. Did you visit Russia after the war? I have been back to Russia once. The impression I gained was very strange: people made jokes about what surrounded them in their own country. But at the same time they were scared of being outspoken, they were afraid of opening up too much.

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• Alexandra (Choura) Danilova I told Diaghilev, ‘If I’m good enough for the Mariinsky Theatre, I should be good enough for you’ New York, 1992

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  visited choura Danilova at her Manhattan apartment. She was the most celebrated ballerina of the older generation and the only one of the Ballets Russes dancers interviewed for this book to have studied in Russia under Olga Preobrajenska. She had already danced as a soloist for the Mariinsky Theatre before emigrating and, like Tamara Geva, made her debut again with Diaghilev. For the reticent Massine, who worked with Danilova extensively, one word was enough to define the nature of her dancing: ‘champagne’. An orphan, she was brought up in the family of General Batianov, the rumour being that she was the illegitimate daughter of his son and a peasant woman. Despite aristocratic prejudices, she was sent to the Mariinsky School, where she was trained by the well-established ballet teachers Elizaveta Gerdt, Agrippina Vaganova and Olga Preobrajenska, and – thanks to her doll-like appearance – she danced the child roles in the Mariinsky Theatre ballets throughout her school days. Thoroughly grounded in the classical ballet tradition, Danilova had participated enthusiastically in the ‘Young Ballet’, Balanchine’s (he was then Balanchivadze) experimental company. She danced with him in The Grandeur of the Universe, Lopukhov’s first dance-symphony, to

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the music of Beethoven’s Fourth. Along with Balanchine and his wife Tamara Geva, she found herself in the Diaghilev Ballet company, performing leading roles in his productions and, when Geva went to America, Danilova became Balanchine’s informal wife. (Balanchine famously refused to let the 28-year-old Danilova into his company Les Ballets 1933, saying that she was too old.) After Diaghilev’s death she danced with the de Basil Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, where she became a Massine ballerina. After the war Balanchine created the main roles for her in the ballets La Sonnambula (Night Shadow) and Danses concertantes. In the postwar years Danilova danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and with her own troupe in America and in England, leaving the stage in 1957 to revive classical ballet and to teach in Balanchine’s ballet school. I assume you joined the corps de ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre after graduating from the Theatre School? Yes, my first part at the Mariinsky Theatre was in Swan Lake. I remember someone asking, ‘How does Danilova dance?’ to which the theatre supervisor replied, ‘Danilova will throw herself in front of the footlights like a lump.’ I was one of the four cygnets. Then Feodor Lopukhov gave me the title role of Firebird (with stage design and costumes by Alexander Golovin) and I became a soloist, dancing with Boris Shavrov. It was completely different from the Fokine ballet, designed by Goncharova; here, the firebird was predatory. We loved Lopukhov. During the famine, he would scold us, ‘Why are you sitting around and complaining? Study languages, study history of art.’ Working with him was interesting, but I think he had one limitation – he would create the ballet on the drawing board at home, not by working with a specific ballerina, and sometimes he was mistaken about their potential. As for hunger and cold, well, people showed their appreciation of my successes at the Mariinsky Theatre by giving me the best reward I could have asked for – four sazhen of firewood [sazhen is an old Russian measure equal to 7 feet]. You mean that he was inventing movements regardless of the dancer’s personality?

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Alexandra (Choura) Danilova

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Of course! It was different working with Balanchine. If he saw that it was impossible to obtain the desired pas from the ballerina he would change the choreography. When did you start working with Balanchine? In Russia, when he had the Young Ballet. At the time we used to perform in the State Duma building. But real success came to me abroad, with Diaghilev. Your trip abroad was organised as an educational tour of Germany. What can you say about your meeting with Diaghilev? There was something providential about how I fell in with him: after all, I made no effort to see him and I wasn’t looking for that place in the company: I was due to dance in Lopukhov’s Don Quixote when I got back to Russia. In 1924, we had gone on a three-month summer tour. I remember how surprised I was on the steamship to see the seemingly endless supply of bread on the table, as much as you could wish for, and that no one was checking how much you took. We performed in German resort towns, we were in London and Paris, and suddenly we got an invitation from Diaghilev. Our first meeting with him was at the house of Misia Sert, who had asked us for tea. Tamara Geva and George Balanchine had brought their costumes and they performed a dance. And when Diaghilev asked me what dance I was going to perform, my answer was, ‘None.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘If I’m good enough for the Mariinsky Theatre, I should be good enough for you.’ To this day I am sure my reply was the correct one. After all, if you say that you sing at La Scala, everyone understands that you have a good voice. It’s the same. You don’t need a better recommendation. Diaghilev laughed. All the same, Boris Kochno persuaded me to dance: ‘Chourochka, do dance something.’ And then I danced a variation from Lopukhov’s Firebird. By the way, Diaghilev asked me a question about my weight: when we arrived in Berlin from Russia, I was so ravenous I pounced on the food and I put on weight – in those days we didn’t pay any attention to it. I gave quite a cheeky rejoinder along the lines of ‘as you are buying a horse, perhaps

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you’d like to look at its teeth as well.’ But since nobody had ever talked to Diaghilev like that before, he found it quite funny. Afterwards I found out that, on hearing about our tour, he had sent his cousin, Pavel Koribut-Kubitovich, to look for us. He had been on our trail for a long time: whenever he arrived at one town or another it was only to discover we had just left it. We found many ex-Mariinsky Theatre dancers in Diaghilev’s troupe and we were even able to pass on greetings to Lydia Lopukhova from her brother. Before long, Diaghilev had given us all contracts and then, without telling anyone, he changed our passports to Nansen ones. With Diaghilev everyone danced in the corps de ballet, although he used to say, ‘I have no corps de ballet; I have dancers.’ Then I danced little solo parts, like Komarik – the mosquito. Later, when Vera Nemchinova suddenly went to London in 1926, Diaghilev gave all her roles to me and I kept them. Nemchinova was organising her ballet company with Anton Dolin in London, but it didn’t last long. This episode is described in the memoirs of Serge Grigoriev, the ballet company’s ‘régisseur’, as Diaghilev himself put it. He reproaches Nemchinova and her husband, Nicholas Zvereff, for their hypocrisy: the couple’s many years of work in Diaghilev’s company were based on trust as their devotion to Tolstoyism prevented them from signing contracts. However, that didn’t prevent them from letting down Diaghilev, at an inconvenient moment to him, in order to take up an advantageous engagement in London, with the impresario C. B. Cochran, something Nemchinova, Diaghilev’s prima ballerina assoluta, who had perfected her technique under Diaghilev’s wing, later bitterly regretted. It has also been suggested that, by expounding Tolstoyan ideas about the sinfulness of art to Nijinsky, they contributed to his nervous illness. Which productions in Diaghilev’s company were made especially for you? The first ballet to be choreographed for me by Balanchine, in 1926, was The Triumph of Neptune with the ballet score by Gerald Berners. Next, it was Le Bal, set to music by Vittorio Rieti, with stage design by Giorgio De Chirico. Overall, I danced in nine of George’s ballets, including Le Baiser de la fée, Symphonie concertante (with a Mozart score) and Mozartiana…

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That is the difference between generations. Ballet was an entertainment, a divertissement for Rachmaninov; but you were schooled in the St Petersburg classical ballet and I suppose it was not easy for you to adapt to the Balanchine style? Executing his choreography is very difficult. It was especially hard in Apollon musagète – the movements choreographed by George were different, unfamiliar. But to describe that is the same as trying to describe a visual image. How can you describe a scent so that you understand the smell? Balanchine was a great painter of ballet. It was easier for the next generation – they had already seen us, whilst we were the first dancers he tried out his choreography on. There was one occasion when we both went to Rachmaninov’s dressing room after his concert (we had specially gone to Vienna to hear him) and George told him that he would like to stage a ballet based on his music. Rachmaninov was so indignant at the idea that he threw us out. Did you see Diaghilev often? He was always present at the performances; he never missed a single one. He was a very strict critic and he noticed every detail. I once thoughtlessly decided to make my role easier. I don’t remember what I  was dancing then, I think it was Les Tentations de la Bergère by Bronislava Nijinska in the spirit of the eighteenth century with many chassées, and many beats, or maybe a variation in Aurora’s Wedding, and if so, the choreography was – entrechat quatre, royale four times. And I decided not to do the beats but just do changements de pieds instead of all that – you know we were all young, dancing morning and night, I was tired. So that is what I did. After the performance, Boris Kochno came to my dressing room and said, ‘Mr Diaghilev wants to know why you didn’t beat today.’ I started making up an excuse, that my foot hurt… Diaghilev paid attention to everything, not only the performance, but the costumes, hairstyles, facial expressions… while Balanchine sharpened the ballerina’s cast of mind: you no longer dan­ ced on stage like an appetising loaf of bread, but like a demi-goddess, graceful and elegant. I was by no means a demi-goddess; as I said before, during the tour I put on weight. Diaghilev gave me the Blue Bird pas de deux to dance, which I had done before in Russia; Dolin,

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our Englishman, my partner in this performance, began to lift me and then suddenly threw me down on the floor, saying, ‘What do you think I am, a furniture-mover? I’m a dancer, but you’re so heavy that I can’t lift you.’ I burst into tears. Then Diaghilev came along. When he discovered what the matter was he said, ‘Lose some weight. Until you get thinner, I will not give you any more roles.’ I turned for help to Balanchine and he advised me to wear leggings so that my legs would sweat. In those days no particular diets existed; now they write about everything, how many calories and in what, and they tell you to only eat yoghurt. I simply stopped eating and then I went to the chemist and bought some pills for losing weight. On the label there was a picture of a fat woman before she took the pills and a thin one after she had taken them. Instead of two tablets a day I decided to take six: three in the morning and three at night. But when I took the first three tablets, I fainted. When I came round I saw George and Tamara standing in front of me. They had come to my room to pay me a visit. George saw the open bottle of medicine on the table and without a moment’s thought hurled it out of the window. How I suffered to get back into shape! But ever since then I’ve kept a strict eye on my figure. You knew Nijinska better than most people. What was your relationship like with her? Her difficult character was well known. For example, at rehearsals she demanded absolute attention, even from those who at that moment weren’t involved. No one had the right to sew or darn or, even worse, to chat. For some reason I found it difficult remembering her choreography but later I realised why: her movements didn’t follow the musical phrase. She gave me to understand that in dance the emotions are not expressed by mimicry but by gesture. What were relations like with Diaghilev? A typical Russian! I am still amazed how Diaghilev, Fokine and Benois managed to work together: they were always quarrelling, someone wasn’t talking to someone, someone was offended. How did these three geniuses manage to come together? Everyone thought that Diaghilev was difficult because he was very demanding. And it’s true.

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Alexandra (Choura) Danilova

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Where did fate take you after Diaghilev’s death? At first I stayed in a small ballet company managed by Serge Grigoriev, Diaghilev’s ballet master. We performed in the operas in Monte Carlo. Then I was invited to London to do a musical called Waltzes from Vienna, dedicated to the life of the young Strauss. So I separated from Balanchine as now we were living in different countries, going our separate ways. And that was our misfortune. Despite missing Balanchine, did you find the work in London interesting? The musical was quite successful, but after Balanchine it was hard for me to work there. I was dancing twice a day for a whole year. In London I used to attend a class given by Nicholas Legat, who was a marvellous teacher and a charming person. Only, when Balanchine and Peter Vladimirov heard about the latest medical developments, they decided to give Legat back his youth and persuaded him to go to a Russian doctor called Voronov to get a transplant of an orangutan’s kidneys. The change was really amazing but it didn’t last long; then Legat started to make ape-like grimaces and would suddenly start scratching himself. In 1933, de Basil invited me back to Monte Carlo. The Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo existed in name only, they had changed the director and the ballet policy. I had spent all my life as a ballerina there. Then I started working with Massine – that was a completely different experience. By the way, nobody even thought of telling Balanchine that Massine had taken his place. How did work with Massine differ from working with Balanchine? Massine had his own individual ballet language, based, above all, on his remarkable sense of rhythm. He himself was a fine dancer, quite extraordinary, but sometimes he couldn’t do two pirouettes on demi pointe – it fell apart. Nevertheless, he danced beautifully and he was a big name; the public adored him. His movements were based on Spanish dances – he had studied them, and indeed they have much in common with classical ballet. They have marvellous arm movements. Massine also paid considerable attention to port de bras. While for Balanchine everything came easily, as if it happened by itself, for Massine it was always difficult to

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bring a ballet into being. Massine was one of the first to start to do ballets without a plot, set to symphonic music, although Lopukhov had staged such ballets before him in Russia. But Massine was not so familiar with the music and was not as musical as Balanchine; nor did he adhere to the strict classical school to such an extent. He had perfected his studies under Cecchetti, which had its limitations, but for Balanchine there were no limits. Balanchine also took inspiration from his dancers, whilst Massine paid no attention to their individual characters. He was merciless – a real tyrant. But one way or another, during the 1930s he reigned supreme in ballet. Do you like his Présages? Of course, today this ballet seems a little naïve. But, nevertheless, the choreography is very good, especially in the first part. We thought the arrangement was one of the weakest – after all, it was Massine’s first symphonic ballet. He had very good productions set to music by Berlioz, Brahms and Beethoven. At the beginning there were criticisms: how dare he touch serious symphonic music? But very soon that was accepted unconditionally. Of course, everyone had grown accustomed to ballets that had a detailed libretto, in the way that there is ‘programmed music’, but surely Fokine’s Les Sylphides is a ‘symphonic ballet’? Ballet, like music, has its own language. But Les Présages and Igor Belsky’s Leningrad Symphony (set to Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony) are not at all ballets without a plot; their heroes are personifications, allegorical figures, they are saturated with symbols. Probably, there is no such thing as a ballet without a plot. Balanchine used to say that when a man and a woman come on to the stage together that is a plot already. Have you seen many of Balanchine’s ballets? A good many. By the way, several of his ballets have just been staged in St Petersburg: Apollon musagète, Serenade and Scotch Symphony. The ballet coach from the New York City Ballet who went to see them told me that at first it was awful; she came to the rehearsal and there were no ballet dancers to be seen, they showed up an hour later.

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But then ­everything somehow fell into place. I don’t much like the Scotch Symphony; it’s a naïve piece. When Balanchine staged it in New York the dancers were still not ready. Some of them had only studied for three years before that and it is a ballet with very difficult movements, which have to melt into the music. Balanchine always used to say that the dancers have to imagine themselves as an instrument in the orchestra. B ­ alanchine’s most successful ballets were Serenade, Theme and Variations, Ballet Impérial and The Four Temperaments. I remember Balanchine’s first and second tours to Russia very well. The first tour took place at the beginning of the 1960s and the second tour was ten years later. But the second tour in 1972 was probably better; the company was stronger. On the other hand, we were seeing Balanchine at a time when people in Russia were accustomed to the classical ballets of the previous century. What was it like working with Fokine? I worked with him only when I was studying at school. He produced the dances and pantomime in the Meyerhold production of Orpheus and Eurydice where I was Cupid, and we learnt how to fire a bow and arrow without inadvertently sending it into the orchestra. Fokine asked my surname and said that if I worked hard then I would become a good ballerina. Fokine was very sensitive to music, everything happened easily with him: it flowed, I’d say, in the same way as it did for Balanchine. He was a great admirer of Isadora Duncan. We had to learn to run and move, not to waddle like ducks but to float like angels. Could you explain, please, how the new ballet troupe took shape after Diaghilev’s death? After Diaghilev’s death everything fell apart because nobody could step into his shoes. But Prince Tsereteli, Colonel de Basil and Ignaty Zon had their Ballet de l’Opéra Russe (called Zerbazon) in Paris. And for one opera production (I think it was The Tale of Tsar Saltan) a ballet was required. They asked Bronislava Nijinska to produce it for an engagement in London. The opera was such a great success that the

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theatre asked Woizikowsky to stage another small ballet for it. Then the ballet separated from the opera and de Basil took it up. First they invited Balanchine, then Massine, and that was the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. But the directors were constantly quarrelling. Massine broke away from de Basil and once again there was a split because everyone wanted to be like Diaghilev. De Basil’s behaviour was a strange combination of an ingratiating manner and Cossack selfconfidence. He had no artistic sensibility. He once said to me, ‘Chourochka, I’ve thought of a wonderful ballet for you. It will be a great hit.’ ‘What’s that?’ ‘Mickey Mouse.’ Massine had already decided to create his own ballet company when he met Serge Denham. Denham put up the money and everyone was amazed by the production, the lighting, the stage décor. Then they had an argument over the company’s name, whether it should be Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, since neither Massine nor de Basil wanted the word ‘Russes’. In 1936, René Blum formed the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo whilst de Basil kept his own company, the Ballets Russes de Colonel de Basil, which then became the Original Ballet Russe. Although the principality of Monte Carlo objected on the grounds that since Diaghilev’s death the ballet company had nothing to do with Monte Carlo, Blum (helped by his brother, Léon Blum, France’s Prime Minister) negotiated an agreement that allowed him to keep this name. But when the war started Blum was arrested as a Jew and died in Auschwitz in 1942. He was French, well educated, an intellectual. He had an understanding of art and he knew quite a bit about ballet. At his invitation, Fokine came to choreograph. The company was very well received in Paris where Ida Rubinstein was queen. By the way, her portrait by Serov, where she is shown half-nude, is reminiscent of the Countess of Alba by Goya. And what a poster Serov made of Anna Pavlova! She took the lead role in Fokine’s Cleopatra. She had a romance with Guinness, the brewing magnate. Please tell me about Denham. Denham was the banker who financed the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Unfortunately, he was not famous for his artistic taste, but he knew how to get money, especially in the beginning. We met him on the steamship where he found himself with us by chance, and he became interested in

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our troupe. All was well until he started working with Massine. Massine was used to making his own artistic decisions. And then Denham suddenly got the bit between his teeth: he decided to direct the theatre himself. But he couldn’t: the best artists started to leave and he lost the ballet. There was a moment when both companies – Balanchine’s and de Basil’s – found themselves performing in London at the same time. Oh, yes. The audience would watch Act I at Covent Garden and then go down the road and watch Act II from a different ballet at the Coliseum. And what was the audience’s reaction? The general opinion was, of course, in our favour, and this was thanks to Massine. The success went to Basil’s head. He should have known his limits but he wanted to be another Diaghilev. He should have just taken care of the money side of things, looked after public relations and no rift would have occurred. Can you imagine: Basil and I would have toured with Mickey Mouse. And Basil started to give Massine stupid advice… it all boiled down to the fact that Massine and Basil couldn’t share power; although Basil used to say that a theatre director should be ‘as wise as Solomon, as tactful as a diplomat and as cunning as a snake’, he was never known for his tactfulness. The same thing happened with Massine and Denham later on, in 1942. What was the atmosphere like in the Ballets Russes? Probably, it was typical of that type of theatre. There were an incredible number of intrigues. The core people working there were talented Russian girls who had mostly been born in St Petersburg and taken by their parents to Paris, where they studied with Egorova, Preobrajenska and Kshessinska. There were some from Moscow, but we looked down on them. It was thought, and in essence it was true, that all of the best ballerinas came from St Petersburg. The so-called ‘baby ballerinas’ were talented children, of course, but children nonetheless, without any life experience; when they had an argument, it came to blows, and their ‘ballet mothers’ added fuel to the fire.

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Did you also take classes with those teachers in Paris? Yes, of course. I especially liked Egorova’s classes, though there was an incident I have to relate. Once during the break she heard that I had spoken disrespectfully of Fokine as ‘an old fool’. Egorova came out with a huge notepad and an ancient pen and made me write down that I would never speak about Fokine in that way again (but I noticed with a quick glance that the notepad was full of similar promises). At the time it wounded my pride that she dealt with me like a child, but now that memory moves me very much. You can see the difference in generations: those people in the Mariinsky Theatre who recognised Fokine were admired as radical innovators, whereas for us who had gone through Balanchine’s choreography, he belonged to yesterday. Did you take part in all those extraordinary tours undertaken by the Ballet de Monte Carlo? Yes, and sometimes it wasn’t easy, as we did a lot of touring in the provinces. One tour included 102 American towns; we were dancing Les Sylphides, Swan Lake and Massine’s Le Beau Danube and Gaîté parisienne. We were the first to show all America such amazing stage sets and costumes by great artists, and great music, and dazzling dances. And even in the provinces we performed as if we were on the big stage (although on tour we were usually only 35 and then 25 people). As we felt the delight of the unsophisticated audience, we tried to dance just as well as if we were in front of a public made up of experts and balletomanes. (By the way, in America, especially in the South, they often couldn’t understand Alicia Markova, with her pure British accent…) Hurok included us in a season ticket: people bought tickets for, say, five different performances besides ours; by famous singers and musicians, for example Vladimir Horovitz. I danced on the stage for 25 years. I’m well known in America because three generations have seen me: at first the mothers took their little daughters to the theatre, then the girls grew up and they themselves became mothers. Could you say a little about your tours in South America. My strongest impression is of the three-week voyage there. It was unforgettable. The nights were fabulous – the southern sky is quite different.

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Our fellow travellers were also wonderful, like Arthur Rubinstein. We would meet in the evening after supper, go to the cinema, dance. Sometimes he played short pieces on the piano. We became friends. Rubinstein was a great storyteller and everyone laughed a lot. I remember we were watching coffee being unloaded in one of the ports. It was as if we were at the theatre; all the dockers were black and they wore straw hats and various coloured headscarves. From the ship’s prow we saw flying fish, surging from the water in shoals, silver and blue. It was beautiful! We used to stop at different islands. We saw a shark in the distance. When we crossed the equator we were christened – everyone was thrown in the pool. They organised every possible entertainment. I heard that it was difficult travelling on the continent. Yes, the company encountered many difficulties. But that was when I had already left. I think this was mostly due to the war. On the other hand, thanks to us, world ballet blossomed. We showed a new kind of art and showed it well… How long did you stay with the Ballets Russes? It was sad for me, but I left in 1951. And up until then I had received many invitations. The Marquis de Cuevas invited me to join his company, but I felt that the Ballets Russes was my home. However, then Massine, Markova and Dolin went over to the American Ballet Theatre and Frederic Franklin left. Promoted by Denham, the young Nina Novak, who was from Poland, had started directing everyone. She interfered in everything; organised the staff to her own advantage; led rehearsals of ballets which she didn’t know enough about; she changed the classical choreography and tried to shove aside all the more experienced and – forgive me for saying it – better people than her. It wasn’t long before the ballet’s heart was broken, although it’s true that it regenerated again. I went to Texas where I taught and I had a studio in Dallas for another three years. I danced in England at Sadler’s Wells and with the London Festival Ballet. Then I had my own small ballet company called Great Moments of Ballet, which only consisted of four people: at first that was Roman Jasiński, his American-Indian wife Moscelyne (or Moussia)

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Larkin, me and one other dancer whom Freddie Franklin afterwards replaced. We went around half the world. Then when we were in New York I happened to meet Balanchine on the street and he asked me to teach at his school. I worked there for 20 years. At Balanchine’s request we tried to restore the tradition of the yearly student performances. Later, the young choreographers started to take them over, which was quite right; even Jerome Robbins staged something for them. I was only reviving the old ballets before the real ballet masters came. I remember my first experience in choreography was fragments from Coppélia in an old classical production; I knew it very well as I had danced in the first act, which Sergeyev had staged for me. Then came Aurora’s Wedding and Swan Lake. When I stopped producing, I taught variations – all that I could remember, a considerable amount. They were like flowers, like a bouquet of flowers. Did you go to Russia on Balanchine’s tours? No, at that time I was busy with work at my school. Do you think that the New York City Ballet continues the Balanchine tradition today? It tries. I think that we organised everything excellently. Balanchine always invited Russian teachers. Who do you remember of the designers who worked with you? Benois of course. I wore his costumes: Winter in The Snow Maiden and then in Petrushka. He was very kind, and used to say about me, ‘Well, Chourochka has a flair; she knows what needs to be done.’ I think Koka Benois, his son, was also preparing to do some ballet for us, either Solweig or something else. Then I saw him at La Scala. I remember Pedro Pruna, who did Massine’s Les Matelots. Juan Gris did Les Tentations de la Bergère by Nijinska; De Chirico did Balanchine’s Le Bal (with music by Rieti); Miró did the Massine Jeux d’enfants, set to Bizet’s music; Tchelitchew did the scenery and costumes for Ode; and Dalí The Bacchanale to the music of Wagner’s Tannhäuser, also by Massine. That was a marvellous production.

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Dalí called this work ‘the first paranoid ballet’. The hero is Ludwig of Bavaria, who later interested Visconti and who, in his madness, identifies himself with the characters of the Wagner opera. We saw Parade by Massine with Picasso’s stage sets when the Joffrey Ballet came to Russia. Yes, that famous horse travelled all around the world. Picasso did the stage decorations for several Massine ballets, but that was before me. Do you remember Stravinsky well? I met Stravinsky when we were working with Balanchine. He came to all of George’s rehearsals as a member of the company. They understood each other well. They had a great friendship that strengthened after Diaghilev’s death, when George left the Ballets Russes and the company fell apart. People think that George saw in Stravinsky the father whom he had lost and who also was a musician, whilst he helped Stravinsky stay young for a long time. I think that, without George, Stravinsky would not have written many things and he would have aged earlier. George and he were always creating, inventing something new. Which contemporary dancers do you think have the greatest talent? Igor Zelensky dances very well. He soars through the air. I have never seen such a jump. He is dancing Apollon in St Petersburg at the moment. Are they showing the full version? Balanchine cut it later. No, it is the latest version. It is one of my favourite ballets. Lifar was excellent in that ballet. And did Lifar create any production for you? No, Thank God!

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Why ‘Thank God’? Because he was not a good choreographer. I’m hard to please after [working with] such great innovators as Fokine, Lopukhov, Balanchine and Massine. But one should prepare in advance for such a conversation as ours – so much to remember, and when you start to recollect it’s as if the shutters were opening…

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•

REMEMBERING COLONEL DE BASIL’S BALLETS RUSSES: The ‘baby ballerinas’

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his nickname was given to the three young ballerinas who joined René Blum and Colonel de Basil’s Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo when it was founded in 1932 – Irina Baronova and Tamara Toumanova were only 12 and 13 years old, whilst Tatiana Riabouchinska was 15. I was able to have conversations with them all. However, they remain in ballet history not just as child prodigies as all three of them became outstanding artists. I should add that, in those days, it was not unusual to make one’s debut at an early age; Tamara Tchinarova and Tatiana Stepanova joined the Ballets Russes when they were 14, Tatiana Leskova and André Eglevsky when they were 15 and Mia Slavenska became the prima ballerina of the Zagreb Opera Ballet when she was 16.

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• Irina Baronova That nickname stuck to us fast! London, 1991; Sydney, 2005

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met irina Baronova in London at the beginning of the 1990s and it was she who set me off on the ballet odyssey that led to this book. After lunch with her and her mother, she invited me to her spacious house by the river Thames. Later, Baronova went to live in Australia and I telephoned her there from time to time. I dare to hope that our conversations may, in some way, have prompted the publication, in 2005, of her memoirs, Irina: Ballet, Life and Love. This book provoked the fury of some feminists, who were indignant that Baronova’s husband had asked her to marry him on condition that she stopped dancing. Were you born in Russia? I was born in Petrograd on 13 March 1919. Who were your parents? My father was a naval officer. My mother’s maiden name was Vishniakova. My grandmother on my mother’s side was married to a general in the Imperial Guards Regiment, a military engineer whose two brothers were admirals, by the way. My mother grew up in St Petersburg, in her parents’ house on Panteleymonovskaya Street, near the Summer Gardens. They had an estate not far from St Petersburg, and another

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neighbouring estate belonged to the Baronov family. Baronov was the director of the Imperial Bank. My mother married one of the Baronov brothers – a young naval officer, serving on the Black Sea fleet under Admiral Kolchak. The Revolution found him in service at Kronstadt. The house where I was born, in cold and hungry Petrograd, was requisitioned by the Bolsheviks. My mother had to move to the Schlisselburg estate, which was also requisitioned, but our family was allowed to keep two rooms there, and it was still possible to buy milk from the peasants. One of the tragic episodes of that terrible and harsh time was when my grandparents came by train to see us; a drunk soldier, after noticing the stripes on my grandfather’s uniform which indicated his rank, took a revolver and shot my grandfather dead. A year later, my father was moved to Odessa, where the family again found itself in trouble. In November 1920, a young sailor who loved my father warned him that he would be one of the ones to be executed by the Bolsheviks once the White Army approached. At the same time, my parents met some friends in Odessa: Elena Smirnova, a Mariinsky Theatre ballerina, and her husband, Boris Romanov – a character dancer and ballet master, who later created the Russian Romantic Ballet in Germany. They had decided to escape to Romania and had found someone who could smuggle them across the River Dniester. And they suggested that my parents go to Romania with them. We walked from Odessa to the outskirts of the town. My father was wearing a sailor’s uniform and carrying his violin, and my mother was clad in peasant clothes. A cart was waiting for us and we got to the Romanian border, and from there we got across the Dniester river on a rowing boat to the Romanian side. I was scarcely more than a year old. My parents would later describe how the man who was taking us across had said: ‘Lie down on your stomachs and keep quiet while the border guard comes. But if your child cries I will have to throw her into the water, otherwise we will all die.’

But I was quiet, as if I understood… In the border town my father went to the police to announce our presence in the country without a passport or visa. He asked for permission for us to stay in Romania. He was questioned for a long time because, at that time, the Bolshevik counter-espionage was very active. Its agents

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also claimed they were refugees when, in fact, they were looking out for genuine refugees abroad and then forcing them back to Russia, where the camps and execution awaited them. We were lucky; the widow of a Russian naval officer, who had served on the same ship as my father, had remarried the local policeman who was questioning my father on the Romanian border. During his lunch hour he went home and told his wife about us: ‘Well, one more family has arrived and I can’t work out whether they are genuine or not.’ And he told her our surname, ‘Baronov’. And this woman burst out: ‘Oh, I know Baronov!’ Together the couple rushed back to the police station. Of course, there was a warm welcome. We instantly received permission to stay in Romania. It was a miracle. At the beginning, my father played a little on the violin he had brought with him and this helped him – he was able to earn a little as the accompanist in the cinema with my mother who played the piano. Much later, he switched to the cello. And then he got a job at a factory. From the border town we got to Bucharest. When I was seven-and-ahalf years old, my mother, who had only dreamt of dancing all her life (at that time there was no question of a girl from a noble family becoming a dancer), grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and took me to have some ballet classes with Madame Mojaiskaya – a former member of the corps de ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre. I had never seen a ballet in my whole life and didn’t understand why it was necessary, but one didn’t argue with my mother! We studied in a tiny room, where instead of a barre there was a kitchen table, and my mother hummed the music. Soon afterwards, Karsavina came to Bucharest and our whole family went to see her performance. This amazed me. It was only then that I understood that I wanted to become a ballerina, and I began trying. After half a year, Mme Mojaiskaya told my mother that I undoubtedly had talent, but that if I stayed learning with her, she would ruin me! Therefore, she advised, it would be better if my father could save a little money for us all to move to Paris where I could study with Madame Olga Preobrajenska. And my parents decided to move to Paris. Father worked day and night. He managed to get some money together and, at first alone, went to Paris to look for work. After three months – this was in 1928 – he was able to bring us out of Romania. But, thank God, he also had a talent for drawing. Afterwards, it became his life’s occupation. Later, he worked in the Ballets Russes and with

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them he found himself in America, where he became an artist for CBS television. In Paris, my mother immediately took me to Madame Preobrajenska, who at that time was teaching in a studio on the top floor of the Theâtre Olympia, and she accepted me into her class. She was not only a marvellous teacher but a rare person. As they say, she had a heart of gold. I adored her from the first moment. She knew that everybody was living in dire need and she refused to charge her poor Russian students any money for the classes. She would say, ‘You can pay me back when you become a ballerina.’ All the students had class together, from the beginners to the advanced students. The greatest hopes were pinned on Toumanova, who already had four years’ training with Preobrajenska and could do 32 fouettés. Soon, Preobrajenska moved her classes to the Salle Wacker studio on the rue Douai, not far from the Place de Clichy. By the end of the second year of study I was already proficient enough to earn some money. At that time it was fashionable amongst society ladies in Paris to invite ballet students to dance at their receptions, and I used to perform at those parties. And how did Balanchine find you at Preobrajenska’s? When, after Diaghilev’s death, Colonel de Basil and René Blum agreed to resurrect the Ballets Russes, they invited Balanchine to be the principal choreographer. They also invited the dancers who had been with Diaghilev because they knew the repertoire. But Balanchine decided that a third of the company should consist of very young dancers straight from school. He and Colonel de Basil visited the studios of Preobrajenska, Kshessinska and Egorova and watched the pupils. Balanchine chose David Lichine from Egorova’s studio, Toumanova and me from Preobrajenska’s studio and Tanya Riabouchinska from Preobrajenska’s great rival, Kshessinska. We three were the youngest, and became the ‘baby ballerinas’. Many others who came from Preobrajenska’s were invited to dance in the corps de ballet. She was the best teacher! Knowing that we were the children of refugees and that it was essential for us to start earning something as soon as possible, she paid great attention to working on technique with us, so most of us were very strong in it. The Diaghilev stars, Alexandra Danilova and Felia Doubrovska, couldn’t do what we could. And Balanchine demanded this.

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And who thought up the name ‘baby ballerinas’? Arnold Haskell, the English writer and ballet historian. That nickname stuck to us fast! Even when we had already stopped being ‘babies’, we couldn’t get away from it, however hard we tried. So it stayed with us. Even now that I am 85 years old, I sometimes meet someone who saw me when I was young: ‘Oh, you are one of the “baby ballerinas”!’ We three ‘baby ballerinas’ (of whom Tanya Riabouchinska became my closest friend) were accompanied everywhere by our mothers. Mamma Toumanova never stopped saying that her daughter was a genius, and Tamara behaved accordingly. If Tamara was asked some question she never answered it herself but always looked inquiringly at her mother. And her mother, for example, always said, ‘Today we did 32 fouettés.’ And if she was not happy with something, she would threaten, ‘There will be no fouettés today.’ During the performances, the mothers watched their daughters, but they were not allowed to exchange opinions or talk. However, they exchanged looks! In the Riabouchinska family, on the contrary, the daughter ruled the roost and her mother had to ask permission for everything, which she often did not receive. Where did your first performance take place? We started in Monte Carlo, where I met the ballet’s co-director, René Blum, a slightly old-fashioned and highly cultivated man, whose role in resurrecting the company that replaced Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes is often undervalued. As for the other director, de Basil was accompanied everywhere by a shaven-headed soldier with a huge sabre scar across his face, by the name of Vasiliev – it was thought that he had served in a Cossack regiment under de Basil’s command and once even saved his life, then followed him into exile; but they said that, in fact, de Basil had found him down-and-out in Paris. He became something of a handy-man in our company. I met marvellous people there like Serge Grigoriev, who from the first meeting began calling me ‘my angel’ and, as everyone else. I called him ‘Papa Grigoriev’. His wife, Lubov Tchernicheva, gave us classes. He was the only person who not only worked 20 years in the Diaghilev company – from the beginning to the end – but almost another 20 years for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. By the way, even before Stalin infamously

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did so, Diaghilev used to say, ‘No-one is irreplaceable’, and he would add: ‘But Grigoriev is almost irreplaceable.’ Grigoriev, who had danced in the Mariinsky Theatre until 1912, hardly ever appeared on stage, but held all the company together; first one, then the other. Besides administration, he worked as the ballet master, attending all the rehearsals and performances, and he was able to maintain the repertoire and resurrect ballets, which, thanks to his phenomenal memory and experience, he knew down to the last detail. Sometimes he had some unpleasant duties to perform: he had to dismiss Nijinsky and then Massine. In the 1950s, he revived in England the core of the Diaghilev repertory including the Fokine ballets, and he wrote two invaluable books, one about Diaghilev and his ballet, the other about the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo period. Yes, these people made up the backbone of the Diaghilev company. They and the other dancers of the older generation, like the dazzling character dancer Léon Woizikowsky, Marian Ladré and his wife Illaria, took me under their wing. I especially made friends with Tchernicheva. She told me all about the old days at the Mariinsky Theatre and in Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Once, when we were going on an overnight train, she amazed me. Most of the people in the company lay down wherever they could and looked tired and crumpled when we arrived. But Tchernicheva stayed up all night, sitting bolt upright by the window and there wasn’t a single crease on her dress! On the whole, if you ignore the divisions, ambitions and passions which are unavoidable in the competitive ballet world where people are working side by side from morning until the depths of the night, where success is so important, de Basil and Blum’s first dance company became something more than an assemblage of dancers. It was as if a family of several generations of Russian artists came together in a unique way; the young people, trained by the great Paris teachers of the same Russian school, joined the old Diaghilev team. It was my ‘tribe’. I also wanted to ask about Michel Katcharov. He left memoirs which contain, in essence, the whole history of the Ballets Russes. You must have joined the de Basil company at the same time? Yes, but I can’t say anything in particular about him. Mishenka was such a modest, gentle, kind fellow; he never demanded anything. He worked

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well and never bothered anyone. He was an Armenian from Baku; he had been born in Persia, but spoke Russian very well. And then, after Monte Carlo, we danced at the Théâtre des ChampsÉlysées in Paris. The next season was at the Châtelet. We danced in Paris, Barcelona and London where, after one of the performances, Tamara Karsavina came backstage and I confided to her that I had decided to become a ballerina when I saw her as a seven-year-old in Budapest. The first London season in 1933 was hugely successful. Our tour was planned for three weeks, but at the public’s request we performed for three whole months. In the morning, when we went to the theatre for our classes, we found a long queue waiting for the ticket office to open, people were sitting on fold-up chairs. Then there was the American season; every day there was a new town for the so-called ‘one night dances’. We travelled on our own train; we would arrive at 5 o’clock in the evening, take a class, then makeup, costume, performance. And, as Massine was putting on new ballets at the very same time, it meant that it was necessary to write constant rehearsals into the concert schedule (and not just miming the movements). So after the performance we would quickly grab something to eat and then rehearse until 5 o’clock in the morning. And then – again the station, a brief sleep on the train and… the next town. That is how we trundled around America and Canada for four months; we went around 110 towns. But we were young, and we adored it all! And sometimes we even got paid. We hardly earned anything. At that time, in the first years, we gradually resurrected the classical Diaghilev repertory, including Fokine’s ballets – Petrushka, The Firebird, Les Sylphides, Carnaval – the two by Balanchine and several by Massine. In the first year our ballet master was Balanchine, who had choreographed Cotillon and La Concurrence for us. After a year he organised his own company and Massine took his place. Both of them, each in their own way, taught us so much – Balanchine through his innovative choreography, Massine through his extraordinary imagination. Thanks to Massine, after Balanchine’s departure, we were joined by Danilova. Originally, Balanchine had refused to take her, announcing that she was too old. But Danilova amazed me by her elegance, and by her pure style as a dancer. However, she herself was not at all happy that we, quite young ballerinas, danced at her level. At 14, I had already danced Odette in Swan Lake and Anton Dolin had been my partner.

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Could you say something about the schism that resulted in Massine leaving de Basil’s troupe and the company dividing into two – de Basil and Blum? It is an unpleasant story. For me there was no choice – I stayed with de Basil. Later, Hurok wanted to destroy de Basil, who was getting in his way, making life impossible for him and manipulating the dancers. But de Basil did his utmost to keep the company alive. Could you say a little about Massine? When I arrived in Monte Carlo, Massine was starting to revive his ballet The Dance School to music by Boccherini along the motifs of Goldoni’s comedy La Scuola di Ballo, and to stage his first ‘symphonic’ ballet, Les Présages, to the music of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. At my first meeting with him I was impressed by his eyes – the most beautiful that I had ever seen. He left a very cold impression on people but when it came to work everything changed. At rehearsals it was obvious that he had thought about everything beforehand, down to the tiniest detail, although that did not prevent him from being inventive, and his artistic impulse was infectious. By the way, he had his own method: in order for us to remember properly, he often demanded that the different fragments of the ballet being put on were performed at random. When he came on stage, he completely changed. His cold exterior masked an inner nobility and fiery nature. It wasn’t easy to assimilate his style, which was based on classical ballet, enriched by his own style. But I think I managed to do it, judging by the success of the ballets. And about Nijinska? We met Bronislava Nijinska in 1935 when she was preparing to put on the ballet Les Cent baisers to music by Frederick d’Erlanger, dedicated to me. I got a clear insight into her character at our first meeting in the presence of the composer, de Basil, and Kochno, the author of the libretto. I was introduced to Nijinska, and the first thing that she said was, ‘I don’t need Baronova. I need Danilova.’ Nevertheless she agreed to work with me and behind her severity, and at times her rudeness, I soon perceived a remarkable person and an excellent ballet mistress – she demonstrated

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not only the movements but the shape of what she wished to create. She gave very precise directions and demanded their implementation. Her choreography was extremely complicated, in particular many batteries, to which very little attention is paid now. Obviously you worked extensively with Fokine? I worked with Fokine several times. He came to the company as the permanent choreographer when Massine left us in 1937. He died suddenly, without saying goodbye to the company, and we couldn’t even express to him our admiration and gratitude. Fokine’s first production for us was wonderful – he revived Le Coq d’Or (The Golden Cockerel). He significantly developed his first production, made in 1914 for Diaghilev; back then it was a ballet in one act, in the framework of an opera, so that he practically redid it from scratch. I danced the Tsarina Shemakhan and Tanya Riabouchinska was The Cockerel. This was also a triumph! At the premiere there were four royal guests – King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the ex-King Alfonso XIII of Spain and King Carol II of Romania. When the Queen came to congratulate us backstage, Riabouchinska, who had played Petrushka, curtseyed to the Queen, saying ‘Hello Queen’, which amused the Queen very much. After that, Fokine put on Cinderella and Paganini. His manner was very reserved, he gave absolutely precise instructions and working with him was a real pleasure. When he himself was pleased, his spectacles slid down his nose and the tip of his tongue appeared between his teeth. But he did not especially bother to hide his exasperation. His wife was always at the rehearsals, neatly dressed and quiet. Fokine was able to explain the essence of each part wonderfully. Barbara Karinska, who made marvellous costumes for us, had one particular quality – she always delivered them at the last minute. But for the premiere of Le Coq d’Or they were not even there when the curtain went up for the first part of the programme – the first act of Swan Lake. The costumes only appeared in the interval – as it was impossible to get a taxi at that time of the evening, they were brought by an ambulance! Barbara Karinska (the so-called ‘enchantress of ballet’) escaped to France very late, in 1928, when she was already almost 40. She was born into a

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wealthy Kharkov family. As a child she had studied embroidery and painting and started creating costumes for home performances. As a young woman she studied law, working with women prisoners before the Revolution, after which she opened a sewing and embroidery studio in Moscow – and she managed to get on a trip to Germany to study museum practice, but she was really searching for her family who had emigrated at the time of the Revolution and settled in Paris. Karinska was introduced to the world of ballet, which was absolutely unknown to her, by de Basil and Blum, who commissioned her costumes for the first season of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. Working for the company with such artists as Bérard, Derain, Matisse and Dali, she began to receive many commissions, not only for ballet but for the theatre and, moving to America on the eve of the war, she became the leading costume-making artist of the day, working for the theatre, cinema and ballet, especially for Balanchine. She did her last work ( for Balanchine’s Vienna Waltzes) when she was in her 90s. Do tell me more about Fokine – was he always so reserved? I only saw Fokine getting angry once in my life. It was on a tour in Berlin, which was already greatly militarised. During a rehearsal there was a noise outside the window. Hitler and his retinue were passing by along the street outside, noisily greeted by the crowd. The pianist stopped playing and the dancers rushed to the balcony. Fokine lost his temper and called Grigoriev to shut all the doors. When everyone had returned to their place, exploding with rage, Fokine shouted, ‘How dare you walk out on Fokine’s rehearsal!’ One of the young ballerinas, almost in tears, replied, ‘We only wanted to see Hitler pass by.’ In the same thunderous voice, Fokine barked back, ‘Fokine is more important than Hitler.’ And, slamming the door, he left. The only other time I saw Fokine in a temper was when he grabbed Tanya Riabouchinska by the ear. Did you continue to tour the USA before the war? Yes, in the summer we would go to London, then to America. On our first tour to Chicago it snowed and the young people started throwing snowballs. Then there was Italy, Spain, Denmark and Germany. When they announced the war – at the beginning of September 1939 – we

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were all on holiday. A Berlin season had been planned to take place from 1 October. Of course, everything had to be changed. Where were you at the beginning of the war? The Covent Garden season had ended in August and, because of the holidays, the question of how to assemble everyone together quickly became urgent. On 1 September I was training in a studio in Paris and suddenly panic started. I looked through the window – everyone was running somewhere. The company was in disarray. But de Basil took the reins into his hands and decided to go to Australia. We waited three weeks for the ship. After that, de Basil’s company worked in South America all through the war, although the financial situation was very difficult. You didn’t go with them to South America? I didn’t. Several of us met up again in New York. Afterwards, Lucia Chase, who had just founded the American Ballet Theatre (ABT), then called simply Ballet Theatre, invited me to join the company. Mikhail Fokine and Bronislava Nijinska were also invited as choreographers. Nijinska choreographed La Fille mal gardée for me, which had been revived a little earlier by Mikhail Mordkin. I danced the main role of Lise. Meanwhile, Fokine produced the marvellous long ballet Bluebeard by Offenbach, in which I partnered Anton Dolin. I started admiring the depth of Fokine’s thought and the accuracy of his technical directions more and more. Fokine put me through a test: when we were rehearsing Aurora’s Wedding, he suddenly asked me to do everything not on the right hand but on the left. I answered, confusedly, that I was not left-handed, but Fokine replied: ‘a ballerina must know how to do any pas on both the right and the left’. I did what he asked, and he was more or less satisfied. Why did he ask that? As I was having quite a big success at that time, he, undoubtedly, wanted to show me that one shouldn’t give oneself airs. We saw Fokine for the last time in Mexico, where he was finishing the rehearsals for Helen of Troy. When he suddenly had a thrombosis in his leg, his wife insisted they return to see his doctor in New York, despite our protestations that he would not bear the strain of the three-day journey. Three weeks after we had escorted him to the station, the sad telegram

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arrived: he had died… I simply adored him. Working with him was a great privilege. He had artistically nourished us and developed all of our careers. After his death I had the feeling that I would not work with anyone any more. Modern dance was in fashion. But that was not at all what I loved, what drew me… A different life started. My father had two heart attacks and the time came to think about him and about the fact that he, probably, would not be able to work any more. Which meant that I would have to earn more. At that time in ballet they were paying almost nothing. So my life changed track. I joined the Musical Company, which was paying ten times more. I didn’t regret it especially; Fokine was no longer with us. And did Balanchine’s American period not appeal to you? No. By then, he had completely different ideas. He used to train the dancers; the girls were all supposed to be alike: tall, thin, long-legged. They lived on coffee and apples. It didn’t particularly appeal. And later, he worked out a completely different style. Of course, he put on great things. But for me Fokine’s narrative ballet style was significantly closer. Abstract ballet doesn’t inspire me so much. I have seen many such ballets. It is remarkable when something is done with talent, even if it is not to your taste. But unfortunately, at that time modern dance didn’t abound in talent. The most talented was Jerome Robbins. But the rest… Shouting, noise, publicity. But, terribly boring. Did you work on Broadway after the American Dance Theatre? Yes, on Broadway, then in Hollywood. I appeared as a ballerina in the film Florian. I took part in one more film made in Mexico. Then, when I was still not yet 30, I made the acquaintance of the kindest Englishman I had ever met and we married. And then, of course, I finished with the theatre. Five years after our marriage, Margot Fonteyn persuaded my husband to allow me to give classes once a week at the Royal Academy of Dance, where she was the president. My husband agreed, but only on the condition that I would always be able to pick the children up from school on time. After 18 years of marriage, my husband died in a car accident. My son and youngest daughter were in the car with him. It was a miracle that they survived.

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Tamara Geva talked to me about Broadway. She was very surprised that I knew nothing about musicals. The heyday of musicals was in the 1940s and 1950s. But whom else have you met of my ‘tribe’? I visited Riabouchinska in her dance studio in America. But she didn’t tell many stories. Yes, Tanyusha was never very talkative. Tatiana Stepanova spoke very sweetly about Preobrajenska. I saw her with her mother… Yes, they are quite amazing people. I saw Tanya (Tatiana) about five years ago, when there was a reunion of all the surviving members of the Ballets Russes in New Orleans. That was such a great evening ‘get together’. I also saw Tanya and Tamara Toumanova then. Tamara was as lively as ever, exceptionally glorious. Which other Russian teachers did you study with? I always used to go to Anatole Vilzak’s classes in New York; he was one of the best dancers in Diaghilev’s company and kept to the traditions of the St Petersburg ballet. I also practised with Laurent Novikoff when he was the coach at the Metropolitan. In Los Angeles, I went to Maria Bekefi. Maria Bekefi belongs to the St Petersburg ballet family and was of Hungarian extraction. Her father, Alfred Bekefi, the character dancer, was famous as Quasimodo in Petipa’s Esmeralda. Other descendants of his worked in the West: Elena Bekefi with Pavlova, Julia with the Berlin ‘Blue Bird’. And Laurent – that is, Lavrenti Novikoff – was a soloist for the Bolshoi Theatre. He danced for Diaghilev and with Karsavina and Pavlova and he himself put on many ballets. At the end of the 1920s, he had his own ballet schools in England and America. In our company it was Lubov Tchernicheva who used to give the classes – she was also from the Mariinsky. Almost all the best ballet teachers are Russians! Even now there are two Russian teachers working

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in Australia for the National Ballet. The Russian school produces remarkable dancers. They are not yet ruined, as in Europe. But when we used to dance, for us it was not just work. Dance is something we adored. It was our life. And now, for many dancers, it is more work, more business, not at all beloved art. Many contemporary dances are technically excellent, but somehow they don’t break through the boundaries. As if you see a beautiful kettle and you wait, any moment now it is going to whistle, but it never does. But for the Australian dancers ballet is still not just work but art. Lifar, though not originally from St Petersburg, was also of the same mould… Yes, Serge was marvellous! I worked with him in 1931. And Peter Vladimirov – the partner of Anna Pavlova, who died in that year – also gave us classes. They were all people who couldn’t give just a part of their life to art, when it demanded – everything! Did Lifar choreograph anything for you? As I have already mentioned, he assembled a small company and we went around French resorts: Deauville, Trouville, Biarritz. His short ballet Nautéos was a great success. I danced a concert programme with him: the pas de deux from Swan Lake, Le Spectre de la rose and variations from Sylphides. Lifar was inimitable! I often come across the name of Lara Obidenna and her husband, Marian Ladré – the Diaghilev dancers who then joined the Ballets Russes. She danced with us, mainly in the corps de ballet, her solo parts were in the character roles. And Marian Ladré was a Pole. We used to call him Mariasha or Maga. He was an excellent character dancer, very jolly, an enchanting person. On the whole we were all great friends in our company, like a big family. 60 dancers, 17 nationalities! That’s why I say it was my ‘tribe’. I perfectly understand how difficult it was to part with them. But why did you decide to move to Australia?

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My youngest daughter has been living in Australia for seven years now. I was living in London – where my son was. My oldest daughter was in Los Angeles. Once I was visiting my Irishka in Australia and she invited me to come and live with her. I decided to go. My friends said that I was mad! I had to dismantle everything in London. I gave my furniture and little things to my son and departed with two suitcases…

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• Tamara Toumanova Anna Pavlova said to me, ‘Oh you are a darling, clever girl!’ Los Angeles, 1992

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was fortunate to record a long conversation with Tamara Toumanova (who was known as the ‘Black pearl of Russian ballet’) when, as she was ill and not receiving visitors, I telephoned her in Los Angeles. Although Balanchine is credited with creating the ‘baby ballerinas’ with the three teenage girls who were studying in Paris under Preobrajenska and Kshessinska, it seems that Diaghilev himself had spotted Toumanova four years earlier, unbeknownst to her. Serge Grigoriev, the Diaghilev company’s chief régisseur, describes a Christmas party in a Russian restaurant in Paris, attended by Diaghilev, who went there especially ‘… to see the little Russian kid who was dancing in the variety show. It turned out that this little girl was only nine or ten years old, slim and pretty, with lively dark eyes. She performed several Russian dances very well. Diaghilev watched her intently and said, “Excellent! But too mannered. That will spoil her dancing later on.” ’ Five or six years later, that young girl was destined to become the celebrated Tamara Toumanova. Diaghilev’s misgivings proved unfounded; Toumanova was acknowledged as a dazzling ballerina, combining the purity of the classical style with original dramatic talent. She wouldn’t deny this, as the following conversation will show. I was born in March 1919 on a train in Siberia, somewhere between Tyumen and Ekaterinburg, en route to Shanghai.

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Exactly like Nureyev, who was born when his mother was on her way to join her husband in the Far East! She got out at a little station, but it sounds very romantic to be born on a train. How did this come about in your case? My parents fled St Petersburg for Siberia to escape the Revolution. My father, Vladimir Khassidovitch, was a colonel in charge of a tank division – and tanks then were what rockets are today. He was a real hero, a Knight of the Order of St George. My mother, Evgeniya Toumanova, was a Georgian princess, a Chkheidze by birth, from Tbilisi. Sometimes she used to speak Georgian to me. All my ancestors on both my father’s and my mother’s side belonged to noble families. I recently lost my mother, my closest friend. I still can’t come to terms with it. I arrived in the world in hard times. My mother crossed the whole of Siberia carrying me in her arms and managed to get to Vladivostok. At the time, my father was serving in General Wrangel’s army and my mother was told that he had been killed, but she refused to believe it. When my father heard that she might be in Vladivostok, he went there and by great good fortune he met her, albeit quite by chance. By then I was already one-and-a-half years old. Oddly, I remember Vladivostok very well, I can remember when it caught fire; I can remember the Christmas we had there, although I was only two-and-a-half years old! But because of the Civil War coming to Vladivostok, we couldn’t stay there long, and we sailed to Shanghai on a small Chinese boat. I have wonderful memories of that town, everyone there was very good to us. Shanghai was divided into sections, and we lived in the English quarter. Happiness reigned in our beautiful house. My father worked as an engineer, building bridges. He won a competition and was well paid. But his second profession was charity, helping people who had fallen on hard times. There would always be about 50 people for dinner, the ‘waifs and strays’, as they say. My mother used to take me to concerts and to the ballet and when she saw how impressed I was, and noticed my receptiveness, she decided that her daughter must grow up in Paris, in a city of art, as she saw it. (She remembered Paris from her youth when accompanying her mother to France on holiday to take the waters at Vichy.) But my father received an advantageous offer of work in Egypt, in Cairo, and he persuaded my mother to go there first, out of curiosity – perhaps she would like it. That

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was in 1925 – a very rewarding time in Egypt, when they found all that gold. We arrived in Cairo, but my mother couldn’t wait to get to Paris – she refused point blank to stay. And so, finally, we went there. Immediately, my mother rushed off to seek out Olga Preobrajenska amongst the Russian émigré community. And, of course, she found her. At one time Preobrajenska had been the family’s favourite ballerina and my mother had often been to see her performing at the Mariinsky Theatre. Preobrajenska was the guardian of the ballet tradition taught to her by Petipa, who considered her one of his best performers, and she taught his method to her students. Preobrajenska was the oldest of all the Russian ballerinas teaching in Paris – she was nearly ten years older than Egorova. She graduated from the St Petersburg Imperial Theatre School in 1889; she was a famous dancer in Petipa’s time and remained on the Imperial stage for 25 years. Incidentally, Stepanova told me a few things about her. Well, my mother went to Preobrajenska and asked her to take me into her school. Preobrajenska threw up her arms; she thought that I was too young. After all, I was scarcely five years old. But my mother gave her such an imploring look that Preobrajenska agreed to watch my efforts dancing to the accompaniment of music. I was overjoyed; she found that I had quite considerable movement co-ordination and that I understood what I wanted to do. In short, that I had a great aptitude for dance. So I became Preobrajenska’s pupil. But I was the odd one out in the group of 13- to 14-year-old girls. Nonetheless, I quickly began to make progress, and all because my mother had noticed something special in me in time. She had spotted my gift. In my family, it was hardest of all for my father. It was difficult finding engineering work because of the wave of émigrés in Paris. But he did everything he could for the family; most importantly, he bought a large apartment in a newly built house. I had my own wonderful room there, beautifully decorated, and we didn’t have to move from hotel to hotel like many Russian émigrés had to. Papa taught me mathematics, but I couldn’t understand why I needed it. After six or seven months, people began talking about me as a child prodigy. Preobrajenska was not only a marvellous ballerina, but also an excellent teacher – after all, not only the great Pavlova, but also Ulanova

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and Balanchine, had all studied with her. When I was six years old something unusual happened. Preobrajenska told me that Anna Pavlova would be coming to the class as she wanted to engage several talented students for an evening gala for the benefit of the Red Cross at the Trocadéro. Preobrajenska said that I mustn’t be afraid, that she loved me very much and that I was very talented, but that during Pavlova’s visit I must stand at the back as the very youngest in order to give a chance to the older girls. Pavlova did come – it was a great event. She was very beautiful, eccentric, relaxed. They embraced. ‘Olechka!’ ‘Annoushka!’ During the class, Preobrajenska introduced everyone and Pavlova praised each one, ‘Very talented, very good. Wonderful pupils. And who is that little one at the back?’ Olga Ossipovna tried to stop her but Pavlova was unstoppable and she dragged me to the front. I curtseyed, and Pavlova asked me, ‘Do you know who I am?’ ‘You are the greatest ballerina,’ I replied. ‘Oh, you are a darling, clever girl!’ said Pavlova and asked me to dance a few pas. After she had watched me attentively, she was delighted and said to Preobrajenska, ‘Olga, I will take the others too, but Toumanova must dance a solo.’ Well, all the mothers were sitting in the studio and I could imagine how jealous they were on hearing the conversation. ‘But she has never yet been in front of an audience!’ exclaimed Preobrajenska. After all, the Trocadéro (later the Palais de Chaillot) is a huge theatre. But Preobrajenska had no choice but to agree with Pavlova, and so she arranged Lyadov’s Polka for me, and I danced it at the Trocadéro. To say I was a success would be an understatement. It was my finest hour. What’s more, the well-known ballet critic Arnold Haskell, the writer Irving Deakin (Sol Hurok’s right-hand man), Hurok himself and André Levinson were all in the theatre that evening. Pavlova invited me to her box and, sitting me on her knee, said that she was very pleased with me, but that I had to work very hard and that she would keep an eye on my progress. It was 1925. The time flew by. Every time she was in Paris, Pavlova devoted some time to me. It was not just idle curiosity but real interest. A few years later, in Paris, there was a production of L’Eventail de Jeanne, a ballet in ten parts, written by ten well-known composers, among them Darius Milhaud, Florent Schmitt, Francis Poulenc and Maurice

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Ravel. Interestingly, the name ‘Jeanne’ was taken from Madame Dubost, a very rich lady who had commissioned the ballet and in whose salon the first performance took place. Two years later it was restaged at the Paris Opera and Madame Dubost started going around all the ballet studios with the choreographers Yvonne Franck and Alice Bourgat, looking for a ten-year-old girl, and, of course, they found me. I was given the role and became a Paris Opera star. The wording on the posters said: ‘L’Eventail de Jeanne with Tamara Toumanoff ’, and in the same size letters below: ‘Olga Spessivtseva.’ Normally speaking, at that time I was still too young to dance as a soloist – the Opera wouldn’t allow it. I was also studying the piano, and played once in the Salle Gavaux, and Jacques Ibert, the well-known composer, even gave me his new composition to premiere. In 1931, everyone was talking about Balanchine coming. He was going to create a new ballet company which would follow Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Everyone was terribly excited, and so was I, although I was already a celebrity. Balanchine came to Preobrajenska and said that he would like to see the little Toumanova – he had already heard about me from Diaghilev, who had watched me at the Paris Opera not long before his death, and from Roger Désormière, the conductor, who had spoken about my musicality. Well, I tried my hardest. Balanchine was astonished. Preobrajenska introduced me to him and to Wassily de Basil. Balanchine, a musician himself, already knew from Preobrajenska that I also played the piano, and he asked me to play something. I was pleased and played a piece by Mozart, not suspecting that Mozart was his idol. Balanchine was won over. We worked in Monte Carlo for four months. In April 1932, I danced the premiere of Balanchine’s ballet Cotillon (music by Chabrier). That’s how my real career as a ballerina started. Later on, I danced in a great number of his most interesting ballets. I started to be invited everywhere and worked with the most remarkable people. More ballets were staged for me than for anyone else, including all of Massine’s symphony ballets, apart from two. Some of them, like Massine’s Choreartium, the abstract ballet based on Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, are now being revived. In 1933, Balanchine left de Basil’s Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, and I went with him. Basil took us to court but lost; the judge told him, ‘if you value Toumanova so much why did you take her third-class?’

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I became the star of Balanchine’s troupe Les Ballets 1933, dancing in Mozartiana (which was staged for me) and Milhaud’s ballet Les Songes as well as in L’Errante, designed by Paul Tchelitchew, Balanchine’s friend. I also worked with the artists André Derain and Christian Bérard. We performed dazzlingly at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris; then in London. Then our holidays started and I was tricked. De Basil had made a contract with Hurok for a tour in America on the condition that I would go with the company. But I wasn’t with his company at that moment. When Balanchine was away on holiday in Biarritz, de Basil came to our house and said that he wanted to see me and my parents. He made it seem as if he had just been talking to Balanchine, and that Balanchine had told him that he was going to fly to London where he would wait for me. Of course, we didn’t check and didn’t try to ring George – you know how expensive it was, not like now. I got to London with my mother and Balanchine wasn’t there. It turned out that they had lured me to London because de Basil’s troupe couldn’t go to America without me. Although I suffered greatly because of Balanchine’s having been let down in such a way, I must say that some completely new opportunities came my way. Hurok was a great fan of my balletic talent – after all, he had known me since childhood. In America he managed the Russian ballets beautifully, and gave me great publicity. I toured with the extraordinary Massine ballets – the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz and others. Of course, I danced the classical ballet Les Sylphides, and Swan Lake too. I danced the Ballerina in Petrushka, conducted by Stravinsky himself. It was there that I saw the explosive Bolshoi dancer Chaboukiani who was on a tour of America – it was amazing what he could do! He was invited to our performance and de Basil asked him, ‘Which of my girls will become a great ballerina?’ and he pointed at me. And later we met in Brazil and he remembered me. What an enchanting man, a Georgian, as I am! The intensive work went on until 1937, when my father took a house in California so that I could rest, read and write my thoughts down. My father was helping me with my notes. It was an essential break, and I returned to life a different, enriched person – it is impossible to live only on ovations and flowers. In 1938, Hurok telephoned and persuaded me (in his words, ‘the new season couldn’t take place without me’) to go to Monte Carlo to take part in a rehearsal of Massine’s with René Blum’s new Ballet Russe de Monte

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Carlo. Tours were planned for London and America. I returned to the troupe and the public and the press noticed that my dancing had become more polished and technical, which was not surprising because I had worked very hard. That year I also managed to master Spanish dancing with castanets. Massine staged new ballets. The seasons were successful, but on our arrival in America I came into conflict with the director Serge Denham and I was obliged to leave. Hurok parted from me with great regret, but it wasn’t up to him. Immediately, I was invited on a Broadway show where I was given one of the biggest roles, and I performed both as a ballerina and an actress. It was very interesting and it was a huge success, but all the same it wasn’t the ballet that I so loved. I was in constant contact with Victor Dandré, Pavlova’s widower. He gave me many of her things and said that he would take care of me as it was his duty after his wife’s death. Not long before war was declared he telephoned me and asked me to Australia on a tour with the Ballets Russes dancers. We set off by steamer; during the crossing, war broke out. The troupe was excellent and it danced wonderfully. The public received it rapturously and we stayed in Australia for more than a year. Hurok got us out on the last steamer to America. I returned to the Ballets Russes. In New York I mastered even greater ballet skills. Once, Balanchine, Stravinsky and Tchelitchew came to me in my dressing room and said, ‘Tamara, we should like to give you a present – a diamond necklace.’ It turned out the diamond necklace was my ballet Balustrade set to the music of Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto. Stravinsky himself was conducting. A triumph! In 1941, Warner Brothers made two Hollywood films of Massine’s ballets; one was The Spanish Fiesta based on the Spanish Capriccio by Rimsky-Korsakov, the other Gaîté parisienne by Offenbach. I danced only in the first one; it was very colourful. And again contracts poured in from all sides. I returned to New York, where Massine and Dali created Labyrinth (set to the music of Schubert’s Seventh Symphony) in which I starred. Then the Black Swan pas de deux from Swan Lake was put on for the first time in the West and for the first time the public saw those 32 fouettés, which I had learnt from Alexandra Fedorova, Fokine’s belle-sœur. At that time I was inundated with invitations but I decided to appear in the film Days of Glory with Gregory Peck because I liked the script immensely. My ballet contract ended but I didn’t renew it. I announced

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to the company that I was going to leave (not for ever, it’s true) and that I wanted to begin a new career. Of course, no one believed me, but I really did go and act in that film. It was a challenge to find new ways of expression; on screen you have to restrain yourself as opposed to the theatre, where it is essential to work with utmost emotionality. I was pleased to work in a new area with wonderful, talented people. And after that Hurok engaged me as the guest artist in Ballet Theatre. It was unbelievable that, on our tour of the large cities, first they showed the film and then I was there dancing with Ballet Theatre. By that time the war in Europe was ending, 1945 went by, theatres were opening. In 1947, I received a six-month invitation from the Paris Opera. I was meant to dance all my favourite classical roles there – Giselle, Swan Lake and Coppélia – and something new that Balanchine was going to create especially for me. And, of course, I went with my mother to Paris and we found ourselves in that very same theatre where I had first started out so long ago. By now I was a famous ballerina and I danced the premiere of Le Palais de cristal (Symphony in C) by Balanchine, and also Le Baiser de la fée by Stravinsky, which he had revived (the first one became one of the most famous ballets in his repertoire). It was one of my most dazzling seasons. In 1948, I was invited to join the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. David Lichine staged Ice Heart for me, a marvellous ballet, based on Oscar Wilde’s story The Star Child, and Ana Ricarda, a Spanish choreographer, staged Del Amor y de la muerte for me. I was the principal in both. I spent some time with this company in Egypt, where I had lived as a young girl. Tours to Paris and London followed. I received the Grand Prix de Giselle, chosen by French critics for the best Giselle ever. At the same time I was approached by Jean Cocteau, who said that he had always dreamed of staging Phèdre for me to music by Georges Auric, at the Paris Opera. And in 1950 I returned to the Paris Opera to do Phèdre with Serge Lifar and Cocteau. And it was not simply ballet. This was a powerful dramatic spectacle – a synthesis of tragedy and ballet. The choreography was by Lifar, but the sets, scenario and costumes were by Cocteau. From then on Cocteau was one of my greatest friends. With the Paris Opera I went on a tour of South America. We danced Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty but Phèdre was a triumph in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. After that I was invited there every year, separately from the company, for concert performances.

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In 1951, I danced at La Scala in La Légende de Joseph to music by Richard Strauss in a production by Margarethe Wallmann, who had also been one of Preobrajenska’s students. The costumes and set designs were by De Chirico. After that I was also invited every year to La Scala. So throughout 1951 I was constantly going to Italy, France and South America, where I was on tour three or four months of the year. In Holland I danced several performances in the presence of Queen Juliana. Besides the tours, I found time to make film appearances. In 1952, I played Pavlova in Tonight We Sing, dancing the Dying Swan. When Markova performed the Dying Swan at the London Festival Ballet, two elderly ladies came to her in the wings and said that they wanted to see Pavlova. When it was explained to them that it was Markova who had been dancing and that Pavlova had died a long time ago, they were indignant. The Dying Swan – that’s Pavlova. The film shows Hurok’s life in the circle of Isaac Stern and other famous people. Then Gene Kelly invited me to appear in Invitation to the Dance – which received an award at the Berlin film festival in 1956. I was also in the film Deep in My Heart, playing the part of Gaby Deslys, the music hall artist from the beginning of the century. So my life flowed, or rather rushed, along until 1965, when I discovered that Alfred Hitchcock had been searching for me for three months. He had no idea that I was in America; he thought that I was living in Europe. He gave me a role in the film Torn Curtain. This was the part of a ballerina who, during a performance in East Germany, recognises and betrays to the police an American spy – played by Paul Newman. And so in 1965/6 I worked with Hitchcock. Then I went to South America again and returned in 1968. Then Billy Wilder invited me to London for work on a film, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), where I played a Russian ballerina. In 1971, I told my mother that I had danced like nobody had ever danced before and that I must leave a good memory of myself. I decided that the time had come to leave the stage. So I did, although that was difficult; I was at the height of my success, in great form. Every artist must recognise the right moment to go. One should never allow the public to say when they are leaving the theatre, ‘I remember how she used to be.’

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Did you then teach? No, teaching in America is poison. You will teach a completely incapable girl, and then her mother will come and demand her money back. That is not for me. Since then I have only helped stage or revive ballets. Besides, I did that, as a rule, completely disinterestedly. After all, I had worked with them all – with Fokine, Balanchine, Massine, Nijinska, Lichine, Freddy Ashton. Life goes on, and I regret nothing… You know, there are many good ballet dancers nowadays but, unfortunately, there are few personalities. They all know how to dance, but something special is missing, such as Pavlova had. And you must, without fail, talk to Igor Youskevitch – a grand danseur noble.

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• Tatiana Riabouchinska We rehearsed on the steamship… Los Angeles, 1992

T

atiana riabouchinska, the daughter of a Moscow banker and patron of the arts, and of a dancer of the Bolshoi Theatre, trained in Paris under Mathilde Kshessinska and became one of the renowned ‘baby ballerinas’. On stage she was celebrated for the precise rapidity of her movements – one critic called her ‘the incarnation of scherzo’; another recalled her as the most original ballerina of the century. She married the dancer and choreographer David Lichine, with whom she opened a ballet school in Hollywood after the war. I met her there. Shortly afterwards she died from a heart attack. She was giving classes in the morning and she died in the afternoon. Could you tell me something about where you were born and who your parents were? I was born in Moscow. Soon after my birth my father went to London to open a branch of the Imperial Bank. I was only a few months old when the Revolution happened. We were arrested in our own house, which is now considered one of Moscow’s ‘sights’. I was in my cot and my brothers and sisters were tied up on some chairs. In the evening, a servant, who loved my mother very much, helped us escape. Somehow he found a horse and cart. We picked our way across the whole of Russia, half-starving,

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surviving on whatever could be found to eat. Sometimes my mother gave me snow instead of food in order to prevent me dying of thirst. Thank God, we got to the Georgian Military Road, then to some port or other, apparently Novorossiysk. We managed to get to Constantinople on a steamship, then to the South of France. We had Nansen passports; this was a document issued after World War I and the Russian Revolution, which caused massive emigration, to a stateless person ineligible for a passport. We started by living in a small little town near Monte Carlo. My mother met Kshessinska there. By then my father had disappeared, having separated from my mother. I met him only much later, when we went to dance with the Ballets Russes in London. When I was 11 we moved to Paris, where my mother took a job as a domestic servant. My first language was French, which is why I speak Russian so badly. I studied first under Alexandre Volinine, the former Bolshoi Theatre dancer and Anna Pavlova’s partner. After a while Volinine told my mother that she should take me to Kshessinska because I was beginning to dance like a boy, I could do triple tour en l’air. I studied very intensively: every day I worked for up to five hours, and even during my breaks I would run back to Volinine – to take another class… Ballet is taught totally differently here in America: it is sufficient if the teacher persuades you to train twice a week. When did you first go on stage? I was 12 years old when Catherine Devillier, the choreographer from Balieff ’s La Chauve-Souris, spotted me and suggested that my mother let me take a solo part in her ballet Diana Hunts the Stag. As children of my age were not allowed to go on stage in London, we had to say that I was 14 years old. I danced in Elsa Schiaparelli’s costume, it was a great piece, and when Balanchine saw it he invited me to join the corps de ballet in the Ballets Russes. First, I went to America with La Chauve-Souris, but when my contract ended my mother and I went by steamship to Balanchine in Monte Carlo. That was in 1932. And you danced the whole repertoire? Yes. Soon Tamara and I began to be given the main roles. Tamara and Irina Baronova were 13 years old, and I was 15. That’s why we were nicknamed the ‘baby ballerinas’.

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We loved each other and helped each other out so much. And our mothers too. Nowadays that is simply impossible: everyone is jealous; everyone hates each other in ballet. Once, when we were dancing in London and the King and Queen were in the audience, Irina Baronova slipped in Sylphides and fell on her back, but I took her place and danced her part until the end. Which choreographer did you prefer working with? Of course, with Massine, I adored him. Also, with Fokine but not so much, although he, too, was a great person. And with Balanchine, of course. What could you say about Massine’s Les Présages, revived by Tatiana Leskova for the Joffrey Ballet? I saw the production in San Francisco. I don’t think it will look like it did at the time. I was asked to go but I can’t: I have grandchildren, eight cats, the school… I think that if I were going to revive a Massine ballet it would be a fraud. I hope that Tanyia (Tatiana) Leskova succeeds. I know that she has put on successful ballets at the Opéra. I danced all of Massine’s roles, beginning with Jeux d’enfants to Bizet’s music, where I was the young girl. It was choreographed not for me, but for another dancer called Blinova; however, when we were rehearsing, I tried so hard that Massine said that I should dance the premiere. Did you stay the whole time with the Ballets Russes? Irina Baronova and I never left it, but Tamara did, won over by Denham. We went to Cuba and because of Hurok we were stranded there, he abandoned us. My husband, David Lichine, who was with us, staged the miniature ballets for a nightclub so that the artists wouldn’t die of hunger. He was a wonderful man. And how did you escape from there? Only with difficulty, thanks to an American friend who sent us the tickets.

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You took part in those extraordinary world tours and stayed until the very end? We went around the world three or four times. We rehearsed on the steamship. I danced, even when I was pregnant, until the eighth month! It was in Mexico. I was dancing in Les Sylphides and nobody suspected that I was expecting a baby. Then, of course, I had to leave the stage. I had a baby daughter, and David started making films. You started to live here, in Hollywood? Yes. We opened a ballet school in Hollywood. Then we created a little company called the Los Angeles Ballet Theatre, which we took to Paris and Spain. But the man who gave us the financial backing ran off one day and disappeared with all the money. So we had to close. But you kept your school? Yes, it’s been going since 1952, even before – up until then we had a small studio in Beverley Hills. Many of our students later became wellknown dancers, like Jacques d’Amboise, who made a ballet career with Balanchine. Marjorie Tallchief also completed her studies with us and then she danced with the Paris Opera. Now, Alexander Godunov comes to train every day, morning and evening. When I am asked why I continue teaching at my age, I answer, ‘And what else should I do, sell vegetables?’ Did your husband create a ballet especially for you? No, but I danced in many of his ballets: in Graduation Ball, which tours worldwide; I danced the angel and Danilova danced Queen Guinevere in Francesca da Rimini. My husband died in 1972.

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•

REMEMBERING COLONEL DE BASIL’S BALLETS RUSSES: Dancers

Marika Besobrasova We left Yalta on the last English steamer Monte Carlo, 1989 and 2006

D

uring the summer of 1989, I stayed in the south of France with Hélène Zdanevich, the widow of Ilia Zdanevich, a colourful figure of the Russian Futurist movement. The house was decorated with pictures painted by Iliazd, as he called himself, and other paintings, given to him by his friends and neighbours: Picasso, Miró, Chagall. One day I went to the Academy of Dance of Monte Carlo where Marika Besobrasova’s ballet school was located. Marika Besobrasova belonged to an old Russian noble family and was a grande dame. She showed me around the Academy, after which we recorded our first conversation. Several years later, I visited her again at her flat in Monaco overlooking the mountains and the blue sea, reminiscent of the Crimea, where she was born. In the ballet dictionaries it says that you were born in Yalta.

Yes, in Livadia, where the Tsar’s palace was. We lived in a villa in the park that surrounded it for the first two years of my life. My grandfather, Vladimir Besobrasov, was a general, adjutant to the Emperor, commander

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of the Imperial Guard and chief-of-staff of the officers’ cavalry school. All three of my grandfather’s sons, of course, went to war. My father was a young cavalry officer; he had just graduated from the Corps des Pages. Wounded, he found himself in the Livadia hospital, opened by the Empress in one of the Palace wings. There he met a nursing sister, and they were married in 1917. In the Civil War that followed, my father fought on the side of the White Army under General Wrangel, and his brothers were on the Don, in General Alexei Kaledin’s regiments. They were terrible times for my mother, who often didn’t know whether he was dead or alive. She believed that I was dying, too. She bartered everything she possessed for food. There was a farmer who gave her an egg in exchange for a sapphire from her necklace. His hens laid golden eggs… We left Yalta on the last English steamer. Long before that my father had disappeared – he was with the last battalion, covering the departing ships from the Red Army’s attack, but my mother refused to go without him. In order to ensure my safety should my father not make it to the last ship, she asked his oldest sister to take me with her. But at the very last moment my father made his way to us and we got to Constantinople. There I nearly died; I fell ill with pneumonia after we had been kept for 40 days in quarantine – right on the quayside, in winter. My mother realised that I was dying and was asking everyone for help. My aunt’s husband was the son of Rodzyanko, the chairman of the State Duma, and when we were allowed to leave the port he went to see the Russian Ambassador who, of course, received him because his surname carried weight. While there, my uncle heard a doctor say the situation was quite impossible – that there was neither money nor medicine and he couldn’t tell the mothers that their children were dying, even though one of the mothers knew that her daughter was near death. My uncle asked him, ‘Surname! For God’s sake, this woman’s surname?!’ ‘Besobrasova.’ Without excusing himself, my uncle raced to find us: ‘Vera, we must take her to hospital, she is really dying!’ At the hospital we saw Dr Aleksinsky, the man who had made my diagnosis. He said to my mother, ‘Forgive me, before I look after your daughter, please allow me to save my son… he is very ill and has already waited more than 24 hours for his operation.’ Of course, my mother waited. Then they did my operation, they cut open three ribs, cleaned, bandaged, stitched me up… I was saved.

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Where did you go to from Constantinople? By some extraordinary chance, we got to Venice. Evidently, fate had already decided that that was where I would attend Diaghilev’s ballet for the first time. I was all of three years old; there was no one to leave me with so my parents took me to the ballet with them, and I slept soundly throughout the performance. Afterwards we went to Berlin, where we met my father’s other sister, Olga, and from there we all went together to Denmark, because my grandfather and grandmother were already there. My grandmother’s name was Countess Stenbock-Fermor. She was dame d’honneur to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna – the Danish Princess Dagmar, who married the tsar, Alexander III. What was your grandmother and grandfather’s route to Denmark? Almost immediately after the Revolution, the Bolsheviks arrested my grandfather and took him to be shot, but the soldiers recognised their general and freed him. After that, he managed to escape to Finland, and my grandmother soon followed with the younger children. Everyone was so sure that the ‘disorders’ wouldn’t last long that she didn’t even take her jewellery box with its treasures because she thought it would be too heavy. When she told my uncle (who was escorting them to the station), he raced back to Millionnaya Street. The revolutionary mob had already robbed the house, but he managed to save the box. The money from selling the jewels helped the family for 25 years; as a patriot, my grandfather had refused to move his money out of Russia while it was still possible. How long did you stay in Denmark? Until I was nine years old. I also saw the Dowager Empress, playing with the children of the Grand Princess Olga Alexandrovna – Gouri and Tikhon, who scared me with spider webs in the underground passage leading from Maria Feodorovna’s villa to the beach. To all appearances life went on as normal, full of receptions and celebrations. But during the nights my father and his brothers worked as stevedores in the port. I studied at the French monastery where we had to speak only in English one day, and the next day only in French. From childhood I spoke three languages. Then, while the Empress was still alive, my

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parents moved to Nice, where there was a large Russian colony. It was a very difficult time for them; they both received a pittance. My first ballet fee was more than my father’s weekly wage. How did you first come to study ballet? Girls from families such as yours were not supposed to go on stage. As a little girl, I was very cunning. I was studying at the Yakhontov School in Nice, known as the Alexandrina. It was for poor Russian children and the building was in a terrible state. When I was 12 years old the school patron, Grand Prince Andrei Vladimirovich, came to visit us. I knew that he was married to Kshessinska, the former prima ballerina assoluta, and that they had a villa on the Cap d’Ail, not far from Monte Carlo. I explained everything to my grandfather and then declared: ‘The doctor said that it would be good for me to dance!’ My grandfather replied, ‘Well, if the Grand Prince Andrei Vladimirovich and his ballerina-wife look after you, then of course you can take classes.’ However, my grandfather hadn’t the slightest idea what professional dance was. After all, his generation had also danced at balls, but the teachers came to teach them at home. So it was your own wish? Yes, but I had actually heard my father saying that dance might help me as I was a very sickly child, I had no strength for any physical effort, my breathing was difficult, my head was constantly dizzy. Who did you study with? At first I studied with Lydia Karpova – the ballerina who was a soloist at the first performance of Fokine’s Les Sylphides (then called Chopiniana). Then I started with Julia Sedova, the great Mariinsky Theatre ballerina, who was nicknamed ‘big horse’ in Petersburg ballet circles, not because she was tall but because she could cross the stage in three jumps. At Sedova’s school I came across a mixture of all ages and all nationalities. The ballet studio, in an old villa, was simply a large room with a bad floor, connected to some kind of garage, but we children were quite happy with this. The Union de Pages, made up of my father’s schoolfellows,

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helped pay for my classes as my parents had no money. Many of them had become taxi drivers in Paris and were not badly paid. Where did you start to dance professionally? From the age of 16 I danced in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. As you know, René Blum, the President’s brother, a man of leftist convictions, was the director of the theatre there. Three years after Diaghilev died, he revived the ballet company with Colonel de Basil. Of course, de Basil wasn’t a colonel at all! In the Civil War he really served as a colonel in the White Army. I think not… Then René Blum parted with de Basil and created his own company. Rehearsals started for me in 1935 in Paris. The chief choreographer was Mikhail Fokine. Les Sylphides! Don Juan to Glück’s music! In the beginning, working with him was very difficult for me, a silly girl from the provinces, but soon I stopped being afraid. We worked hard. In two months in Paris I learnt 12 ballets. Fokine was a fair man, and exceptionally dedicated to his work; he was also very courteous. I can still hear his question, ‘Marika, do tell me please, do you not remember me explaining two years ago what you must do here?’ I stood stock-still – very ashamed that I had forgotten. As he was no longer a young man, Fokine did not change for the rehearsals; it took only a few light movements for him to demonstrate what he wanted. He always found the right words to explain to the young dancers something which he alone knew… But he demanded that the artists gave him their best. He kept saying to one of our dancers, a South American, ‘I didn’t ask you to jump like a horse! You must fly!’ And once in Schéhérazade, at the very beginning, we, the Shah’s wives, were sitting on cushions, while a pair were dancing in the middle of the stage. Suddenly we saw someone dragging them off into the wings. It was Fokine, who was not pleased by their dancing, so he simply took them off the stage. We did a great deal of touring. I remember a staggering success at the London Coliseum – 54 curtain calls. In those days the curtain was raised by hand and the next day the boy whose job it was couldn’t lift his arms, let alone the curtain! And, in 1937, Tata Krassovska (who, like me, was

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also an officer’s daughter) and I went on tour to South Africa where the Empire Exhibition was passing through. After our performance, some Russians approached us and it turned out they were Cossacks from the Zharoff choir, which used to sing on holidays in Denmark when I was still a child. They recognised my surname, waited at the artists’ entrance and invited my mother and me to join them. They had long ago left Zharoff, and were involved in diamond mining in South Africa. They were very homesick for Russia. When the war started, I didn’t go to America with the Ballets Russes. I stayed in Monte Carlo, where I was asked to put on performances at the Casino. We had some promising dancers, for example the Golovine family, all three of whom trained with me. It was thanks to them that I started teaching. And one of the most famous of my wartime pupils was Jean Babilée, an exceptional dancer! They all helped me find my true direction. But in 1940 I had an argument with the Casino management and I went away to Cannes. This came about more or less by accident. Someone called Marcel Sablon, who had become the director of the Casino theatre in Monte Carlo, had signed a contract with me for a performance. But then he told me, ‘You will stage the performances but you will not put your name to the ballets.’ ‘So who will put their name to them?’ ‘A beautiful woman has been brought to me! She is Russian or half-Russian; she is called Ludmila.’ Who became Tcherina? The very same. Just imagine: they entrusted me with staging the performance, but all the credit would go to Tcherina! I was already quite prepared to go to Paris but then I remembered that I had a friend in Cannes, the director of a restaurant called The Ambassador, who had once said that I could always count on his help in a difficult situation. Besides, my father begged me to sign a week’s contract with them, because he was afraid that otherwise I would end up without a work permit. When I had danced out my week at the Casino, the director said, ‘You dance beautifully and everyone likes you. I am prepared to pay you double wages.’ I said that I couldn’t, as I had to go to Paris. But things turned out rather differently. My parents attended one of the performances, and afterwards my father said to me, ‘You know,

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a strange person was sitting next to me. He was very stout and he was extremely pleased with the production. He asked who was responsible.’ The next day the secretary of this strange, stout person appeared at my door. It turned out that the person was the Aga Khan! And my company took off from there. I, a girl who was hardly more than 20 years old, suddenly had my own ballet company in Cannes, where dancers who later became famous, like Jean Babilée and Algaroff, came to dance. So your company was formed. Did you yourself keep producing or did you invite someone else? I staged a great many ballets and revived many others. It was not until some time later that I discovered why the Aga Khan had taken me on. My uncle, Nikolai Mikhailovich Besobrasov, who was a General and a State Councillor, was also an influential St Petersburg balletomane and ballet critic at the beginning of the twentieth century, who had even contributed to Pavlova’s heyday. He also helped Diaghilev in organising the Russian Seasons. He died in Monte Carlo in 1912, but his memory was kept alive. My other relations, the Demidovs, who had a marvellous estate near Nice, used to tell me about him. When I joined René Blum, he said to me one day, ‘Lord Windermere would like to meet you.’ ‘Who is he?’ ‘A friend of your uncle’s; they helped Diaghilev together. He is coming from England today.’ I was introduced to a quite elderly man who immediately told me that he and my uncle’s friend had helped Diaghilev as part of a threesome: Windermere, Besobrasov and the Aga Khan. In 1942, when the Germans entered the ‘free zone’ in the South of France, my ballet school in Cannes had to close – we might all have been sent to work in Germany. I decided that there was nothing left for me to do in the South, there was no point in teaching any more. And I left for Paris, to teach with Egorova and Gsovsky. Gsovsky was an interesting character. An extraordinary man, hugely knowledgeable and with the ability to share this knowledge. Chauviré studied with him but, more than anyone, he loved Irène Skorik. When he was working in Paris, almost everyone

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went to study with him. We literally raced from one studio to the other. By the way, Egorova (she was Princess Trubetskaya by marriage) had a little house in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois – a place outside Paris traditionally popular with Russians – and every Wednesday she went off there to rest and look after the house. On those days she left the studio in my care, and I used to give classes to the ballerinas of the Paris Opera as a matter of course. I took some classes with Kshessinska, for whom the Grand Prince, her husband, had also bought a studio in Paris. She showed me a few of the finer details of the St Petersburg school, like the épaulement. When that very elderly lady demonstrated a variation which she herself had danced, she once again turned into a ballerina and had a kind of very special chic. And Preobrajenska? I knew her also, of course. None of those ladies were young, but Preobrajenska, who was very short, seemed to me somehow old already. During the war, when she had fewer students, she had trouble; she was always waiting, hoping someone else would come along. Of course, you must have seen all of Lifar’s performances at the Paris Opera and known him personally. Lifar was a remarkably talented man, but he threw his weight about. He always wanted to be in the limelight. He wanted to be a collector, like Diaghilev, and a writer, and a society figure, which, by the way greatly helped his career at the Paris Opera. On stage he was magnificent. Then, not long before his death, I revived his Suite en blanc. He thanked me enormously for that production. But I could only put the knowledge that I acquired in Paris to use in my teaching as, after the war, the doctors said I had a weak heart and forbade me to dance. I became the ballet mistress for the Marquis de Cuevas company, which had just been formed. We did not always agree, but it was even more difficult working with Nijinska, although it was unusually interesting. I think her celebrated ‘difficult character’ was linked to her no-less-famous deafness, giving rise, as often happens, to an extremely creative imagination – but her husband played on that.

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Marika Besobrasova

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We stayed a long time in Vichy with the de Cuevas company, then we went to Monte Carlo, where I remained – the company went on tour without me. From that summer, my whole life was centred around Monaco. I opened a school – again, a very small one. Then things started to gradually pick up. I was given a hall in the Casino, then in 1952 I moved to a small studio, ‘matchbox’, as Rudik Nureyev nicely called it. And one day Princess Grace and her young daughter, Caroline, appeared in this same matchbox and her daughter started taking classes with me. Then for the next 15 years the Princess was always looking out for a larger building to house what was to be called the ‘Marika Besobrasova’s Academy of Classical Dance’. In the end, a private house that had belonged to Zinger, a seller of Swedish sewing machines, was bought. I lived for a long time in the attic of that building. In St Petersburg, Zinger is remembered not just for his Swedish sewing machines – his impressive house on the corner of the Ekaterinsky Canal and Nevsky Prospect is crowned by a tower with a globe, and it kept its name, Zinger’s House. Various publishing houses and an immense bookshop were located there. Could you tell me about Rudolf Nureyev? I remember, once when I was visiting you, you were getting ready to go and see him on an island. Was that the same island which once belonged to Massine? Yes, the Isole dei Galli. There are three islands. They were sold as one lot by the army. The main island was the one on which Massine built a villa. He was very economical, not to say miserly. The artists invited to rehearse both lived and worked there. And it cost him nothing. Massine telephoned me one day and asked me to introduce him to Nureyev. I did so – it was in London, we had lunch and then went to visit the Botanical Gardens at Kew. Massine wanted to know Rudolf ’s ideas about art. And I talked to Massine about music, and about his staggering mime skills. The first time I saw him was in Monte Carlo when I was 14. In Le Beau Danube there is a scene where he just stands in a white costume, lost in contemplation. I was amazed that just his presence on the stage could be so expressive, even when he was standing still. Although he was short (but still handsomely trim with huge dark eyes) he excelled because of his technical precision; and he was a great character dancer.

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Did you also know Lorca Massine? I knew him. His mother brought both children to me when I was just starting to teach in Monte Carlo. He is now reviving Massine ballets in Moscow. Very badly, they say. He always looked like an ignoramus. Massine would not have allowed such a sloppy approach. Anyway, after Massine’s death, Nureyev, who became a great friend of mine, bought the Isole dei Galli. My husband first got to know him through Prokovsky (whose lawyer he would become) at one of Rudolf ’s first performances in Paris. Having watched the performance, my husband came out of the theatre and saw the little restaurant opposite where everyone was gathering. And then Rudolf, Prokovsky and Pierre Lacotte all appeared. Describing that meeting, my husband said, ‘Did you ever see a young man who not only poses a mass of interesting questions but also listens to your replies? And not only listens to them but is able to repeat them!’ I remember that another time my husband took me to Geneva to see Rudolf rehearsing with Rosella Hightower outside the town. I knew Rosella well – she often came to my school in Monte Carlo. I went up to the stage to congratulate her and said that if she needed a translator she could call on me. ‘Oh, no! I don’t want a translator! I want to breathe it in for myself. It’s so interesting how he does everything! I simply must experience him without any interpreters.’ No doubt that was her American-Indian blood. Yes, and the desire to discover things for herself. I greeted Rudolf, telling him that I had come with my husband, whom he had met in Paris. The rehearsal continued. Immediately afterwards, we met again. My husband and I were driving back to Geneva and suddenly we saw Rudolf walking along the road with a huge sack! I got out of the car, hailed him, and he stopped in fright. Yes, he was afraid of the Soviets. But my pronunciation is not at all Soviet. To tell you more about his fears: my husband offered to take him around the town, perhaps to shop

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for something. I translated this for Rudik (Rudolf), who replied: ‘Yes, I’ve made a little money and I want to buy a good camera.’ Which is what we did. My husband took a long time choosing the camera, explaining to Rudolf which were the best models and why. The owner of the shop overheard our conversation and beckoned to me, ‘I see you are translating for this gentleman. Tell him that he shouldn’t think that anyone can feel safe in Geneva today.’ He meant, of course, safe from pickpockets, while Rudik was thinking about Soviet agents. My husband asked him to come to stay with us. We gave him all our telephone numbers and assured him that whenever he was free we would come and collect him from wherever he said in order to take him to Monaco. Some time later, one night after a performance, Rudolf telephoned and asked if it would be convenient for him to come. I said that he could come right away; I also added that Erik Bruhn would be with us. So that is how they got to know each other. He had long dreamt of meeting Erik, whom he really worshipped. He, who had mastered Russian ballet technique so wonderfully, was ever intrigued by the idea of discovering something that was unknown in Russia. At my school the classes took place in the evenings. Edward Keyton lived nearby, in a little hotel, and often dined with me. He was born and had studied in Russia – his father supplied horses for an important stud farm there. Indeed, there was a whole famous jockey clan called Ketonov, which, really, started the Russian–American trade in horses. Yes, and Keyton himself danced with Anna Pavlova, whom, by the way, my husband also knew. That was of great interest to Bruhn and Rudolf – they asked him how Pavlova held her arms. Were you friends from that time onwards? Yes, and my husband helped him in business: buying an apartment and then an estate.

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Rudolf was a complicated person. Did any difficulties ever arise between you and him? Never! He always treated me with respect. Whenever he wanted to, he stayed with us. And when he was dying I looked after him, and after his death I looked after his favourite dog, Solor, named after the hero of Bayadère. Rudolf had danced that part from his youth. Rudolf was a genius. Through his dance he first enriched the St Petersburg classical ballet tradition, and then developed it as he addressed the conflict between classical and modern. May he rest in peace. He is probably dancing in heaven!

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• Tatiana Leskova One way or another, everything goes back to Diaghilev San Francisco, 1992; Rio De Janeiro, 2005

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met tatiana Leskova, the great-granddaughter of the writer Nikolai Leskov, in San Francisco. I was there for a tour by the Joffrey Ballet, which I have loved ever since it first visited Russia. I already knew that Leskova had revived Massine’s Présages set to the music of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony at the Paris Opera, his Choreartium (Brahms’s Fourth Symphony) in Copenhagen and Birmingham and Le Beau Danube at various other cities, including Amsterdam. Having flown in from Rio de Janeiro, she was now staging a revival of Présages with The Joffrey Ballet. All of her former colleagues were talking about these events with varying degrees of enthusiasm, betraying ancient rivalries. We met the day after the premiere and chatted before the evening performance. Did your parents leave Russia at the time of the Revolution? My father left during World War I, in 1917. He had only just got married and, as a diplomat he received a posting to Serbia and, from there, almost immediately to England. At first, he and my mother wanted to return; nobody, after all, took the Revolution seriously. They hoped to make their way back to Russia via Constantinople, whence their family had emigrated. They didn’t know that many of their

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relatives were already dead. However, they couldn’t get permission and they decided to go to England. The British wanted to send an icebreaker to Murmansk to save the Tsar’s family and my parents found themselves on that ship. But Lloyd George, it seems, was against it and after six months the steamer returned to Christiania (as Oslo was then called). My parents stayed there a short time, then they went to Italy, and thence to Paris, where I was born shortly afterwards. Papa could speak English, French, Italian and German and he was able to work as an interpreter. His main areas of interest were Ancient Greece and Rome, and he used to tell me stories from the Greek myths at bedtime. My father died from cancer in 1942, when I was in Australia. My grandmother reproached me for not having sent for him to join me there, but what could I have done? It was the war! Did you start dancing early? Not as young as others. My mother (her maiden name was Baroness Medem) took a job as a model and my father was very jealous of that, and they separated. My mother fell ill with tuberculosis. When I was five years old the same happened to me and I was sent off to the Pyrenées. My mother died when I was nine. The doctor said that I needed to do gymnastics because I was thin and physically poorly developed. My father was a balletomane and my grandmother Leskova was an accompanist at the ballet school, so they decided that I should go there. We went to Lubov Egorova in 1932. She said that she didn’t take such young pupils and sent me to Nicolas Kremneff. He had danced for Diaghilev and had a school in Paris, on rue Chaptal. Having studied with him, I returned to Egorova and trained with her until I was 14. For everything that I learnt, in fact for my whole ballet career, I am indebted first to her, and secondly to the experience which I gained in de Basil’s Ballets Russes. Although I was still very young and I was put in the corps de ballet, all around me I saw great dancers, outstanding musicians and remarkable artists – not only Bakst and Benois, but also Miró and Matisse. And ever afterwards I used to go back to Egorova for help – she showed me all the solo parts from Sleeping Beauty and Raymonda, which she had danced at the Mariinsky Theatre. Did you know the other renowned Paris ballet teachers?

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Apart from Egorova, I only studied with Kniaseff. During the war, Egorova left to have a holiday in Clamart, and I worked with Kniaseff along with Yvette Chauviré, Zizi Jeanmaire and Irène Skorik. Where were your first performances? In 1937, when I was 14 years old, I started dancing in the opera performances at the Comedy Theatre. I worked there for a year and seven months. The company was directed by Constantin Tcherkas, a former Diaghilev dancer. At the same time I was dancing in the Ballets de la Jeunesse, set up by Egorova, mainly for her pupils, which existed from 1937 to 1939. Almost all the dancers were Russian, and they were all very young. Who, in particular? George Skibine, the son of the Diaghilev dancer Boris Skibine, was my first love. At the end of the 1950s, he and his wife Marjorie Tallchief became stars of the Paris Opera, then he became the ballet master there. He and Youly Algaroff (who, after the war, also became a star at the Paris Opera) danced the main roles in Les Ballets de la Jeunesse. The brothers Oleg and Vasya Tupine were there too. Our patron was Jean-Louis Vaudoyer, the writer, critic and author of the libretto for Fokine’s Spectre de la rose, evoking a poem by Théophile Gautier. Fokine had staged this ballet, set to the music of Weber, for Diaghilev in 1911. After Vaudoyer became the director of the Comédie Française, he once invited me to dance in the prologue of a Molière play. As to the Paris Opera, before Lifar, operatic works dominated there, although there were good dancers. It was only with Lifar’s arrival that French ballet came to the fore; there were now performances every Wednesday, and tours started too. By the way, at the beginning of the war, he helped Skibine and other Russian dancers with Nansen passports to go to England, where they joined the Ballets Russes. But Algaroff missed the chance because, at that moment, he was visiting relations in Czechoslovakia. When he came back, he danced in Paris with Boris Kniaseff, then for the Marquis de Cuevas, and afterwards Lifar took him into the Opéra. In 1939, I danced with Lifar in Les Sylphides at the Pavillon de Marsan in the Tuileries, at a performance commemorating the tenth

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anniversary of Diaghilev’s death, in conjunction with a big exhibition. So you see, one way or another, everything goes back to Diaghilev. After the war, Lifar was criticised for having stayed at his post during the occupation. Well, what was an artist to do? Ballet would have died. How did you join the de Basil company? In 1939, de Basil and Massine had long been at daggers-drawn. They went to court and, though Massine left for America, de Basil lost the case. Anyway, in 1939, Serge Grigoriev and his wife Lubov Tchernicheva came to one of Egorova’s classes. They picked Geneviève Moulin and me and we joined de Basil’s reformed Original Ballet Russe company. Did you go to London, and then to Australia? We went to London in May and rehearsed at Covent Garden. The only ballet in which I was not included was Les Sylphides. I so much wanted to dance in it, even if just in the corps de ballet. But Grigoriev was against it – he thought I needed to develop the right style. Fokine, who had arrived from America, put on Paganini for us, to music by Rachmaninov. When I became a soloist, and after Riabouchinska had left, I took her place and started dancing the role of the Florentine Belle. Fokine rehearsed all the ballets in the repertoire with me. Sometimes he scolded me, and sometimes looked at me in such a way that words weren’t necessary. We worked until the end of July, and in August we had a break before preparing to go to Germany. We were meant to start there on 4 September, but the war began on 1 September. Our scores and stage sets had already been sent to Germany. It was difficult to send all that back, but somehow they managed it. We received our contract to go to Australia in November. But, it being wartime, the day of our sailing was kept a strict secret; we had to turn up every evening ready to go until, eventually, we were told that we were sailing. I finally met de Basil properly on the boat. Crossing the English Channel we had every chance of hitting a mine, but after six weeks we landed safely in Australia. From there we went to America – to Los Angeles, then to San Francisco.

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During your time working with de Basil, did they stage any new ballets? They mostly revived the old productions by Fokine, Balanchine, Nijinsky, David Lichine and Lifar. We danced everything that had been performed since Diaghilev left Russia – Petipa’s classical repertoire, Fokine’s ballets and Balanchine’s. The luggage that we travelled with was huge. We had with us the stage décor and costumes by Bakst, Benois, Roerich, Picasso, Braque, Miró. Some things were added, like Pavillon by Lichine set to music by Borodin and Balustrade, which Balanchine choreographed in New York in 1941. Fokine’s Paganini was new for America – it was staged in 1939. As dance coach we usually had Tatiana Chamié with us. Chamié (everyone called her by her surname) had a photographic memory. Igor Shvetsov also went with us. In Australia he choreographed La Lutte éternelle set to Études Symphoniques by Schumann, and then, when I started working in Rio, Red Poppy and other ballets. Behind every name there is always a story. I was looking at the Tatiana Chamié archive in the New York Public Library and it contains the whole history of the Ballets Russes, from Diaghilev to de Basil. As for Shvetsov, he found himself on tour in Siberia in 1930, crossed the Chinese border with several colleagues, and in the end made it to Paris, where he was taken for a Communist agent. In Paris, Nijinska took Shvetsov into her company, and later Fokine made him the lead dancer of the Ballets Russes, with which he travelled all over. He used to say, ‘If Soviet ballet has achieved something, it is not because it has served as an instrument of Communist propaganda, but despite it.’ Tell me, please, about your Cuban adventures. They were quite dramatic. On the way to Cuba in 1941, 18 dancers announced a strike because they wanted to move to the new Ballet Theatre in New York, managed by Irina Baronova’s husband, Jerry Sevastianov (who, by the way, was Stanislavsky’s nephew on his mother’s side); he had made an arrangement with Sol Hurok. We started dancing without them, but we weren’t paid, and we were stuck in Cuba for six months. Some people went to the beach and some worked. I was one of the ones who worked – our little troupe went around

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various small towns. Then I started dancing in the Tropicana nightclub. We danced African dances staged by Lichine; I portrayed a panther being hunted by savages. With the money I earned I was able to rent a place to live in. The problem was that, after Cuba, we were meant to go to South America. But, when the 18 people left, the contract was broken and we had to stay in Cuba. Then de Basil found an impresario in New York who hired us, but the Cubans made a fuss because of the 18 artists who had already left Cuba – a certain number of us had come into the country, but a different number was leaving. We somehow got to America all the same, and danced in Detroit, then in Canada. Then suddenly the impresario dropped us and disappeared, not having paid de Basil. Again, we were without work. Then we signed a contract for tours in Mexico and South America. Did you also encounter any difficulties on the trips to South America? In those days we took them in our stride. We were young and laughed at the obstacles which modern young people would probably be horrified at. When we were crossing South America on a small train we had to get out and collect the firewood for the engine ourselves, then someone produced a bag of coffee beans, which we also threw in. The aroma was marvellous but the train didn’t go any faster. But we were young and we loved all of that! Why did you stay in Brazil? While we were in Brazil, the war ended. My mother and father had already died but I still had my family – my grandmother, my aunts – and I had to help them. We were unable to correspond but we heard rumours about how difficult it was in Europe after the war. My friend Anna Volkova (who had also studied under Egorova and Preobrajenska) and I were invited to dance at the Copacabana nightclub – where they paid ten times more – for four months, but it was against our contract. So we begged for a leave of absence. We said that we needed the money to help our relatives. When de Basil showed his empty pockets, but refused to let us go, we went without his permission. However, the police stopped us, asking for our papers, which were with de Basil and with Grigoriev. There was a good lawyer at the Copacabana who arranged for Grigoriev

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to be called to the police station and to hand over our documents. Once we had received the documents, we left. So that was how your break with de Basil came about. We loved the company very much and we decided that we would go back for the next big tour. But when the work at Copacabana ended, Anna went to Australia, where she got married, whilst I fell in love and stayed in Rio de Janeiro. I started my own company, then in 1950 I joined the ballet company of the Theatro Municipal de Rio, then I began to direct it and have continued until today. In 1952, I opened a ballet school. I couldn’t invite the Russian dancers, but I staged everything that I could and had the right to, including ballets from our repertoire. We also staged ballets by Massine and he himself came to us twice in order to work on the revivals. Of the other choreographers, Shvetsov, Skibine and Bill Dollar also came. Dollar transferred the ballets that he had choreographed for Roland Petit and the Marquis de Cuevas. Harald Lander also came and put on Les Indes galantes (music by Rameau), which before that had had a huge success at the Paris Opera. I danced in his Études. We also showed a new Brazilian ballet, Yara by Vanya Psota. I choreographed many ballets myself. Afterwards, Toumanova came to dance in Rio. She would stand for hours in équilibre. There are many funny stories about that. One goes: Danilova is asked, ‘Did you see how marvellously Toumanova was standing? She was standing and standing… can you do that?’ Danilova answers, ‘Unfortunately not. I have to dance.’ In 1960, before Christmas, I was on holiday in Paris. I got out of the taxi and there was Massine. He asked if I remembered Choreartium and I said, ‘Of course, we danced in it together.’ He invited me to his house in Neuilly-sur-Seine. I showed him everything that I could remember and he said, ‘I want you to come and work with me in London.’ Massine was a great dancer, but a very dry, very cold person. It is interesting that in his own memoirs he uses exactly the same words about Fokine. Overall, I most liked working with Balanchine. He was our choreographer until the war. Even during our tour of Buenos Aires I wanted to leave

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de Basil for the Theatro Colón in order to work with Balanchine, who was staging Concerto Barocco there. But I wasn’t able to as I was still under 21 and I wasn’t old enough. In the following years I started reviving the Massine ballets in Europe and America. You saw Les Présages, which I have already staged in London and at the Paris Opera. Not long ago I recreated Massine’s Choreartium for the Birmingham Royal Ballet, which was well received. It is strange that no one apart from Joffrey wanted to revive that ballet in America, and even for Joffrey that was quite difficult. Did anyone stay with you in Rio? Nina Verchinina still lives there to this day, and so does another Russian, Tamara Grigorieva. It seems very strange to many people that Leskov’s great granddaughter, a dancer, lives in Brazil. But, after World War II, a new wave of Russian émigrés came there from Europe and Harbin. Is there anyone left from your family in Paris? My aunt Kira Sereda, who is my mother’s sister. She left Russia when she was 14 years old, having been in prison with my grandmother. My two uncles, Boris and Vladimir, were in the White Army, and my grandmother and Kira were seized by the Cheka during one of their house searches when they found the epaulettes from their uniforms sent from the front by the nurses after my uncle Vladimir was killed. But my other aunt, Irina, managed to escape prison because at that time she was in hospital with malaria. Some of my other relations, like my uncle on my father’s side, died when they were only 16 or 17 years old. My grandmother’s youngest son, Boris, also died then – he was wounded in the lungs and after that he got tuberculosis. He was buried in Constantinople. My grandmother and her daughters got out of Russia with enormous difficulty. When they were released from prison, they fled to another town and reached Sochi. With the aid of the Greek Consul they escaped on a steamship to Constantinople. My aunt worked as a waitress in a restaurant. Then the French Red Cross sent them to Marseilles and finally they reached Paris, where they lodged in a monastery for some time. Kira was 15 years old and Ira 13. The only work my grandmother could do was a little bit of sewing. Every Sunday they went to church where,

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one day in 1922, they bumped into my parents. My mother was already expecting me. Now I am alone. There are no more Leskovs, and on my mother’s side there is only my aunt, who is 89 years old and not married. The Leskov line is broken. That is why the Leskov museum in Oryol, which I visited, is of such interest to me. Have you been to St Petersburg often? Yes, I have been to the cemetery where my great-grandfather and my grandfather are buried. And the Leskov house on Furshtatsky Street is still there with a memorial plaque there. When you walk past, remember me – his only great-granddaughter.

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• George Zoritch I was able to step into a role at the last minute… Moscow, 2005

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n june 2005, en route from Paris to Tokyo, I stopped off for half a day in Moscow to meet George Zoritch, who had been invited there by Yuri Grigorovich, the famous ballet director, to receive an award. Zoritch danced with the Ballets Russes from 1934. Famously good-looking, he was known for the refinement of his dancing and his superb technique; also as a delightful man, loved by everybody. Although after the war Zoritch danced with many other companies, he stayed on with the Ballets Russes until the very end in 1962. When I came to see him, Zoritch gave me the recently published Russian translation of his autobiography Ballet Mystique: Behind the Glamour of the Ballet Russe: A Memoir. I must say that working on the book was a kind of therapy for me. All my life I have been very shy and reserved, but now that the autobiography has appeared, I chat away non-stop. In your book you speak about Vilnius, about your ancestor Count Zoritch, a favourite of Catherine the Great, about your training in Paris and, of course, about your career. Perhaps you might add something about Olga Preobrajenska? I spent nine months studying with her. She was a remarkable teacher. A tiny woman, she used to jump onto her chair to see everyone and so that

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everyone could see her. I remember the studio well, all the mothers sitting along the wall, knitting and going into raptures about their children. I well remember the splendid piano accompanist – during the classes she would sit and eat a sandwich and drink coffee. Amazingly, she played not looking at the musical notes, nor at the pupils, nor at Madame, but stopping when necessary so that the latter could make her comments, and then picking up the music effortlessly from where she had stopped. René Renouf, who helped me write the book, is now working on the memoirs of Stepanova, another of Preobrajenska’s pupils. Tasia was very talented; it is a pity she married Gardner so early and stopped dancing. But she has a very happy marriage; her husband adores her. That is wonderful, of course. But she might have continued delighting ballet audiences for much longer. Her mother was still alive when I went to visit them. That was a real ménage à trois; her mother was living with them and probably ruled over everybody like Tamara Toumanova’s mother. I adored Tamara; we were great friends. When I was preparing to go for the Diaghilev celebration at Perm, his native city, I was asked to bring some of Tamara’s photographs for his museum. We agreed that I would drop in for tea to see her and at the same time I would collect the photographs. On the day of the visit I spent four hours trying to telephone her in vain. I went to her house all the same and saw an ambulance at the door – they were taking Tamara to the hospital. Apparently she had gangrene. They offered to amputate the leg, but Tamara refused. When I discovered that she was dying, I called her at the hospital. I started comforting her, but she was no longer able to speak: a nurse placed the receiver by her ear and afterwards she told me that upon hearing my voice Tamara started crying. I was deeply moved and grieved enormously that she was gone. She remained incredibly beautiful even when she was older. In the last years she still looked wonderful, whereas I am now like a Louis XIV mummy. How she suffered, poor thing! Tamara was always the pride

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of the ballet. She had fantastic technique. The three ‘baby ballerinas’ were all different. Tamara had a dramatic style; there was something mystical about her. I also loved Baronova very much. She too had a great technique, and what an understanding of her roles! And a childlike coquetry to boot. It’s fun joking with her; she never takes offence. And Tatiana Riabouchinska: compared to them she is like a hummingbird – her style is entirely individual. A remarkable dancer too, marvellous technique. She could dance the girl with the pigtails in Lichine’s Graduation Ball and immediately afterwards dance the Shemakhan Tsarina in Fokine’s Le Coq d’Or – two completely different parts! Tanechka, with her joie de vivre, I associate with spring, Baronova with summer and Toumanova with autumn. I met all three of them and I used to telephone Baronova in Australia. I already knew her in London – she was truly a grande dame. Her eyesight has gone but I often write to her – her secretary reads the letters out to her. But there was no one to translate the book I sent her – her daughter, who lives near her, doesn’t read Russian, so Baronova could only look at the photographs. Who were your other partners? In de Basil’s company I danced in Les Sylphides with Alicia Markova. She was an astoundingly beautiful ballerina! There was the look of an icon about her; she was always calm, almost as if she was indifferent, with a barely noticeable smile, liquid movements, one flowing into another. But I think only a railway porter could lift her. She looked as light as a feather, but the feather was cast iron! She never helped her partner in the lifts and her waist slipped through one’s hands. She has just died… And Natasha Krassovska has died. My mother was a friend of her parents and I fell in love with her. Her portrait hung above my bed; I even proposed marriage to her! I danced with her many times. She could be very capricious, but we were so well suited to one another! ‘Don’t support me when I am pirouetting!’ she used to say. But when she was toppling, one

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had to catch her, and it looked as if the partner was to blame. I remember we were dancing Don Quixote and, at the exact moment when the music stopped, Natasha cried out in Russian, ‘Oy!’, which was no doubt heard throughout the whole auditorium. I was able to step into a role at the last minute, almost without rehearsals. When Yvette Chauviré came to America, we danced Giselle in Boston almost unrehearsed. Another time, Alan Howard fell ill on tour and I had to replace him promptly in Balanchine’s Ballet Impérial, which I had never danced before, although I had seen it on stage. Nina Novak, who was my partner, kept whispering to me what I had to do next. I was also asked to replace Howard at the last moment for the first act of The Nutcracker and, what is more, on a slippery floor, which we poured Coca-Cola over. Despite this, Nina and I danced splendidly, without a single mistake. By the way, when Tamara Toumanova suddenly left the Ballets Russes, Natasha learnt her parts for several of Massine’s ballets almost overnight and, although he was not known for his generosity, Massine gave her two evening stoles as a sign of his gratitude. Can you share your memories of de Basil? Like me, he came from Lithuania. We lived in Vilnius, but he was born in Kovno. De Basil’s real name was Voskresensky. He was a charming man, always with a half-smile on his face, greyish-looking, as if the dancers had wrung out the last drop of his blood from him. I joined up with him in the following way. In the summer of 1935 I was in London with Bronislava Nijinska’s company, Le Grand Opéra Russe. Before that I had already been dancing with Ida Rubinstein’s company, where Fokine was working, and then I had been on a big tour of Singapore, Indonesia, Australia and India with Anna Pavlova’s widower’s company – the Victor Dandré company. And on my return to London I met Tamara Toumanova and her mother in Piccadilly. Tamara was dancing with de Basil’s company and she literally forced me to go at once to Massine for an audition. A daily class was in progress, and even though I was not prepared and was dancing very badly, Massine immediately sent me to de Basil to sign a two-year contract. And I broke my contract with Nijinska. We were touring in the United States for two years with breaks when we performed in New York. At the end of my contract, Massine, whom I had become close with, suggested I join Serge Denham’s new Ballet

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Russe company. In order to receive a permanent American visa I had to leave the USA, and I chose to go to Canada. Setting off to Montreal, where de Basil’s troupe was assembling for a new season, Massine offered to take me in his trailer, but warned me to avoid meetings with the Colonel, whose company I was leaving. When I had received my visa, I went to the station and bumped straight into de Basil. I was expecting him to wipe me off the face of the earth, but he only looked at me and asked: ‘What are you doing here? Are you flitting like a bird from one branch to another?’ And that was that. Denham, who had appeared before de Basil, was not popular – they called him Den Khan. At the beginning, when Massine was having talks with him about the creation of a new company, their functions were strictly separated: Denham was meant to be involved only with administrative matters, but gradually he started to interfere with artistic questions. I would like to hear about the choreographers you worked with. When I was working with Fokine for Ida Rubinstein, it seemed to me that he was jealous of my youth. He was already balding and portly. And he grew to hate me. After nine months with Preobrajenska I was only skin and bones, yet Fokine insisted on my doing a Cossack dance that wasn’t in a single one of his ballets. I damaged both knees and had to have two operations on both of them. And how malicious he was! Karsavina writes that when something didn’t work out, he used to throw the chairs around and storm out of the rehearsal studio. Even more impossible for me, at least in the postwar years, was Nijinska. Raoul Celada, from the Borovansky Ballet Company, told her to her face that it was she and not her brother who should have been locked up in the madhouse (but, as you know, she was deaf). And the Nijinsky children are mad – it is in their blood. But when she was young Bronislava could bounce like a ball! When I was dancing for the Marquis de Cuevas, they staged Le Spectre de la rose. Serge Golovine asked for Nijinska to be invited to the rehearsals. He was to dance three performances and three were to be danced by me. Everyone was waiting impatiently for her. But although the part was very difficult (Fokine himself rehearsed it with me once, and later I danced that ballet many times), she would only rehearse with Golovine

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and his partner, and refused to let me practise the movements even at the side, saying that it distracted her. She probably remembered that, in order to join the Ballets Russes de Colonel de Basil, you had broken your contract with her troupe during the London tour. One way or another, on the day of the performance, when we were training on stage, our conductor was surprised that we had no music. He volunteered to accompany us himself and went to Nijinska for the score, but she protested: ‘No one will dance without my permission!’ The conductor took the score nevertheless and played for us. We went through the ballet ‘half-leggedly’ as we say, and before the performance I said to myself, ‘May I dance as God wills!’ And I danced with huge success. In France when they stamp their feet in the gallery, that means a triumph. They counted 18 curtain calls! The Marquis himself, although he was very ill, climbed the stairs up to my dressing room to congratulate me, which was the biggest sign of acknowledgement. He and his wife gave me this amulet, which I wear to this day, with the Arabic engraving: ‘May God be with you.’ It is very dear to me! Indeed, I had gone through fire and brimstone. But Massine was a man beyond compare! The variety of his choreography is exceptional; every ballet introduced something new. I think he created 130 ballets in all. I remember him sitting in rehearsals with his book in a rust-red jacket, with his ballet notes, and saying, ‘This bit here is very important!’ Then he would find something in the book and show it – and there would be scribbles, dots and commas; only he could understand what they meant. And I had a bad memory, like Nijinska and Choura Danilova – everything that he had marked the day before, I would have forgotten the next day. But what was amazing was that he never corrected me. I don’t know why. Either he himself forgot or he thought I was a blockhead and could never be reformed. I loved Massine, he set me up in the world. I think he made seven or eight ballets for me. Thanks to him I became what I am. I have just seen some Massine ballets at the Bolshoi Theatre, staged by his son Lorca, and I was horrified. The stage designs, the costumes – I’ve never seen anything like it! Leskova revives Massine well. But Lorca! Warner Brothers filmed everything you need to know about Les Présages,

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approximately 20 minutes out of 50. You can see the choreography and the original costumes. I don’t understand why Lorca didn’t use this for the Bolshoi Theatre production. For me the major choreographers are Massine, Grigorovich and, to some extent, Fokine. The one whom I would most have liked to work with is Grigorovich. There was always something new in his pas de deux – they will never be matched. Let’s say he played them for all they were worth. I consider him a genius! He was the one who invited me to Moscow. And I liked the Bolshoi male dancers very much. Usually the ballerinas are the leaders in a ballet company, but here it’s the contrary. I rated Natasha Makarova very highly – a dazzling style, especially when holding a pose, and such soul! The moment she came to America I rushed to Los Angeles to see her. After the performance I asked her, ‘How do you feel dancing amongst these damp squibs?’ ‘Is that what you think?’ she replied, but in her heart she probably thought: ‘He is right!’ Did you ever work with Lifar? No. He was very good-looking as a young man, but by the time I saw him he had already become somehow clumsy, with a flabby face. In my opinion, he was not a great artist and his career was not due to his talent but to his cunning. But when Diaghilev was rehearsing in Versailles and was starving, Lifar spent the last of his money on beer and sandwiches and brought them to Diaghilev. As for Balanchine – those are not ballets, but gymnastics. Balanchine was well received in New York, where he found his audience, but on tour – I’ve spoken to a lot of people – nobody liked him. When his company came to Los Angeles and performed at the open-air Greek theatre, the audience started to leave in the first interval. Perhaps that says less about Balanchine than about the provincial American public. What do you think of Skibine? Skibine is a marvellous artist, but a mean and envious person; he would stab his own mother in the back for the sake of his career.

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And Lichine? I love his Prodigal Son. His wife, Tanechka Riabouchinska, danced wonderfully in it. I worked with him; he called me ‘Our Apollo’. How did you end up in Arizona? I was invited by the University, where I taught dance for ten years. Besides that, I had my studio. In America it all happens very strangely. One Sunday, at 8 o’clock in the morning, the mother of one of my students, a talented girl, called me and told me she was unhappy because I was criticising her daughter too much. She thought it was humiliating. I got so bored with all of that that I decided I’d do better going around giving classes in different towns, and was welcomed everywhere. Which of the old dancers of the Ballets Russes are still with us? Out of the leading ones – Irina Baronova, Frederic Franklin, Marc Platoff and me, ‘Koshchei, the Deathless’ from Russian fairy tales…

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• Tamara Tchinarova (Finch) I was roped into opera and ballet translations… London, 1991; Malaga, 2006

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fter irina baronova, Tamara Tchinarova was the second of the Ballets Russes ballerinas with whom I became acquainted in London. Another conversation – about her time in Australia – is included in the chapter on the Ballets Russes in Australia. My father, Evsey Rekemchuk, was born in Bessarabia, although his father was Ukrainian and his mother was Georgian. During World War I my father served as a staff-captain in the Russian army, in the so-called ‘Death Battalion’. Not everyone knows the meaning of that phrase today; it doesn’t mean that these battalions caused death but that the soldiers were obliged to fight to the last. My mother’s family were Armenian refugees who fled from Turkey during the 1915 genocide. Her father bought some land in Bessarabia, planted vines and married a Russian girl, my grandmother. During the war my mother was a nurse and met my father at the hospital where he was recovering after having been wounded at the front. They got married when they returned to Bessarabia,

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which by then had been joined with Romania in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles. After the war, my father tried to work as a journalist but to the Romanian authorities he was persona non grata. We decided to go to Paris, with its many Russian émigrés and Russian newspapers. My father went first, and after several months my mother and I went to join him. When we got to Paris, it turned out that Papa was having to earn a living by doing very nasty work – cleaning train carriages. He took us to one of the pitiful émigré hotels: it was difficult to say which was more repulsive – the rude landlady to whom we always owned money, or the bedbugs which ate us at night. Fighting the bedbugs with the help of some flammable spirits, mother accidentally started a fire and the landlady threw us out. We spent several nights sleeping on the floor at some friends’, émigrés like us, until we found another place to stay. Mother went to work in a sewing factory. While my mother and father were penniless in Paris, they had had to decide which school to send me to. And they put me in a Catholic school. But since I was Orthodox, they frightened me by saying that I was a sinner, and that when I died I would not go to heaven. So I wanted to become a nun. The headmistress told my mother that I should change my faith. Mother refused to do so, and I was excluded from the school. This lasted all through the year of 1926. The Paris newspapers kept on rejecting my father’s articles. He was a total idealist, he always hoped that everything would turn out for the better, that the situation in Russia would improve; and because he used to write this in his articles, the Russian émigré community rejected him, so he started working for the Soviet Embassy’s newspaper and, of course, they started suggesting that he go back to the Soviet Union. They promised him work and eventually he decided to go to Russia. Mother refused to follow him. During the Revolution, she had witnessed brother killing brother and she didn’t want to go back there on any account. Afterwards, on his visits back to Paris, my father would ask me why I didn’t want to go to Russia – after all, the ballet schools there were better. My father found a good job in Russia. At first, as a correspondent for Izvestia, he was sent to Odessa, then he was appointed Deputy Director of the Kiev Museum of Arts. He was given a passport with a new surname and told to travel to Poland and Czechoslovakia to spread Communist propaganda. In fact, he was to work as a spy for the Soviets, and his everyday employment was a cover.

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Up until 1932, he would come back to Paris several times a year to see me and my mother. Each time he would try and persuade my mother to return with him but she always refused. He must have been under surveillance and, finally, at the end of 1937, he was arrested. They held him in solitary confinement, interrogated him and then shot him, as they shot many others at that time. My mother knew but she didn’t tell me about it until I was grown-up. Perhaps she also knew that he had remarried in Russia. But I only found that out two years ago, at the age of 80, when my half-brother, the writer Alexander Rekemchuk, managed to track me down. He had read the Kiev secret police prosecution reports, claiming my father was a foreign spy (of course, he had been their spy). My brother wrote a book about it – very interesting and sad – which was terrible for me to read; everything was so unreal, so impossible, so dreadful! My father fell under that terrible wheel… How did your brother find you here, in Spain? Papa always kept a photograph of me, taken when I was six years old, in his wallet. It was found in his papers, which were eventually returned to Alexander. Now it is in my possession. At first my brother thought that his sister was Tamara Toumanova; Tamara is better known and about the same age as I am. But after finding out that my mother’s surname was Tchinarova, it wasn’t difficult to find me – there are enough pictures of me on the Internet. I don’t know whether my mother knew that I had a brother in Russia; she never told me about him. Perhaps she knew. Now that I’ve read the book, I know how my father adored me – more than my mother. Even now, all of this still upsets me. Did your mother want you to learn ballet? She did, but at my father’s insistence. On his visits from Russia he showered us with presents and money, which my mother didn’t want to accept. I remember he used to take me to the circus. On one occasion – it was in 1928 – he took me to see Les Sylphides and Petrushka at the Diaghilev ballet. Tamara Karsavina was dancing the Ballerina in Petrushka. I remember I was struck that her name was the same as mine. I decided once and for all that I would become a ballerina and I began to beg my parents to start classes.

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As you know, at that time there were three famous St Petersburg ballerinas working in Paris: Preobrajenska, Egorova and Kshessinska. My parents decided that Preobrajenska would suit me best because she was a kind person and a remarkable teacher. And, besides, there was a direct Metro line to her school from where we lived. Unlike Kshessinska, who was married to a Grand Prince and didn’t have any financial worries, Preobrajenska lived modestly. If Kshessinska’s pupils came mainly from aristocratic and noble families, then Preobrajenska taught the children of the poorer émigrés – she didn’t even take money from many of them. Apparently, this was possible thanks to the French pupils who studied with her without intending to become ballerinas. Her best pupil was Tanya Riabouchinska. Preobrajenska lived in a small little flat, filled to the brim with every kind of living creature and birds freely flying over her, some with broken wings or legs – she used to pick them up and look after them. Mamma took me to her studio – Preobrajenska picked up my skirt and looked at my legs and said: ‘Her knees will have to straighten.’ But she approved of my back. And we began to study. Preobrajenska never set any exams but simply moved the students up into the next class if she thought they were ready for it. The door into the studio was always open and in order to watch the class we piled up in a pyramid-shape in the doorway; someone would be lying on the floor, some would be sitting on their heels, someone would have crept forward behind the backs of those standing at the front onto the chairs placed there. The mothers sat in the studio, jealously observing the successes of their offspring. Preobrajenska rented the largest of the Salle Wacker studios that occupied several floors of a building not far from the Place Clichy. The Café Wacker was on the ground floor and there was always a crowd of ballet people – the job vacancy notices were posted on the wall there, more often than not for some obscure companies with no guarantee of any wages, but sometimes for the Folies Bergères, the Paris Casino and even for Ida Rubinstein’s company. When did you first go on stage? We children used to be asked to perform at the charity balls organised by the Russian aristocracy; just for an evening the taxi drivers and restaurant cashiers turned back again into colonels of the Tsar’s army and their

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wives into the society ladies. Besides that, we were taken to participate in operas; I was one of the Nibelungs in The Rhinegold. Another time, in Boris Godunov, I had to carry the train of Chaliapin himself; when he saw the locks of my hair straying out from under my wig, he bellowed out: ‘And this is the scarecrow you have given me?!’ But I also began to perform professionally at a very young age, at tenand-a-half years old. In 1931, an entrepreneur who fancied himself as a ‘second Diaghilev’ appeared at Preobrajenska’s. He even had a similar walking stick with a silver knob. He went around the studios and he chose me as ‘la plus petite danseuse du monde’ for his company, which was going on tour to Algeria and Morocco. My mother, of course, went with me everywhere; she kept an eye on me and on the other girls, who were already 16 or 17 years old. And, indeed, what adventures we had! In my childhood I had my father’s surname but during that tour I became ‘Tchinarova’. This is how it happened. At that time there were many Russian refugees in those African countries and amongst them was one very conspicuous gentleman called Morozov. He fell in love with my mother and asked her to marry him. My mother refused – I think that she still loved my father. And then her bag with all our papers, including our Romanian passports, was stolen. In Morocco, where this happened, there was, of course, no Romanian Consulate. Morozov, who had served in the French Foreign Legion, took my mother to the Police, where she filled in all of the forms. And then there was the question: single, divorced or widowed? She wrote ‘divorced’ and gave her maiden name. So I became Tamara Tchinarova. After that tour you fairly quickly joined the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. How did that happen? Preobrajenska often received impresarios and choreographers at her studio. One day, Balanchine came in, gave Preobrajenska a bow, took both her hands in his and kissed them. She embraced him. He was staging Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld at the Théâtre Mogador in Paris, and he chose six young girl dancers, including Baronova, Anna Volkova, Galya Razoumova and me. We were all 11 years old. So Balanchine already knew me and in 1932 I was taken into the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo without an audition. For many of the older dancers, the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo was their salvation, since they had been without work after the Diaghilev company had been dismantled.

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The first performances were in Monte Carlo, then there were tours in Belgium, Holland and Germany. We travelled on two buses, provided by an uncle of David Lichine, one of the soloists. Many of the girls were my age, about 12 years old. Our mothers wouldn’t let us go alone, so eight of them came with the company, including my mother and the mothers of Toumanova and Baronova – they had to find special seats for them in the coaches. That was in the last months of 1932. And in 1933 Balanchine invited me to join his own company, Les Ballets 1933. But it didn’t last for long. In 1933 it was extremely difficult for Balanchine to find financial support. Eventually he found an investor, Edward James, who came from an extremely rich English family. His wife was an Austrian dancer called Tilly Losch who very much wanted to dance, but she used to do what she thought was ‘modern’ – beating her breast, holding onto her head. Balanchine had to create two ballets especially for her. Her partner was Jasińsky, the well-known dancer from Poland. We rehearsed for six months before the premiere. But de Basil’s Ballet had performed in Paris just before us and the critics received Balanchine very badly. To make the programme more attractive, a classical pas de deux from Swan Lake, danced by Doubrovska and Lifar, was added. That didn’t save the company either, and after two weeks in Paris we moved to London, to the Savoy Theatre. But by that time the de Basil Ballet had already had a hugely successful two-week run at the Coliseum. We performed at the Savoy for only a week and were all dismissed after the atrocious press reviews. Moreover, relations between Balanchine and James had taken a bad turn; firstly, because Balanchine wasn’t interested in Tilly and he was staging ballets for the young dancers Tamara Toumanova and Lubov Rostova; secondly, because Balanchine wanted artistic independence and James kept foisting his opinion on him. And then Balanchine was invited to America. What did you dance for Balanchine? Mozartiana set to Tchaikovsky’s Orchestral Suite No 4, his homage to Mozart. Kochno wrote the libretto. They always sat together, listening to

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the music and deliberating, but it didn’t work out. The critics wrote that Mozartiana, which had been filled with Masonic symbols by the stage designer Christian Bérard, was very boring. Balanchine would later alter it many times. I also danced in the Errante to Schubert’s music and The Seven Deadly Sins by Kurt Weill. Then Balanchine also staged something in the Greek style. That was probably the ballet Dans l’Élysée. What was it like working with Balanchine? It isn’t easy to understand Balanchine. For those of us who have seen how he gradually progressed, how he developed his ideas, his ballets are understandable, but not if you haven’t followed his evolution, and only see some ballet with no plot, danced as if in rehearsal costumes – in pink leotards, dark tunics. Moreover, his ballet music is mostly complicated. Balanchine himself was extremely musical – he could have been a concert pianist. I remember how at rehearsals he used to sit at the piano and play better than our accompanist. He would analyse every work to the very essence, down to the last detail. He staged the ballets in accordance with how the instruments in the orchestra performed; every note corresponded to a unique movement, a special gesture. How difficult it is to dance Balanchine! The Mariinsky Theatre made an attempt to revive his early ballets – with some success. Ballets like Scotch Symphony and Theme and Variations have become classics. Everything is very majestic – there is something imperial – and the Mariinsky conveys this very well with the solemn carriage of the head, the shoulders, the arms. But, later, Balanchine staged altogether different ballets that only the American dancers can dance – those who were his pupils. When we went from Preobrajenska’s class to Balanchine’s (he used to give the class himself) his movements amazed us – you see, up until then we had only studied pure classical ballet. However, with him it was different, fragmented, but at the same time going back to classical. Working with him was fantastically interesting. Balanchine developed completely different muscles in us, he gave us completely different movements, although classically based. Did you return to de Basil after that? Was he cross with you?

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Dancers like me remember movements very quickly and so we are in great demand amongst choreographers. Thanks to my training and experience I could quickly enter into any ballet. Massine, who at that time had taken Balanchine’s place in the Ballets Russes, was staging his symphonic ballets and took young things like us willingly. We went on many tours. We were asked to perform in Monte Carlo but de Basil decided to take his principal ballet company to America where they paid better. In America, Hurok arranged huge publicity for the three ‘baby ballerinas’, who the first time they went there were scarcely 14 years old. And, of course, the advertising did the trick. The tours were a huge success! But de Basil thought it essential to have another full dancing troupe at Monte Carlo and we joined Woizikowsky’s ballet company, which was working in Paris. Woizikowsky added six of his own ballets to our original 16. We danced in Monte Carlo but then I returned to the principal company which was travelling around America; the first tour was of around 20 towns; the second time there were 18; and the third time – 100! In Los Angeles, Charlie Chaplin and Marlene Dietrich came backstage; the word was that Dietrich had fallen in love with Lichine. She even intended to appear on stage in one of our ballets, but that never happened. As for me, I started out in the corps de ballet but I soon began dancing solo parts, and in 1936 I went with the best dancers to Australia as a soloist. Some other time I’ll tell you how I stayed there and what happened. After that, I stayed for a while with Woizikowsky’s ballet company. He was organising a tour of European cities. Vera Nemchinova, Anatoly Oboukhoff and Nicholas Zvereff were with us. In Milan, not only was there a total fiasco – the performance took place in an empty auditorium as the impresario hadn’t bothered about any publicity – but at the Quirino Theatre the floor literally gave way under one of the dancers, who miraculously remained unhurt. We scarcely scraped enough money together for the trip to Menton, where Woizikowsky was meant to be waiting for us with the props, and the next day the performances were meant to start in Cannes but there was no money to send the costumes and the scenery. And just when we had lost all hope of seeing him in Menton, he appeared with two lorries; a passionate gambler, he had gone to the casino with his last pennies in his pockets and had won a large sum of money. The de Basil company enjoyed the greatest success for as long as it had Massine, Danilova, Toumanova, Baronova and Riabouchinska.

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Then everyone scattered. I must admit we didn’t all stay together a long time – for various reasons we swapped from company to company. I had a big article about those times published by Dancing Times. Massine formed his own ballet troupe; Balanchine stayed in New York and put on his ballets there. They invited Fokine; he choreographed various new ballets and polished up his old ones – he would correct them during the rehearsals, sometimes his new ideas were the opposite of the original ones. This was the case with Carnaval, Schéhérazade and Thamar set to Balakirev’s music. I danced the main parts in the two last ballets – Zobéide and the Tsarina Tamara. The modern revivals of these ballets often depart a long way from the original versions. For as long as Fokine was there to watch over the productions, everything kept in style. But gradually the scenery and the costumes got worn-out. Fokine went with us on the second Australian tour and, although he was generous, I remember him as an authoritarian person, impatient and abrupt. And how was working with Massine? Massine was a very reserved person by nature. In his symphonic ballets he strived for the full embodiment of the music in the dance. Working with him was exceptionally easy. The first symphonic ballet was Les Présages, where I danced the part of the character called Action. Leskova revived this ballet beautifully in Paris, although, of course, it has dated a bit. After that, I suggested to Leskova that she considered Choreartium (the ballet danced to Brahms’s Symphony No 4 hasn’t dated and, besides, she knows it well). I put her in touch with the Birmingham Royal Ballet, where she staged it very successfully, and then revived it in Holland. As I knew many people in the Moscow and Leningrad Ballet thanks to my translating work, I was able to persuade them to stage Les Présages, and I recommended Leskova to them. Everything was all set to go, but just before signing the contract the ballet master slept with the wrong girl and he was sacked. Did you work with Nijinska? Everyone says that she was not an easy character. That is true. She always wore white gloves because she didn’t want to touch the ballet dancers; they sweated and she found that disagreeable.

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We felt like lepers. She would pronounce her offensive remarks in a level, toneless voice: ‘Do you think that you are someone? You are nobody.’ Please tell me about the other participants in the Ballets Russes. Not much is known about Woizikowsky, for instance… His wife and daughter were also in the company but he lived with Raievska. A very nice, kind man, he maintained good relations with the artists – although it seemed a little strange that his wife, daughter and mistress were all in the troupe at the same time. He was a ‘Diaghilev recruit’, as were more than half of the company. Were you friends with Baronova? I love Baronova very much. I thought that she was the best of the young dancers. A very nice person, and she hasn’t changed a bit! She would even ask for other people to be given particular roles. On one occasion, when I was a dancer in the corps de ballet, I fell ill just before the beginning of Swan Lake; Grigoriev forbade her as a soloist to take my place but she paid no attention and went on stage all the same. She herself rearranged the corps and stood at the back so that the public wouldn’t recognise her. We have both written books about the same times, but from a different perspective. After all, she was a leading dancer from the very beginning, whereas I wasn’t, so Baronova knew different people. I devoted a whole chapter to her in my book. Did you work with Lifar? Lifar was a guest in our company. He danced in his own Icare and Balanchine’s Apollo. Later, Tamara Toumanova worked with him at the Paris Opera. Did you go back to dancing on your return to England from Australia? I must say that, having left ballet early, I had nothing to do with it for a long time. I became an interpreter. In 1961, I happened to be in Moscow

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and, visiting a big English technology exhibition, I was invited by the British Foreign Office to work with Russian guests, which I did for 20 years. Then one of my old friends came across me and asked, ‘Why not interpret for the ballet?’ And so I switched to that. One day, Galina Ulanova asked me to help her find the artist’s dressing room she had used in 1956. She showed me the hidden curtained recess where, while she was changing for the morning rehearsal, a young girl had appeared who had hidden there all the night before in order to see her. I also knew the Mariinsky ballerina Irina Kolpakova. I can’t say that I was especially her friend, but when the company came to England, the various interviews depended on me. Intermittently, we were very close. I would go to her rehearsals and she showed me many things. Now, returning to the Ballets Russes: what did you use to call it? The Ballet Russe or the Ballets Russes? We never gave it a name in Russian, but in French it was Les Ballets Russes. So this is why this plural form remains in all the ballet dictionaries, except for Denham’s Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

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• Anna Volkova To encourage the Queen of England, the whole company sang, ‘Bottoms up, bottoms up!’ Sydney, 2005

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managed to find Anna Volkova in Australia, where she had first danced with the Ballets Russes in 1938 and she was destined to return after the war. She came back to her fiancé; they had met on the steamship on which the ballet company was returning from its Australia tour. Like many others, your family left Russia. What did your parents do before they emigrated? I was born in St Petersburg, whereas my two brothers were born in Moscow; my parents had houses in both capitals. My father, Vladimir Volkov, served as a naval officer. My mother, Anna Pastoukhova, came from one of the richest Yaroslavl families. Her grandfather was a wellknown merchant and he sat in the Duma, the Russian parliament of the time. My family owned factories in Yaroslavl and Rostov. The family is well-known and loved there even today, as Nikolai Pastoukhov was a great benefactor of Yaroslavl. I often get letters from Russia. My son visited Yaroslavl and was given a marvellous reception, although I myself never went back to Russia – I was afraid of seeing something completely different from what my parents had described to me so often.

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We spent the beginning of the Revolution in Petrograd because my father didn’t believe that the new order would last long. However, soon it became too dangerous to stay and we fled to Yalta where my father worked for a time as harbour master, then we left for Constantinople, but we didn’t get off the ship there, and sailed on to Yugoslavia. We landed near Dubrovnik, where we lived for the next two years; my father kept thinking that any moment we could go back to Russia. I remember how we lived in a quite tiny village. My father wanted to go to France, but we didn’t have passports – no refugees at the time had passports. However, finally we were given the Nansen passports and got to Paris where we settled near Port de Versailles and where we lived for many years. I spent my whole childhood there. Did your parents find any employment? We somehow survived, although the family experienced great hardship. My father found work in a bookshop, where he was something like an accountant, and my brothers went to university. Despite all the difficulties my father insisted that all the children received an education and that we spoke Russian at home and did not forget the language. Did your parents start you off in ballet? I don’t know how that all happened and why, but a great many Russian girls in France studied ballet. In Paris, there were three well-known ballerinas: Preobrajenska, Kshessinska and Egorova. I went to Preobrajenska, like Baronova and Toumanova. I was lucky to fall into the professional hands of a very strict and temperamental teacher. After a week’s trial Preobrajenska told my parents that she wouldn’t take payment for the classes. To be honest, finding the money for the classes was extremely difficult for them. Preobrajenska turned out not to be an easy-going person. If you did something badly or incorrectly she was ready to wipe you off the face of the earth. Here’s an example. An old friend of hers, also a ballerina, had arrived and was preparing to assist at the class. Preobrajenska let us know about this in advance and asked us to try our hardest. After the barre work we came into the middle of the studio and she set us a sequence of movements which we were to execute in groups of three. When it was

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our group’s turn and we started, she stopped the piano accompanist and turned to me, saying that I was not doing the steps correctly. And when we repeated them, she got even angrier. Then she made me dance the steps alone and when again I made a mistake, she got up from her chair and hurled it at the wall. Utterly humiliated, I slowly walked towards the door. She shouted after me: ‘Volkova, if you leave, never come back!’ I left in tears and stopped going to classes. However, after several days, when I came back from school at the usual time, my mother, who had been greatly distressed by the story, announced that one of Preobrajenska’s older students had come to see us and had passed on the message that Preobrajenska was very surprised not to see me at her classes, and that I must continue to study. Of course, the next day I returned, overjoyed. I studied with her for three or four years and then I went straight into de Basil’s company. Afterwards, I also used to take classes with Egorova, and I was amazed at how her style differed from that of Preobrajenska. Egorova also got results from her students but she always remained calm and friendly. Then, so legend goes, de Basil and Balanchine came to choose the young dancer pupils. However, you were a little older than the rest of the ‘baby ballerinas’. Yes, by two years, although we were all considered very young at the time. Balanchine, de Basil and Grigoriev were going around the studios and choosing pupils who were roughly the same age. After two seasons with the Ballets Russes, of which the second was at the Alhambra Theatre in London, I had a break to finish school. But, in 1935, de Basil invited me to sign a contract with him and we went to London again. Altogether I stayed in the Ballets Russes for nine years. When I joined the company our salary was simply beggarly and in the interests of economy we lived in small groups. For each group we chose a ‘Mamma’, to whom we gave the money, and she fed us all. De Basil, of course, was an extraordinary man. He not only was earning nothing from the ballet, but it was a mystery how the company stayed afloat at all. Somehow he managed to get financial support from people who had never been remotely interested in dance. But in London he managed to win over Baron d’Erlanger (who wrote music which nobody

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played) with his ideas. And this man, who was worlds away from ballet, took it upon himself to pay all the expenses necessary for Nijinska to produce her Cinderella with our company! At Covent Garden, de Basil put on a benefit performance (although it’s possible that this generosity paid off in his favour) at which the King and the Queen were present. And after the performance de Basil got the idea, a really strange one, that they should be met according to the old Russian tradition – with bread and salt, to which he added two large glasses of vodka. The King, as it turned out, knew what was going on, he drank the vodka and tasted the bread, having dipped it in salt. But the poor Queen, who had never drunk vodka, didn’t know what she had to do. And in order to encourage her the whole company sang, ‘Drink to the dregs, drink to the dregs/Bottoms up, bottoms up!’ When we set off on tour to Australia, de Basil couldn’t leave England because of his debts and so Victor Dandré came instead. It is impossible to understand how de Basil managed to take his ballet troupe all over the world in the inconceivable conditions of World War II. Were the first ballets that you danced for de Basil the Balanchine ones? Yes, but soon Balanchine left the troupe, and Massine remained as the sole choreographer. When we started to travel in England and America, the leading choreographer was Fokine, though Nijinska also worked with us. From my point of view, Nijinska, stone-deaf and extremely unfair, was unbearable. Irina Baronova loved her very much – but I didn’t. I also didn’t like her ballets – Les Noces and Les Biches. Can you please tell us more about them? Firstly, in order to dance Balanchine after Preobrajenska, after the pure style of the Mariinsky Imperial Ballet, you must have had to learn everything again? Not at all. You see, until then we had never been on stage. Balanchine had already left the company when I joined it. Afterwards, in New York, he came to polish up his ballet Cotillon but he only attended a few rehearsals. In New York, it was Stravinsky who used to come often to the rehearsals of Le Coq d’Or and Petrushka. But in those days Massine directed everything; he was strict, he never fraternised with the dancers, even though he still danced. He didn’t make

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friends. He would rehearse every spare minute with us, whether we thought it was a spare moment or not. Working with him was pleasant and easy; he would demonstrate something and then leave us to do it on our own. By the way, next year the Australian Ballet is going to revive some of our productions. It will be interesting to see what the public makes of them. Are you helping them? I’ll probably help. I’ve already staged Les Sylphides in Australia, as Fokine had conceived it and as we had been dancing it. You see, he showed us everything himself. He was famously exacting. He made us do things we thought were quite impossible to do. But we really tried for him. Fokine, who was much older than us, was perceived as a father and quite often he exercised a parent’s prerogative. He would get angry, and then we did the impossible. On one occasion when something wasn’t going smoothly for Riabouchinska at a morning rehearsal, he swore in front of everyone that if she didn’t get it right in the performance he would stop the orchestra. And then she got it. He used to come to all the rehearsals with his wife Vera Petrovna, also from the Imperial Ballet, and she would tell him where and what needed to be corrected. So if he didn’t notice something, she would bring it to his attention without fail. It was impossible to hide anything from Fokine! They were the happiest pair I have ever seen. Vera didn’t socialise with the artists. And even when we were dying of heat on the steamship crossing the tropics en route to Australia, she always appeared dressed with irreproachable correctness. During our second tour of Australia, it was Lichine who became our choreographer, producing Graduation Ball, Francesca da Rimini and Protée. Up until then, he was simply one of our dancers. He didn’t behave very tactfully; he started to distance himself from the company and even insisted that we should now call him not David, but Mr Lichine. But then he calmed down and came to his senses. Irina Baronova maintains that there was a very good ambiance in the Ballets Russes. She even calls the company my ‘tribe’. Yes, the troupe was like a big family. Of course, there were groups that kept together, a hierarchy was felt: the prima ballerinas, the soloists and then the corps de ballet.

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How were the relations with the older dancers, the Diaghilev ones? Most pleasing. The Diaghilev dancers were 30 or 35 years old, whilst we were 16 or 17. Of course, to us they seemed old. But we respected them totally, and they helped us a lot – they taught us Diaghilev’s ballets from memory. Although, to be honest, I should say that their technique left something to be desired. Could you say a little more about them? The chief one was Serge Grigoriev; he was the principle ballet master at Diaghilev’s and stayed as such with us, with all his family. His wife, Lubov Tchernicheva, continued dancing and gave us classes, and so did Vera Nemchinova, also a former Diaghilev ballerina, and sometimes her husband Oboukhoff, who had danced at the Mariinsky Theatre. De Basil’s secretary was Vova, Grigoriev’s son, who married our ballerina Tamara Sidorenko, who became Tamara Grigorieva. In fact, the whole company depended on ‘Papa Grigoriev’, as he was known. Tell me, please, about your celebrated travels – around Australia and the two Americas. At first, as I said, I was with the troupe in London. Later on, shortly before the war, we visited Berlin. After London, de Basil had signed a five-year contract for us to perform in the United States. We used to tour there every year for four or five months, performing with our own orchestra (whose chief conductor, Antal Doráti, became well known after the war). We travelled on a specially chartered train; there was one carriage for the scenery and costumes, and another one for the orchestra. One moment we were in Berlin, the next moment in Spain, but in 1936 de Basil created a second company – the Covent Garden Ballets Russes – to undertake a tour to Australia. That was the second-division group because de Basil didn’t know how the Australian public would receive us, but we were successful beyond all expectations and so the next year the now-reunited company returned there for a big tour of the continent. In 1939, we started another tour of the southern continent. The war began as we were sailing to Australia.

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And you went to the United States straight from there? Yes, and this tour turned out to be very difficult for the company, travelling in wartime conditions and embracing 19 different nationalities, which involved visa problems. We stayed for a short time in the United States, then for two or three weeks in Mexico, whence we set off for Havana, Cuba, where all the difficulties started. It was the spring of 1941. On the way, something unexpected happened: some of the dancers went on strike, demanding that de Basil increase their salary, give them better roles and so on. Alberto Alonso, the brother-in-law of Alicia Alonso (whose mother ran the Sociedad Pro-Arte Musical, the Havana Opera house where we were meant to perform) had joined the company and he added fuel to the fire. Almost all the strikers were younger than us and many of them had American passports so they knew that they could always go back to America. The programme included ballets like Petrushka and Choreartium, in which the whole company danced. In the first performances, in order to make up for the lack of artists, not only the soloists and corps de ballet went on stage but even the costumiers. After that, the theatre director announced that we were in breach of contract. We gave two performances in Cuba and got stuck there. Those who could, left for America. But the Russians could go absolutely nowhere and we were held up in Cuba for six months without work, without money, without de Basil. Our contract in South America had run out and we couldn’t go back to France because of the occupation. We survived partly thanks to the generosity of the Cubans and partly because Lichine organised a troupe of six dancers who danced in the Cuban night-clubs, like the Tropicana. An American union, which we had recently performed for, sent a little money, about $1000. Grigoriev behaved impeccably; he had an American visa and could easily have left. But he stayed and gave us moral support. We were saved by de Basil, who revived an emergency contract in Argentina where we were expected and who received an advance to cover the expenses for Cuba. Was there not an intrigue with Hurok? I didn’t really follow the intrigues that provoked that crisis. There were various explanations. One is that Hurok wanted to get rid of de Basil and

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take over his company, but then lost interest. Besides, after the troupe split, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo under Denham, where Massine and some of the artists transferred to, became our rival. So it would happen that we performed in the same towns with the same programmes. But their impresario was Sol Hurok and their financial situation was considered much more solid, and the artists’ salaries were heftier. The Cuban crisis also had a deeper background. Discontent was already festering in the company even when we sailed from Australia to the United States. We were paid very little and, besides, the artists were worried about their relatives who had stayed in Europe where we – the Russians with Nansen passports – could not return now. Also, de Basil kept on making the same mistake: on hiring new dancers, especially in America, he would promise them that they would dance the leading roles. Of course, nothing like that ever happened. Eventually, some of the strikers came back to us, others were replaced, and somehow we got out of the situation. We toured South America, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Bolivia. Then we went back to Argentina for nine months, to the marvellous theatre in Buenos Aires, which is comparable to Covent Garden with their own excellent ballet there. We took several dancers from the Argentine ballet into our company. In Rio de Janeiro, the theatre building itself was just as good, but there were no dancers, nor ballerinas, nor ballet masters. How did you get back to Australia? I married an Australian. We had met on the steamer, returning from one of our Australian tours. He was sailing to England as a member of the Australian rowing crew to compete in the Henley Royal Regatta of 1939. Although our romance was young, he proposed to me. At that time everyone was talking about the war. He said that if there were a war he would go into the army. I thought, ‘What will I do all alone in Australia? I don’t know anybody there.’ And, of course, I was not at all ready to leave the ballet – I felt that I still had so much to do. So I refused him. The war started and he joined the army, as he had said. The war ended and I was feeling exhausted from the uncertainty about our future and from all the hardships linked with the lack of citizenship. When we were dancing in Rio de Janeiro, the director of the Casino Copacabana, which had its own theatre, noticed me, and proposed a

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contract for guest ballerinas. I said that I would agree on the condition that he invited my friend Tanyia Leskova. We were paid huge sums of money. The choreographer was a Czech, stuck in Rio with his company (by the way, he is well-known in Paris, where he worked at the Châtelet theatre). Our contract was extended by two years. In Rio de Janeiro, I received a telegram from my future husband, sent to me six years after we’d met and having taken six months to get to me. He asked me if I would go to Australia and marry him. And I decided – Yes! By that time I was managing a small ballet school, which I left to Tanyia Leskova. She achieved huge success with this school in three years, and then she was invited to organise a permanent ballet company. Tanyia stayed in Brazil and largely created the Brazilian ballet. In Australia, Borovansky invited me to join his company, but I realised that I had to choose between ballet and the family. After careful consideration, I refused the invitation. I had so much to learn. I had to get to know my husband’s friends, make friends with his family, run a household. I always dreamed of having children. We had two sons. Of course I couldn’t be a wife and a ballerina at the same time. But while I was absolutely happy in my marriage, I never forgot my life in ballet.

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• Miguel Terekhov It’s every man for himself in ballet Oklahoma City, 2007

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he spanish spelling of Miguel Terekhov’s name is linked to the fact that he was born in Uruguay. It was there that, as a young boy, he joined the touring Ballets Russes du Colonel de Basil, and subsequently danced in Serge Denham’s Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. He was the husband of the American-Indian ballerina Yvonne Chouteau. Like many other Russian-American dancers, at the end of his career Terekhov taught in one of the many ballet departments at American universities. My Russian is what’s called otchen malo i plokho [very little and poor]; my mother didn’t speak Russian and my father didn’t teach me. I had to learn it in the Ballets Russes. My father’s story is altogether a mystery. In my presence he never mentioned his full name – it was only later that I found out that he was Terekhov-Tarnovsky. I remember when I was dancing with the Ballets Russes in Buenos Aires, I met Nina Vyroubova, who told me that the Tarnovsky family was somehow related to the Romanovs – apparently through some Polish princess. It’s impossible to tell the facts from fiction. My father and his sister had been ballet dancers in Odessa (later on she appeared in the film Battleship Potemkin), but in my childhood I knew nothing about his ballet past. My father used to say that he came

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from a peasant family, and that he had been born in Finland, which at that time was a part of the Russian empire. Yet he spoke excellent French. How did he come to Uruguay? That was in 1925, and I was born in 1928. My father used to tell the story of how he and two friends from the Odessa theatre got on a steamship going to Germany – without a second thought, simply to see the world; and then the thirst for adventure made them change onto a ship which was going to Rio de Janeiro and beyond. When they had sailed to South America, one friend got off at Rio, my father at Montevideo, and the third friend at Buenos Aires. A narrative for a fairy tale about three young men. Surely, this wanderlust was a result of the Revolution… It is a strange story… I don’t know how it all fits together. The only part for which there is documentary evidence is that my father really was a dancer; he brought with him to Uruguay the ballet programmes where his name is next to his sister’s. But the question is: if he and his friends went off to see the world, why did he bring these programmes with him? And why, in 1925, did he feel compelled to leave Europe and go to Uruguay, where ballet didn’t exist? At first, my father worked as a bricklayer. But, as he used to say, in Russia in the old days one had to become a mechanic in order to run a motor-car, and since he had done so, he was hired as a chauffeur by a rich Uruguayan landowner. As a result he found himself in the countryside, where he met my mother. Then they returned to Montevideo, where he tried to open a ballet school, but nothing came of that because there weren’t enough students; in those days Montevideo was simply a big village. My father had to work in the tobacco business. So did you become interested in ballet thanks to your father? Not at all. Up until a certain moment, he told me absolutely nothing about his former profession. My interest in ballet was born quite unexpectedly: when I was nine or ten years old, an aunt on my mother’s side took me to a ballet matinée. I don’t remember what the ballet was, but

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I was amazed. All children at that age want to become firemen or pilots, but I immediately realised that I wanted to be a dancer. In response, my father nearly beat me; then he said that a dancer’s profession was very hard, involving a huge amount of work, and only rewarded with rare minutes of joy, when you felt that something had come off. Then I began giving him a hard time: ‘So what do you know about this profession? After all you make cigarettes.’ At which my father, as befits a Russian, exclaimed dramatically, ‘So I, of all people, know nothing about ballet!’ He went up to the attic and brought down a box filled to the brim with those Russian ballet programmes. He scattered them over the table and started showing them to me, ‘Do you see who that is?’ I immediately recognised him in the photographs; there were also portraits of my aunt (as I recollect, her arabesque was very beautiful). So my father became my first teacher – we worked in an empty garage. And there happened to be living in Montevideo a ballet teacher from Diaghilev’s company, Galya Shabelska. Yes, the two sisters, Maria and Galya Shabelsky, had danced with Diaghilev, then Galya stayed with de Basil. After he split up with Blum in 1938, she went to Montevideo, where she had already worked in the early 1920s. When my father saw that I was ready, he took me to her – that was in ’38. He would pick me up after work and take me to a ballet class, after which he had interminable conversations with Galya. So that’s how I started. But, most importantly, I knew from the very beginning that I wanted just that and nothing else. Of course, I was the only boy in Madame Shabelska’s class. Besides teaching us, she also directed the ballet troupe at the Teatro Solís. From 1940, I started dancing in the corps de ballet – I was already a professional. Were there other Russian dancers in the troupe? No. It was made up entirely of Uruguayans, all beginners. But in 1942 the de Basil company came to perform in Montevideo, and they needed a young boy for the small roles – to carry a flag, to hold a spear and so on. They gave me the part of the Nubian in the suicide scene of Schéhérazade. I was still very young, but tall, so thanks to stage make up nobody noticed how young I was. Then, in 1944, the Ballets Russes came back for three

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months. By that time I was 14 years old. They auditioned me and took me as a dancer, in the corps de ballet, of course. Funnily enough, because of my height I never stood in the back row; since the stage in the theatre is usually raked upwards, I would have appeared even taller than I was, so they always put me at the front. When the company was going to Brazil they asked me to go with them, which led to a serious conflict between my parents. My mother clung to me as she was afraid that her child would never return home. But my father persuaded her to let me go for a year and I set off with the Ballets Russes to South America, Central America and then North America… So fate took a hand? At that time the war was going on, and for the older members of the troupe, being on the road with all its discomforts, was, of course, very hard. We travelled through poor countries, in the most primitive conditions. Sometimes our only food was bread and sugar. For me aged 14, then 15 and 16, it didn’t feel like a hardship – it seemed a great adventure. Yes, they paid very little, but the happiness that I experienced was beyond price. I got on very well with everyone, including Grigoriev and Tchernicheva, but I especially loved Dokoudovsky and Jasiński. I adored them and they treated me like a son; they taught me and helped me. Very soon, I started to be given solo roles. At that time, many people were leaving the company, among them Tatiana Stepanova, Nana Gollner and the American, Dima Rostov, several of whose roles went to Kenneth MacKenzie, whilst Marc Platoff ’s roles went to Dokoudovsky (who, by the way, didn’t have a good ear and was not very musical). I got some of the parts that were up for grabs. As people were leaving, Grigoriev had to constantly introduce new dancers into the ballet. Gradually, I mastered the whole repertoire. I had to develop my muscles; although very tall, I was still almost a child, and I couldn’t do the lifts. What happened after the war? Everyone was exhausted – even the costumes were worn out – but de Basil agreed on another contract with Hurok and, in 1946, we returned to the Metropolitan. The best dancers by that time had scattered; they were

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replaced with boys and girls who couldn’t do anything. The ballet Camille (to music by Schubert on the theme of La Dame aux camélias, staged for us by John Taras) was a flop at the Metropolitan; the critics compared the company with the pre-war one – not in our favour, of course – and Hurok dropped us altogether. I stayed with de Basil until the United States tour was over. In 1947, the company left for Europe, but I was missing my family. All the good dancers had left, apart from Dokoudovsky, Jasiński and their wives; we were without Tupine, MacKenzie, Stepanova. I could see that more dancers would again have to be hired, and that they wouldn’t be up to standard. It became obvious that the troupe would not last long in Europe. In Europe it could, in fact, have easily filled its ranks but it needed money. I went home. I wanted to abandon dance altogether because all of my ballet life had been with de Basil. But as he used to warn me: once you put your right foot on stage, you have to put your left one on too. And he turned out to be right. In Montevideo I began dancing with the ballet company that Tamara Grigorieva was now directing. But it was clear that in Montevideo nothing would change, everything remained still very, very primitive. I decided to see what was going on in New York. There, I met Mr Denham, who immediately invited me to join the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. He hadn’t even seen me dancing! Of course, he knew my story, someone had probably told him about me. Exactly at that time, in 1954, he had managed, with the help of Franklin, to revive a large company. Before that, for two years, only a small concert troupe had existed. I stayed in New York for four years. We travelled around America and toured in Cuba. Danilova was no longer dancing, but Freddie Franklin still worked with us. There was a good character dancer, Nina Novak, at the time when I joined the troupe, but Denham started giving her the main parts, which she was not very strong in and for which there were more suitable performers. Were any new ballets choreographed? In 1954, Massine staged Harold in Italy set to music by Berlioz, and Antonia Cobos put on the ‘Japanese’ ballet Mikado. In 1955 La Dame à la Licorne, a ballet by Cocteau and Rosen, Harlequinade by Balanchine

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and another ballet in the Spanish style, Madroños (by the same Antonia Cobos), were revived. Leon Danielian and Freddie Franklin took it in turns to dance and, of course, Nina Novak, who also tried her hand at choreography. Ruthanna Boris also did ballet staging – there were many women choreographers. Massine offered me the main part of the Poet in Harold but Franklin didn’t like this idea. Did he take the role himself? He began rehearsing with Massine, whilst telling me that there was a problem to do with the Union, something about the number of rehearsal hours and pay, which meant that it was too expensive for the company. Freddie promised me that he himself would teach me the role later, but that never happened. Unfortunately, he was the company director and he had the last word. A similar story happened with Mikado. Again, I was meant to dance one of the main roles, and again Freddie objected and took it himself. It was farcical; they flattered me that I would be offered the main parts, but I never got them. On top of all of this, Freddie had the skills of a great diplomat. He could turn things around so that the dagger that he had plunged into your back turned into a great accolade. Although Freddie was rude about Novak, he acted in the same way, only he was taking the male roles and he wasn’t having an affair with Denham. However, it’s every man for himself in ballet. And I don’t blame him – perhaps I would have done exactly the same if I had been in his position. All the same, I love Freddie – he is a delightful person, a great raconteur. I met him recently when he came to Paris with the American Ballet Theatre; we talked for hours. He is an amazing person. At 93 he’s still performing! In the 1950s, there were many young American dancers working in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. They were just starting out in the corps de ballet, but later on they made their real careers. One of them, called Yvonne Craig, later appeared in a film with Elvis Presley. There was also Rochelle Zide, Tatiana Stepanova’s pupil. She used to teach dance at Butler University, and when she retired she sorted out the Ballets Russes costumes, which are kept there – she worked on their restoration.

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Raven Wilkinson was the first American black dancer on a permanent ballet contract. She auditioned twice but wasn’t accepted; they were afraid of unpleasant incidents in the tours of the southern states. They told this to her to her face. But the third time, Denham took her. For the first two years everything went all right, then, in Atlanta, Georgia, they turned her out of a hotel for white people, and at a rehearsal in Montgomery people from the Ku Klux Klan in white gowns came on stage, looking for her, but the company protected her. Afterwards, when touring in the South, we would leave Raven in New York and she would join us as soon as we moved to the northern states. She found it humiliating and, being very religious, she went into a convent; but after a year she realised that she couldn’t live without ballet. Wilkinson was a very good ballerina; later she worked in the Netherlands Ballet and danced with Joffrey. What sort of a person was Denham? People always view him in a different light to de Basil. I loved de Basil, as did many others: this extraordinary man managed to achieve impossible things, including organising all the unbelievable tours during war time. But many people didn’t like Denham. It is important to remember, though, that any director is vulnerable. For my part, I felt sincere sympathy for him, and he was also well disposed towards me – at least, he once said to me that I was a gentleman. My relationship with Nina Novak was also not bad. I once invited her out to dinner and no sanctions followed… But all the same you left the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo? Yes, in 1958. My wife had a baby, and we could no longer pursue the wandering life so we stayed in New York for nine months. It was impossible to go on tour with an infant. Denham came to see us three times; eventually he offered me the post of ballet master. But I couldn’t leave my wife alone with a baby – she had been dancing in the ballet from a very young age and had no experience of looking after children. However, I needed work; I started teaching with the Ballet Russe when it came to New York and I taught at the Joffrey Ballet on a permanent basis. Then we decided to go to Montevideo to show my parents their granddaughter. My father had just had a heart attack so I had to take over his tobacco factory; we stayed for a whole year and we had another child.

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After that, we returned to New York for a little while, and then we went to my wife’s home state of Oklahoma, this time to show the children to her parents. The president of the local university invited us to teach dance for one semester. At that time there was no ballet department (they taught contemporary dance but only as a part of physical training); but the flow of students from state ballet schools and elsewhere was such that we were invited to extend our contract. My wife, being a Native American from that state, was very popular. This was how the first fully-fledged university department of dance appeared in America, where we taught for 30 years. In 1992, I retired as professor emeritus of dance. As my legacy I left a teaching program up to bachelor’s and master’s degree level. Could you tell me about your wife? My wife, Yvonne Chouteau, is Native American, from the Cherokee tribe. Her father, a very energetic man, got her into ballet. She trained under the same teacher as Maria and Marjorie Tallchief (also Native Americans, like her) who travelled around the towns of Oklahoma. Rosella Hightower followed the same route, although she began with a teacher from Kansas. The mother of Moscelyne Larkin, another Native American girl, had her studio in Tulsa, a little town of that state. Moscelyne or Moussia, as she was called in the Ballets Russes, then married Roman Jasiński and she taught in Tulsa as well. They all followed a similar path, but the mother of the Tallchief sisters took them to California, where they studied under Mia Slavenska and Nijinska, and both made big careers. Now a film has been made about these five Native American ballerinas. As a 12-year-old girl Yvonne went to New York, where she received a grant to study at the Balanchine school; at that time, Oboukhoff and Vladimirov were teaching there. When she graduated from school in 1943, Danilova and Massine took her into the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In fact, they kidnapped her. It has to be said that Balanchine wasn’t very pleased, but it was her chance. She was 14 years old, like the ‘baby ballerinas’, and two years later she became a soloist, the first Native American in American ballet! Danilova took a personal interest in Yvonne, taking her under her wing since, unlike the other young girls, Yvonne didn’t have her mother with her. Danilova introduced her to many ballets; she called her Yvonchik, and in the troupe she was nicknamed ‘the baby of the company’, which

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she didn’t like. Danilova was her role model; my wife says that at that time being a ballerina meant not only dancing – it was a special way of life, a special aura, which Danilova embodied to the highest degree. When my wife was 16 she was given her first solo with the Ballets Russes in Coppélia. And when Chauviré, who had danced Juliet to Tchaikovsky’s music, left the company, she gave her part to Yvonne. She danced in Balanchine’s postwar productions, although she didn’t consider herself a Balanchine ballerina. She says that even now every time she hears a train, it reminds her of our tours. And why the French surname ‘Chouteau’ for a Native American? Her French ancestor founded the first white villages in Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri. He used to trade with the Native Americans, buying fur from them, and he married a woman from the Cherokee tribe named Marie Silverheel. Strange that she should have a descendant who was a dancer. If you pronounce ‘Chou-teau’ backwards it almost makes ‘tall-shoe’. From there, not far to the Tallchief sisters. Now when I look back on my life, much of it seems amazing to me. I was born in godforsaken Uruguay, yet when I became interested in ballet it turned out my father was a ballet dancer who was able to show me the ropes. Then it turned out there was a Diaghilev ballerina there, with whom I could continue my education. Then the Ballets Russes de Basil came there, and de Basil took me on. And, finally, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo!

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• Marjorie Tallchief Every country produces its own type of artist Boca Raton, Florida, 2005

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aria and marjorie Tallchief ’s father was the chief of a Native American tribe, and settled in the state of Oklahoma. Both sisters studied with Nijinska and both became ballet stars. Having started with Denham’s Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, which Balanchine joined shortly afterwards, Maria Tallchief (1925–2013) became his wife and muse, and the leading ballerina of the New York City Ballet. It was said that she was the living embodiment of his choreography. Marjorie Tallchief started in Ballet Theatre, and her subsequent career was similar to that of Rosella Hightower; she toured with de Basil’s Ballets Russes, and after she had married George Skibine, they both danced in the Marquis de Cuevas’ company, then she danced with him as Étoile at the Paris Opera, often in the ballets which he choreographed for her. Later, both sisters worked in American ballet companies, and in 1981 they combined forces to create the Chicago City Ballet. Maria Tallchief was awarded the title Wa-Xthe-Thomba (Woman of Two Worlds) by the Native American Society of Oklahoma, not to mention many international awards. I first studied ballet as a very young girl in Oklahoma. Later, I trained with outstanding coaches, amongst whom the most remarkable was, of course, Madame Nijinska. She had a lot to teach – not only technique,

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but focus, discipline and, the most important thing, the search for the meaning of why we were dancing. I wanted to join the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, where my sister was dancing at the time, but Nijinska said that it was out of the question to have two sisters in one company, and Lichine took me into Ballet Theatre, where he was staging a revival of his Graduation Ball. I danced one season with de Basil’s Ballets Russes, on the South American tour. The company included stars such as Oleg Tupine and Roman Jasiński, an extraordinary dancer and person. He married another of our Native Americans – Moscelyne Larkin. There I got to know the Ballets Russes’ traditional repertoire properly. Then I returned to Ballet Theatre, but I didn’t get on with Lucia Chase. When I married George Skibine we danced for a while in the Markova-Dolin troupe, and then we both went to Lifar’s Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo, which very quickly merged with the de Cuevas company, under the name of the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. Towards the time of Lifar’s departure (it was in Vichy), Nijinska came, and he left on that very day. What can you say about the Marquis de Cuevas? The Marquis was an amazing person. He was always very friendly with the dancers and cared about them. With the Marquis I was able to work again with Nijinska, who came to stage ballets for him. When you and your husband were dancing with the Paris Opera, did you go to Russia? In Lifar’s time, we went with the company to Moscow where we danced at the Bolshoi Theatre, whilst my sister danced in Russia with the American Ballet Theatre. I never saw Lifar on stage but off it he had enormous charm. I danced several of his ballets, including his version of L’Oiseau de Feu [Firebird] and Suite en blanc. How did you feel at the Paris Opera? My husband grew up in France, he spoke excellent French and the French recognised him as one of them. For me as an American, things

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were difficult. At first when I had just joined, everyone seemed discontented and Lifar more than anyone. Still, I had the chance to solo in many of his ballets before he left and, when my husband became the director, my situation improved.

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• Anatoly Joukowsky We lived all of our life in dance Palo Alto, 1996

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natoly joukowsky’s career was a remarkable one. Before becoming a dancer and director of the Belgrade Opera Ballet Company he had been a student at the Kiev Cadet Corps and then a member of the Volunteer Army, which fought the Bolsheviks in Southern Russia. Joukowsky lived through World War II in Europe. Having joined the Ballets Russes almost at the final curtain (as they disbanded shortly afterwards), he began a new life in America. There, he created a new trend in American art studies, having founded the Department of the Anthropology of Dance at San Francisco State University, which survives to this day. I was born in Sedlitz, near Warsaw, in 1905. My father was commanding a regiment there. Later, I joined the Kiev Cadet Corps but, having emigrated, I completed my studies with the Crimean Cadet Corps in Yugoslavia in 1922. I would like to know more, in particular, about your childhood and adolescence, which coincided with the Revolution and the Civil War in Russia. I was meant to join the Warsaw Suvorov Corps but because of the war the Corps was moved to Kazan. We went to St Petersburg, but there were no vacancies in the Corps so I was sent to a secondary school. But when a

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place was found in the Kiev Cadet Corps (a military school) I joined that in 1916. During the time of the Hetman government I fled to my father, who was with the White Army at Poltava. He had been wounded in the Great War and couldn’t ride. Nonetheless, he commanded his cavalry troop of Ukrainian hussars. He travelled on a machine gun cart whilst I rode. I had not only my own horse but also my own rifle. I was 15 years old and the world was my oyster – cold and hunger didn’t frighten me. At first there were fierce fights at the Kuban. Then we retreated, with skirmishes, but in the end the Red Army obviously decided not to fight if we were retreating anyhow. We were singing, ‘We fight for Russia, for Holy Russia, and as one, we shall lay down our young lives.’ And they were laying down, laying down their lives – the cadets, the juniors. But one has to yield to a superior force. And the force was on the side of those who believed in Communism. And one song which they sung in the White Army included these words: ‘The Tsar is not our idol…’ The army leaders – Kornilov, Alekseev, Denikin – used to say: ‘We are going to create a free Constituent Assembly in Russia, which will choose its own Russian way forward, and we will not stipulate either the Tsar, or the President.’ What happened to your parents? While I was with my father in the White Army, my sister stayed at the Poltava Institute for the children of military officers. On 1 November 1920, we all sailed from the Crimea to Gallipoli and then to Greece. The Grand Princess Elena, the Queen of the Hellenes, as she was known, had invited 1000 people from chosen families to Greece. The Crimean Cadet Corps, as I have said already, was quartered in Yugoslavia. My parents stayed in Greece, where my father died, and then my mother joined her brother in Belgium. Later, after I had settled in the US, I brought my mother and sister there, and there they both died and were buried in a Serbian cemetery. I got involved with ballet when I was still studying in the Cadet Corps; I was taken on at the Opera Theatre as an extra. In Aida I stood in a prominent position, half naked, with a large fan. That was in 1924, when I was 19. Upon graduating the Corps, I did a course in advanced engineering at Belgrade University, but strangely, I ended up in the theatre. A dizzying career! I was a ballet fanatic but I didn’t have a good academic schooling. I got noticed and they said, ‘go to a ballet school’, and finally

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I returned to the Opera as a dancer. Having started in 1925, aged 20, from nothing, by 1934 I was already directing a ballet company, and in 1938 I became the director of the Belgrade Royal Ballet. You began your ballet training so late? Well, it happens sometimes. Nureyev also started late. Our teacher was Elena Polyakova from the Mariinsky Theatre. She took part in the Diaghilev Russian Seasons and I would say she was a ballerina of the class of Karsavina and Pavlova. She made us all proper artists. Before the Bolshevik offensive at the end of World War II she left for Austria, as we did; she taught in Vienna, but soon afterwards she settled in Chile where she built up the National Ballet, founded by Vadim Sulima and Nina Gritsova. Incidentally, we also knew Karsavina and Pavlova – we danced for them. In 1927, Pavlova was present at our rehearsal of Sleeping Beauty. At that time I was just a beginner. I performed Puss in Boots, the Blue Bird. Unforgettable moments! In the 1920s, the Belgrade ballet was made up entirely of Russians, including the excellent ballerina Nina Kirsanova from Moscow. For many years there was no permanent principal at the Belgrade Opera, and I had the chance to dance with everyone. I married Yania Vassilieva, a Belgrade Ballet prima ballerina. There was the marvellous Misha Panaieff, with whom I had studied at the Cadet Corps. Amongst his ancestors was the writer, Ivan Panaïev. The singer Alexandra Panaeva was also from the same family, she was one of the first to perform the role of Tatiana in Eugene Onegin. She lived up to the time of the Siege of Leningrad. She married a widower, Pavel Pavlovich Diaghilev, and it was she who brought up Sergei Diaghilev, his son. There was also Igor Youskevitch – a phenomenon. He was born in 1912 – not in Moscow as people think, but in Pyriatyn in the Ukraine, where his father was a judge. When he was eight years old the family emigrated. He studied at Belgrade University. He was a sportsman, and I knew him because he was a hunter and we went hunting together. He was a Godgiven talent. He mastered technique quickly, but not without a great effort. He was steadfast, handsome, with a fine figure. I gave him his first

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pair of ballet shoes, and he kept them all his life. Later, he danced with all the stars; with Nemchinova, with Danilova, with Markova. His career was stupendous – his partnership with Alicia Alonso was one of the greatest in modern ballet. At the end of his life, he and his wife taught; he put on the classics. Now he is no longer with us, but the last time I saw him at a competition, he and Plisetskaya were on the jury. After the assassination of King Alexander Karageorgievich in 1934, there was chaos and the director suggested that I take over the management of the ballet. We staged marvellous things in Belgrade, such as Francesca da Rimini (by Tchaikovsky), choreographed by David Lichine. The soloist was my wife, Yania Vassilieva. Another ballet was by Nijinska – The Tale of Tsar Saltan, based on Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera. During the war I revived Francesca in Bulgaria, which was neutral at that time. But my trump card in Belgrade was folklore on the stage – workedover, stylised folklore. There was already a ballet, The Gingerbread Heart, by the Croat composer Krešimir Baranović, staged in 1924 by the Moscow ballerina Margarita Froman, who used to dance at the Bolshoi and also for Diaghilev, and who settled after the revolution in Zagreb with her dancer brother. She was a soloist, ballet master and then the director of the Opera theatre ballet in Zagreb, but also worked in Belgrade. Her folk ballet became a kind of a national emblem. Altogether, Froman had an enormous impact on Yugoslavian ballet; she opened a school in Zagreb, where she and her brother taught classical dance following the traditional Russian system; she revived the ballets of Petipa, Fokine, Nijinska – the whole classical and Diaghilev repertoire; she staged many ballets herself. After World War II she moved to America and taught in Connecticut. So, under her influence, besides ballet I began studying folklore and that gave my choreography something distinctive. We were doing much the same in Yugoslavia as Igor Moiseyev was doing in Russia; we created a ballet company called ‘Folklore’ which toured most successfully. Even now people there remember me as the principal person specialising in the rich Balkan folklore tradition. What happened to you during the war? I served in the Yugoslavian voluntary army. I joined on 6 April 1941, after the Germans attacked. We fought for three weeks, then we were surrounded and taken prisoner. We were held in a burnt-out factory,

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without a roof, and I escaped and walked to Belgrade. The Germans were making lists of all suspicious people, and when the partisans killed their soldiers they would shoot 100 people from these lists. Terrible times! I had to escape. I had contacts in Vienna and I managed to set up there. Vienna had two opera theatres – the Staatsoper and the Volksoper. We worked in the Volksoper – with no swastikas, only the Austrian twoheaded eagle. I worked as ballet master and for four years we put on great things. And in Vienna we continued our work on the Balkan folklore tradition. I staged one ballet by a Viennese composer, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and revived Froman’s The Gingerbread Heart. What other ballets did you put on in Vienna? I took the risk of putting on Dance School set to music by Strauss. I was very anxious about the result but it was well received. We staged Swan Lake but there wasn’t enough of a classical ensemble to make either it or Sleeping Beauty work. The Vienna corps de ballet could do almost everything, but academic dance was its weak spot. It all depended on the soloists. In Vienna there is no important ballet, even to this day. Yes, I know. But at that time many refugees were living there – from Belgrade, from Prague – and there were several good ballerinas among them. Well, when the Soviet tovarischi (comrades) approached, we fled. The Soviets knew that there was a Russian ballet master there; they searched for me, they found my apartment and they took a briefcase full of photographs, which had been left behind. We moved westwards and met the French, coming from the Rhine. I joined the French army. Our division was called Cinquième Division Sainte Jeanne – blindée, bronzée, à poil, à cheval, aux voiles [Fifth Sainte Jeanne Division – armoured, suntanned, naked, on horseback, in full sail]. It was the only French division to take part in the occupation of Germany. We were posted at the source of the Danube, in the Sigmaringen Castle; the officers’ quarters took up 700 rooms. The general wouldn’t allow any of the Soviet soldiers to come near. He used to say, ‘My roads are mined, I can’t guarantee your safety.’ The French treated me fairly insofar as in Vienna I was only a ballet master. Moreover, amongst the French intelligence officers I found an old friend of mine from Belgrade who was a military attaché there.

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Thanks to him I received carte blanche and joined the French War Theatre, in which my wife and I worked for a while. At the end of the war, de Basil’s Ballets Russes came back to Europe. We joined them and started ballet seriously again. We stayed with them until the very end. I have met many exceptional individuals, but, all the same, the most unique one was de Basil. He was an astonishingly fanatical enthusiast, as was his wife Olga Morozova. De Basil, as you know, was a pseudonym – his real name was Colonel Voskressensky. Like your father and you, de Basil had been in the White Army, hadn’t he? He fought in the Caucasus. He was a gallant colonel. He advanced against the English when they wanted to take the Baku oil fields. He was an exceptional man, a second Diaghilev. He kept ballet going for many years without any fixed subsidies, entirely due to his Russian flair, charm and ability to get along with people. We loved him. He had started at the Paris Opera under Prince Tsereteli – he cut his teeth on administration, which he had a talent for. He had a fine reputation and people were prepared to give him money. Before the war it was easier – there were more funds and there was more interest in ballet. When he resumed work in Europe after the war, everything to do with the production – the costumes, the set designs – became very difficult. Grigoriev, Diaghilev’s right-hand man, and then de Basil’s, was actually a hindrance to him because, among other things, Grigoriev wouldn’t tolerate the American and English amateurs, who sometimes paid for the privilege of dancing with the company themselves. Otherwise, in our company there were two beautiful young ballerinas dancing the part of Francesca in Lichine’s ballet Francesca da Rimini by Tchaikovsky – but Grigoriev gave the principal role to his wife Lubov Tchernicheva (who, by the way, was nicknamed ‘the cop’ – whenever someone made a mistake, she immediately noted it). Vladimir Dokoudovsky had the role of Paolo – some critic wrote afterwards: ‘Grandmother and grandson’. But de Basil later tried to arrange it so that his wife Olga Morozova was given the leading parts (after the war the same thing happened in Serge Denham’s company – he gave the main roles to Nina Novak). The prima ballerina with de Basil’s was Geneviève Moulin from Strasbourg (she then married and never had a career). Dokoudovsky was the

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principal male dancer. Nina Verchinina joined the company. Toumanova, Riabouchinska and Choura Danilova  (I always used to bring to Danilova her favourite bottle of Serbian vodka from my trips to Belgrade) all danced for de Basil, of course. Danilova especially shone in the Massine ballets, Gaîté parisienne and Le Beau Danube. By the way, in hungry postwar London Massine created a problem for the impresario by demanding a steak and a pint of milk for both lunch and dinner. Youly Algaroff was also there – he later became a soloist with the Paris Opera Ballet. I used to do mainly acting roles, because at my age I could no longer do classical dance. But all the same we lived all of our lives in dance. With de Basil we did a tour: Portugal, Morocco, Spain – we began in Paris and finished in San Sebastián. There in San Sebastián, I put on Balkan dances, with Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Greek and Romanian pieces – my only production for de Basil. The critics remarked that it bore comparison with Polovtsian Dances. De Basil was still planning a tour to Australia, and my wife was thinking of joining. I saw de Basil for the last time in Antwerp. While we were waiting for our American visas we were working in the Royal Theatre in Ghent. For the yearly flower festival I had arranged the last performance of a de Basil ballet. The costumes were brought from Paris, and the former de Basil stars – Stroganova and Dokoudovsky – came to dance. We put on Bolero (a ballet which I had staged in Sofia based on the choreography of Boris Romanov), Act II of Swan Lake and Divertissement by two Belgrade choreographers. And, though he was ill, de Basil came from Paris. When we said goodbye, he said, ‘What a pity that we got to know each other so late – no one else is as foolish.’ I asked him what he meant. ‘That there isn’t another such dance fanatic.’ Anyway, my wife and I, we lived all of our lives in dance. Did you ever meet Massine? Balanchine? Yes, when we were with de Basil we danced the Massine symphonic ballets; whilst in Belgrade I had already danced Les Présages – it was my favourite part. Nina Kirsanova choreographed it for us, in keeping with Massine’s original version. Our costumes were better, it’s true. Massine amazed me. He was a master! Then I met him when he came to America. But that was a sad occasion; he was putting on some primitive ballet, almost without male dancers. He was embarrassed when he saw me.

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I knew Balanchine very well; he used to come to the San Francisco Ballet when I was teaching character dancing twice a day. I’m not afraid to tell you what I think about Balanchine: he ruined American ballet. He arrived in 1934. Up until then he had put on ballets for Diaghilev – how beautiful his Prodigal Son is – but then he went abstract; no costumes, no scenery, no plot. A dancing music score! I considered this a mortal sin and told him so when we met. He said that he was a musician first and then a choreographer. That was his credo. Unfortunately. The result was a drought. He repudiated the spiritual side of dance. He only left the technique and abstract ideas. And just think what he had choreographed before! Would you say that Massine’s abstract productions are somewhat better than Balanchine’s? Yes, and I can tell you why. Massine always unearthed a plot from the music of the symphonies, and so his ballets are not entirely abstract. They have romance. Such was Choreartium (Brahms’ Fourth Symphony), then Symphonie fantastique (Berlioz). He was dreaming (I heard this from him personally) of staging Rachmaninov’s Second Concerto. Can you imagine? That is the richest music. And, in 1938, he put on Nobilissima visione to music by Paul Hindemith. Massine describes in his memoirs how first Hindemith and then he himself were moved by Giotto’s frescoes in the Santa Croce in Florence – the scenes from the life of St Francis of Assisi – which inspired him to create the ballet. Massine knew how to orchestrate the ensemble splendidly. In Symphonie fantastique (Berlioz) there is an episode where the ensemble has to change costumes quickly. We stood in pairs in a row, and the people behind buttoned up those in front, and we rushed out, one pair after another. Irina Baronova, the first lady in the English ballet world, Vice President of the Royal Dance Academy, always emphasised that the presence of the soul is in classical ballet.  She gave special classes in mime; the ballerina has to act, and not just smile stereotypically and impersonally.

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She considered that Balanchine deprived classical dance in America of individuality. Baronova was great. She made a huge contribution. She said that she had to be the standard-bearer for classical dance. I still can’t quite understand why after the war you had to go to America and leave Europe, where you had established a professional reputation. There was nowhere to go. As I said before, we didn’t want to return to Belgrade. De Basil’s ballet had broken up. In Belgium, where we stayed after that with the Antwerp Opera, then in Brussels, there was no ballet to speak of. In France, a work permit was required which we didn’t have, even though we had served in the French army. I used to go to Paris, I saw the French artists – Yvette Chauviré, Solange Schwarz, Vyroubova, Skibine, Lifar. I’d already seen Lifar with Diaghilev, when I came from Belgrade; he danced remarkably but although he staged a great many things as a choreographer, he didn’t create anything significant. At Lifar’s suggestion, we did a demonstration of folk dances on stage for school and ballet troupes before our departure for America in 1950. He wrote to me afterwards that it had opened new perspectives for him and he regretted that we had got to know each other so late. You see, folklore is hardly used in longer ballets. In terms of folk dance, productions of Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty are scandalous. Soon afterwards we left for America, and here again we started from nothing. We both began working in ballet studios; in my case it was one associated with the San Francisco Ballet. But they gave me nothing to stage for fear of competition. At the same time I continued my study of folklore and, due to the interest it awakened, I joined San Francisco State College (now University), where I worked for 28 years, progressing from lecturer to pro­fe­ssor. I founded the Department of the Anthropology of Dance at this and several other universities, and  Igor Moiseyev visited me here. I have been the head of the department for a long time – I even took my pension four years late because there was nobody to hand over to. I taught ballet and ethnic dance. With a group of my students we went to several universities, demonstrating folk dances. My wife helped with making the costumes. We took with us to America very few personal belongings but many valuable folk costumes and musical scores. Later, I sent them off to the Museum of Theatre Art in Belgrade. Here in America, when I suggested creating a new department, they asked me, ‘And what exactly is ethnology

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of dance?’ I said to them, ‘Gentlemen, you find it interesting to follow how the spots on the wings of a beetle change over a set time, then why do you not wish to understand why a man in Africa dances this way, and a man in Europe dances differently? What factors – religion, history, geography – help him to express his soul through dance?’ They do something similar in Spain. Yes! Placido Domingo recorded an amazing concert where singing was mixed with Spanish dance. And, of course, Moiseyev opened the doors of theatre for folk dance. How do you rate today’s Russian dancers on the Western stage? When Nureyev came here and danced for two weeks with the San Francisco Ballet, I said to him, ‘You with your schooling, technique, talent, you could open a new era in ballet, if you look for a new approach.’ Margot Fonteyn, who was present, advised me to put my ideas for Nureyev down in writing and I did so. And when, two or three months later, I came to Los Angeles to see another ballet in which he was dancing, and asked whether he had received my letter and what he thought about it, he said, ‘You see, Professor, it’s all too clever for me.’ Not without irony, but he was telling the truth. And I reproached Baryshnikov for always playing himself; whatever part he danced, whatever wig he wore, he was always Misha Baryshnikov. He placed himself above the role. And where is the artistry? I love Makarova very much. But unfortunately she doesn’t socialise with Russians. In Paris, I saw Spessivtseva, and once Ulanova came here with the Bolshoi Ballet. The San Francisco Ballet put on a banquet; I went up to Ulanova who was standing next to the conductor Rozhdestvensky and I said, ‘Allow me to kiss the hand of a great dancer.’ The local Russian diehards said, ‘What sort of a cadet is he? He kissed the hand of Stalin’s favourite!’ But the great Russian school has survived in spite of everything, perhaps because in the greyness and despair of Soviet life it offered people a sort of safety valve. For two or three roubles, one could go to the theatre and see a fairy tale! That was the cunning of the Communists, and there was also financial gain; art could be exported and would bring currency.

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• Tatiana Stepanova and her mother

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 met tatiana stepanova, her mother and her devoted husband, George Peabody Gardner, from the Boston family of great art patrons, at their estate near Boston. Tatiana Stepanova was a tall, elegant woman with an instantly recognisable balletic bearing. First mother, and then daughter, told their tale.

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• Alexandra Stepanova Oh, you just want to pinch more money from me! Boston, 1996

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ould you tell me about your origins?

I always say that I am a pure Russian. But in fact I don’t know who I am. I was born on the Don, into a Don Cossack family. But now all that has changed, those districts no longer exist. I am 94 years old. After the Revolution, my family fled from the Red Army. We left, ending up in the Crimea, where we suffered greatly. There were 3000 people at the port, perhaps even more. Typhoid had broken out, illness, lice. There was nothing to eat. People crawled to the hills, they dug up apples from under the snow, not even noticing that they were rotten, that there might be worms in them – anything seemed good enough. Then we started to be evacuated from the Crimea to Turkey on French cutters. On the way there, I got separated from my family – I wasn’t yet 17. In Turkey they didn’t treat us well: they put us in prison and kept us there for three years – although it was quite lax and they used to allow us to go for a walk. There were 20 women sharing one small room. We all slept on the floor. Then the French came, and they started to let us out so that we could find work. But for women it was very hard. The Turks were wild; women couldn’t go out alone on the street. But once I went with my friend, Akulina, to walk through a graveyard. Suddenly, out jumped a Turk from behind a gravestone and grabbed her by the arm. ‘Don’t worry,’

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she said to me, ‘I can deal with him. You just watch.’ The Turk wasn’t tall, and she gave him a good whack. Two Russian men came to meet us, and one said, ‘Are you mad, going out walking together by yourselves?’ We started working. Someone found a job washing somewhere, another something else. Then we went to Constantinople on a cutter (charquette, as it was called). Our Russian Nikolaevsky Hospital was located there, and they helped us to find work. The men worked as dockers, they loaded whatever came their way, it was mostly coal. We stayed there for three years and, when the chance came to get away, all the Russians signed up to leave, although they didn’t even know who would take them. First we went to Varna in Bulgaria, but there was also some kind of a revolution there and we were driven out. I went back to Constantinople in a cargo ship, among the boxes. Then I went to France, to Marseilles, on a steamer. In Marseilles, I met an officer from Wrangel’s army, also a Don Cossack, and we got married. We went to work, and whatever we earned we spent on food. My first child was stillborn because I fell over when I was seven-and-a-half months pregnant. My daughter, Tatiana, was born in a Red Cross tent, and to christen her we carried her onto the last ship that had come bringing emigrants, since there was a priest among them. There were very many Russians living in Marseilles. But we didn’t speak French; you went to buy something, you produced your money and you showed the vendor what you wanted to buy: potatoes, bread… When we arrived at Marseilles we had nothing, but the French were giving out a few clothes – they just said: ‘Choose one, but not two, there are too many people.’ French police were very strict with foreigners. My husband worked with glass, making windows. I began to sew. We started to earn a little more and bought a tiny little house in Paris, at Porte de Lilas. I took in sewing to do at home. I used to work at night. One French client was amazed at how fast I did everything – two dresses in 24 hours; he decided that there must be several people doing the sewing. It was difficult to work; you see, I had to cook, to look after my daughter. One day we met a Russian general, Kargalsky – both of his arms were broken and hung like rags. And we took him in to live with us – my husband insisted. He helped me, looking after my daughter. By the time she was eight years old, we had already got a little richer and we bought a larger house and started to wear better clothes. There was an enormous amount of work to do; I sewed 30 dresses in a week,

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but I ruined my eyes and the doctor said that I had burnt them with the electric light. I wasn’t eligible for the state benefits. The Russians were always paid less in France. When we had a little house we cooked thin borsch (well, you’ll not find anything cheaper than cabbage) and we ate it for three or four days with bread. Still, little by little, our life got easier. When my daughter was eight years old she was very thin; she ate nothing, she only read books. And the general said: ‘Make her take up gymnastics.’ ‘Oh, Georgy Dimitrich, it’s hardly likely we can afford it.’ ‘There are ballet schools. I can take her there while you are working.’ And he advised us to put our daughter into Kshessinska’s school. We went to Kshessinska but she was very snooty and wouldn’t take her. Then the General took us to Olga Ossipovna Preobrajenska, and I said to her: ‘Take my daughter for one day a week only. I don’t want her to become a ballerina. I just want her to put on weight.’ Olga Ossipovna said, ‘Of course, I will.’ Two days later I brought my daughter to the studio. Everyone in the school was horrified when they saw her. ‘Why have you brought such a scarecrow? What’s the matter with her?’ Even Preobrajenska said, ‘Goodness gracious! What have you brought me? She is a consumptive!’ ‘Olga Ossipovna, I’ve already told you that it is not for the ballet.’ ‘Oh, I forgot.’ And she agreed to work with her once a week, not for ballet but for her health. She studied for four months and then Preobrajenska came up to me and said, ‘Madame Stepanova, I would like your daughter to come not once a week but every day.’ I was thinking, ‘Oh, you just want to pinch more money from me!’ but I said, ‘We’ll think about it.’ ‘Don’t think about it. Bring her, and that’s that.’ I came home and my husband was delighted that our daughter was invited to come every day. And I told him that, in that case, he should get a second job. The next time, Preobrajenska repeated her offer. I said to her, ‘You know, Olga Ossipovna, it is a little expensive for us.’ ‘I don’t want money from you. I can see that your daughter is very flexible and she has good alignment.’ And again I didn’t believe her. Two more months went by. Preobrajenska staged a dance for my daughter – a polka. And she said, ‘You can sew. Sew a suitable dress for her.’ I thought that she was joking. But I sewed the dress. We came to the rehearsal and Preobrajenska said, ‘She has a great talent.’ But I kept on thinking, ‘You just want money from me.’ Then at the Galerie Lafayette they arranged a ball for Saint Tatiana Day, and my daughter was sent to dance there. My husband was overjoyed, but

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I said, ‘I don’t want my daughter to be a ballerina.’ But I saw how she had great approach and technique. She could do so many double fouettés consecutively and she would wear out her new shoes to such an extent that one could see her toes at the end of the class. In the end, Preobrajenska insisted that our daughter trained not once but four times a week and indeed actually refused money, which seemed amazing to me. A year passed. One day, Preobrajenska informed me that some important guests were coming to see the girls; having revived the Ballets Russes where Toumanova, Baronova and Riabouchinska were already dancing, Massine and de Basil went every year around the Paris studios. They were looking for new artists. After what Preobrajenska had said, I sewed a new tunic for the event. They said that our daughter was most talented, that her technique was very good, and went away. In a few days, de Basil returned with three Germans who were speaking one to another in German and French to him. I realised that they were interested in my daughter and didn’t want to lose her. And everyone was pointing at me as if to say they have to talk to the mother. The Germans started quarrelling, but de Basil said that he himself wanted to take my daughter. Then they turned to Preobrajenska’s secretaries and when they said that the parents had no money to pay for their daughter’s coaching, he gave her a bursary. That was the beginning of her years as a ballerina.

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• Tatiana Stepanova Three Russians make a fair, five make a bazaar Boston, 1996

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nd so i received a bursary from de Basil for my ballet training, besides which he gave me some ballet shoes. We brought my first lot of fees to Preobrajenska but Olga Ossipovna didn’t take them. She said, ‘Not on my life! They are for you, so that you eat and buy some clothes.’ And she never took a single penny from us. I have kept a present she gave to me – a sketch, which she herself received on her first appearance in the large ballet performance at the Hermitage with all the principle ballerinas dancing. She gave me this sketch when I was leaving, together with an icon as her blessing. And then, through my father, she sent me a book by Arnold Haskell, the wellknown English ballet historian, which he had given her in 1934. Papa came here to the US in 1946 and brought it to me. It is a book about all the ballerinas, starting with Preobrajenska and Pavlova, and then Toumanova, Baronova and Riabouchinska. I worked hard, studied constantly and performed now and then. Once I even danced at the Opéra with Tamara Toumanova. At Lifar’s insistence, in 1939 I took part in the Queen Elizabeth competition in Brussels, receiving a prize of 13,000 Belgian francs, and Papa bought a little piece of land near Rambouillet, not far from the castle. At that time, there was a split in the Ballets Russes. As they say, three Russians make a fair, five make a bazaar. The theatre divided in two;

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Massine and Denham kept the name, but the music and all the old ballets went to de Basil. He called his troupe the Original Ballet Russe. It was a tortuous process for the dancers as well – they rushed about, with war clearly getting closer, making it imperative to leave. I was still a girl, my mother was afraid of letting me go anywhere. Massine offered to pay for my further training and take me with him to America, to which de Basil responded by saying that I must go with him to Australia. We were in two minds about leaving for a long time but my father insisted we went, counting on a quick ending to the war. So I sailed with my mother to Australia for what was meant to be three months; but it was six years later that we returned to France and were reunited with my father at the end of 1946. Serge Lifar came to Australia for a month. Evidently remembering our first performance together – a fine evening dedicated to Diaghilev’s memory in 1939 at the Louvre – he wanted to dance only with me. I was dancing Les Sylphides. I adored and worshipped Lifar. I never saw anybody who could dance in Giselle and put his soul into it more than him. He had very good stature and not only was he handsome, he was very impressive on stage. And, besides, he was a very cultivated man. This was Diaghilev’s schooling. Then the older ballerinas – Toumanova, Riabouchinska – came over and I was forgotten about, I no longer even danced; I was too young. But I rehearsed all the roles as an understudy. Of course, one couldn’t avoid intrigue, there is always too much of it in ballet. If I were to write a memoir, I would have to include the costumes slashed or the pieces of glass put in someone’s shoes. Over several months, all the older ballerinas left, and the theatre went to South America with a young cast: Tupine, Grigorieva, Dokoudovsky, Stroganova, Leskova and me. The journeys were very difficult, although there were beautiful theatres in each country. I have just seen Tatiana Leskova in San Francisco. She was there to help revive Les Présages. She asked me to demonstrate what I remembered because I was the last to dance all those ballets. But I couldn’t drop everything here – there

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were all sorts of difficulties. Tanya wasn’t classically built; she was very plump. You wouldn’t say that now – she is so thin. But she jumped like a man. She danced well. She had very good technique, but not for lyrical things. Did you meet Fokine? Yes, of course I did. I have already mentioned Les Sylphides, and there was also Paganini by Rachmaninov – it is one of the last Fokine productions, a beautiful, tender, dramatic ballet, which I loved. Fokine was a very good choreographer, precise, quiet, stern. It was a pleasure to work with him, although he demanded discipline and everyone was rather afraid of him; he was a very cold man, somewhat severe. Massine and Lifar were more humane. Do you remember Boris Kochno? I did not know him very well. I danced in his Prodigal Son with Lichine. Lichine was also good-looking on stage. But he was someone who, if he liked a young girl, would put on a ballet for her, and would do anything to win her. He nearly killed one girl on the stage; he lifted her and threw her down because she wasn’t interested in him any more. It was Alexandra Denisova, a Canadian. Lichine belonged to the middle generation; he was born in 1910 in Rostov-on-Don, from whence his family (his real surname was Liechtenstein) emigrated to Paris via Constantinople and Sofia. I don’t know if he studied dance earlier, he probably did, but from the age of 16 Lichine took classes with Egorova, then with Nijinska. By the end of the 1920s, he was dancing in Ida Rubinstein’s company; in 1930 in Pavlova’s; and a year later with Nijinska’s; but he was more of a character dancer. He remained with the Ballets Russes until the end of the war, dancing in and choreographing a great many ballets which were famous in their time, and after the war he made an international career. At the Ballets des Champs-Élysées he put on one of the first ballets without musical accompaniment – La Création – and

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he staged ballets for the Marquis de Cuevas. In the middle of the 1950s, he moved with his wife, Tanya Riabouchinska, to Los Angeles, where they worked in Hollywood and taught at their own school. For me, Massine was a genius. Small, dark, it seemed as if there was nothing to him, either character-wise or classical; but on stage he was great. The stage was his life. Besides, he was very musical. Yes, he was one of the first to stage abstract musical ballets. My favourite ones are Choreartium and Symphonie fantastique, in which I used to dance with Dolin. I danced all of Toumanova’s former roles in the Massine ballets. But I loved Irina Baronova, she was a very good friend. Tamara was different, very beautiful and very fickle. She was always on a diet – she only ever ate salads and she used to say, ‘I am like a camel’. For me, an even more extraordinary person was Danilova. Toumanova was beautiful, but Danilova had more than that. Kenneth MacKenzie, a marvellous man, danced with us in South America. He was my partner. Yes, we met in New York when Nina Stroganova was still alive – wonderful people. Their marriage was altogether an extraordinary story – you must know it. Oh! I know all right! She was married to Vladimir Dokoudovsky. We were in Colombia and MacKenzie was already keen on her. Once he nearly drowned while he was swimming – he sank to the bottom. They rushed to him, pulled him ashore. At this point our Ninochka burst into tears and her husband, who was watching, asked her why. Of course, she didn’t admit anything but after that episode she stayed with Kenneth and Volodya Dokoudovsky was left alone. Then Volodya went away and got together with someone else, then he came back and lived with Nina for many years. Then he left her and married a South American, an Argentinian I think. I saw her; she was great. And in their old age Kenneth and Nina got together again and were very happy. When I spoke to them, they put it a little differently.

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Kenneth was a strange but talented man. Having finished his ballet career, he worked as a builder, then at some factory. Nina was also very strange, somehow old-fashioned. She danced Swan Lake but they said she was like a duck. Volodya had good technique. He also studied with Preobrajenska. But on stage he didn’t catch the eye; he had frightfully thin legs. He was successful in dramatic roles. He danced the Blue Bird from Sleeping Beauty well. He put on three pairs of dark blue tights and everything went well. Please tell me more about South America. I danced all of Toumanova’s roles there. These tours went on for six years, from 1941 to 1946. We worked till we were exhausted – 13 days in the month, three ballets a day. For example, we danced Les Sylphides, Choreartium and Aurora’s Wedding all in one day. A matinée on Wednesday, a matinée on Thursday, a matinée on Saturday and Sunday. And did those small Latin American towns always come up with a proper audience, even on a Thursday matinée? Oh yes. In many such towns they had never seen a ballet before. But the theatres were large and beautiful, modelled on French opera houses. During the war, many rich people emigrated to South America from France and Spain. There were enough spectators – sometimes we even had to dance in bullrings. I have a photograph from San Paulo with 80,000 spectators watching our ballet at a stadium, with me jumping in Les Sylphides. It was the same in Mexico City. In the high mountain countries and towns the greatest difficulty for us was the low level of oxygen in the air. The lungs, the heart couldn’t cope; one dancer actually died. I still have a weak heart. The transfers became our rest time, though only relatively speaking as there were either no roads at all or they were washed away by the rains. Even on the buses we sometimes sat under umbrellas. And they paid us practically nothing because they knew that we had nowhere else to go. We took small rooms. Mother cooked for us and was also in charge of the costumes, old, cheap, but beautiful. The oldest had survived from the Diaghilev company as had the stage sets – by Benois, Matisse, Larionov, Goncharova. Mama ironed them, restored them, preserved them.

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How long did you dance for? Until the end of 1946. Almost two years before that, I was dancing in Buenos Aires – there is a fantastic theatre there. My future husband saw me at the performance. He was 29 years old and he had just returned from the war. He was a naval officer who had fought in the Philippines and was holidaying in South America with his sister. She was married to the photographer Maurice Seymour, who specialised in Hollywood and ballet pictures. After the show, George said to Seymour as a joke, ‘I am going to marry that girl,’ and asked him to introduce us. Seymour said that he didn’t think it would be possible as I was always working, my mother kept a strict eye on me and we were soon leaving. But eventually he agreed to tell Grigoriev that an American had arrived who wanted to put money into our ballet and a party was arranged. I went to the party with strict orders from my mother not to come back late, but I didn’t even speak to him. Just imagine, I sat in the corner talking to my partners about the next day’s performance. And the next day I received four gardenias in a box and a note saying, ‘What a wonderful time I had with you.’ I laughed: ‘Well, there goes another fool!’ But flowers started arriving for me every day. Every day! And every day George used to come to say hello to me. He stayed with the company for three months, and everyone already knew he was after me but he had to follow us for another two years before I said yes. I married him in 1947 in Mexico and we were very happy. I was intending to go with de Basil to Europe, but my husband was afraid I wouldn’t come back, and perhaps he was right. I still regret that I wasn’t able to dance in Europe as an experienced ballerina. After all, everyone knew me there when I was a girl and Arnold Haskell and the other famous critics had predicted a big future for me. I retired from ballet in April 1948, after a season at the Metropolitan Opera. In my last performance I danced Aurora and I still have the ballet shoes and crown. A cheap crown! Now everyone has such beautiful costumes… we had rags. What is the family connection between your husband and the famous Isabella Stewart Gardner?

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He is the oldest of a large family – she is his grandmother or perhaps great grandmother, by marriage. This house used to be her summer retreat. We had a ballet school in this house for ten years – Balanchine recommended me as a good teacher and girls used to come to me. I also taught and was nominally the director of a department at his school, although I worked very little with Balanchine himself. His ballets, his style were too American for me, although I rather liked the company – the girls danced well, but not classically. Preobrajenska, for instance, taught us to place our heels on the floor, but with Balanchine everyone runs on their toes. Then, the Balanchines all say that the back ought to be turned differently so that the neck appears longer. And it’s true – the line is extended, but they all look half-starved. On stage they are beautiful, but so terrible when you see them close up in the studio.

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•

THE BALLETS RUSSES IN AUSTRALIA

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fter rené blum had left the company in 1936, the Ballets Russes de Colonel de Basil went through a period of instability. During that time, three touring engagements in Australia were organised. The first nine-month tour (1936–7), consisting of 52 dancers, headed by Léon Woizikowsky, was largely composed of members of de Basil’s own ballet company. For the second seven-month tour (1938–9), the troupe went under the name The Covent Garden Russian Ballet, whilst he was involved in litigation with Denham and Massine about who owned the rights to the ballets that Massine had originally made for Diaghilev. This time, Mikhail Fokine was engaged as the choreographer; he continued to work with the dancers on revivals of the ballets of the Diaghilev repertoire. At the end of that season, de Basil renamed the company the Original Ballet Russe and, in 1939, as World War II began, they started another Australian tour, which lasted until September 1940. Serge Lifar and David Lichine choreographed the ballets. From Australia, the troupe set out for the island of Pago Pago in the Samoan archipelago, which was under American control, and from there they went to San Francisco. During the war years they toured throughout North and South America, but mostly the latter. The company’s tours of Australia exerted a huge influence on the development of ballet in that country, as did the many dancers who stayed behind there. The following two conversations are devoted to this.

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• Rachel Cameron We Australians… London, 2005

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achel cameron, whose recollections of Karsavina appear at the beginning of this book, was a ballerina and ballet master. She made her debut in Australia and at the end of the 1940s moved to England, where she perfected her training with Vera Volkova, and in Paris with Egorova and Preobrajenska. She witnessed the formation of the Australian Ballet, assisted by the Russian ballet dancers who had stayed behind in Australia after the Ballets Russes tours. As happened in other countries, through the efforts of these dancers, two ballet schools and four ballet troupes were established. The Australian Ballet, founded in 1962 under the directorship of Sir Robert Helpmann and then Maina Gielgud, very quickly rose to become a company of world standard. The Australian Ballet toured in Russia in 1972. I would like to hear about your relations with the Russian ballet dancers in the early stages of your career, while you were still in Australia.

I was born in Australia and began dancing there. My parents, having noticed my love of movement, sent me to study eurhythmics when I was very young. After that, I studied ballet outside my school time. The teaching was along the English system, and subsequently that teacher received the highest praise from Karsavina, who said when she saw me

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dance for the first time, ‘You can tell what a ballerina’s first teacher was like from the way that she dances after a long break.’ As you know, Russian artists used to come to Australia. When I was still quite young, I saw Pavlova. Then Spessivtseva came on a visit and I saw her as well. The Ballets Russes came on tour several times, and I tried to attend all of Fokine’s rehearsals. I didn’t work with him because I was too young: I was still lacking in technique. After these tours, several dancers stayed behind in Australia: Helene Kirsova; then Edouard Borovansky and his wife, Xenia Nikolaeva Krüger (née Smirnova); then Kira Abrikossova, who later founded the Ballet of Western Australia with her husband, Serge Bousloff. Tamara Tchinarova decided to stay in Australia at the same time as Kira, but later, having got married (she married the actor Peter Finch), she went back to London. There was also Raissa Kouznetsova, née Hirsch, who had first come to Australia with Spessivtseva. Kouznetsova and two Poles – Valery Shaievsky and Edward Sobichevsky – founded the troupe called the Polish-Australian Ballet, which existed for ten years. This was after an argument with Kirsova, in whose troupe they had first danced; ten minutes before the curtain went up, they announced that they refused to perform unless their wages were quadrupled. Two of the Russian dancers, Lucie Saronova and Misha Burlakov, had stayed in Australia after Anna Pavlova’s tour at the end of the 1920s. In Europe, very little is known about most of them. That is because we were cut off from the world during the war. Kirsova, a Danish dancer from the de Basil company, stayed because she had married the Danish Consul in Australia. That gave her a certain status, and at the beginning of the war she opened a school in Sydney and trained dancers, allowing her to found her own ballet troupe, the Kirsova Ballet, in 1941. There were also the dancers whom I have already mentioned and some Australians like me. But before that, in 1939, Edouard Borovansky had established his company – the Borovansky Ballet – on the strength of the school founded in Melbourne by his wife, a ballerina of the Moscow school. Her pupils, and those trained by Kirsova, later formed the nucleus of the Australian Ballet. When the Kirsova troupe dissolved, Tchinarova and Bousloff went over to Borovansky. Although following the Russian classical tradition,

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the latter also worked with Australian artists – especially for the set designs and costumes. At the start he revived the Ballets Russes repertoire, then he began to choreograph himself. Subsequently, Australian choreographers joined him, and in the 1950s they staged the featurelength classical ballets Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. David Lichine did a revival of The Nutcracker and the Massine Symphonie fantastique was performed as well. European stars, including Margot Fonteyn, came as guest artists when the company toured. Kirsova always tried to give recognition to talented local dancers, and the costumes were also commissioned from Australians. She was competent in many arts and tried to achieve a unity of all forms of expression. From the moment the company was founded she laid stress on its own strengths, giving the leading roles to the Australian soloists. It was an extraordinary time, exceptionally creative. As I said, in a country cut off from the rest of the world, everyone had to be self-reliant. Although a great deal has been written about the Australian ballet, it is a pity that nobody has gone to the roots of it. And there were first-class dancers in Australia from the beginning. Of course, not like the ones today, because contemporary technical demands are much higher. How did the Australian Ballet, being so isolated, manage to develop to world standard so quickly? Firstly, as I have said, the company didn’t pop out of nowhere; the dancers were taught by excellent teachers, either Russian or belonging to the Russian tradition. And subsequently Sir Robert Helpmann and Maina Gielgud made a great contribution. They used to invite European and American dancers who ‘raised the bar’, then they returned home, and the Australians had to rely on themselves again. They quickly realised that they had to find the highest performance level in order to bear comparison with any other ballet theatre in the world. Although our training was the same, we had the feeling that the Europeans were taking something as if from the air. I will never forget how, having arrived in London for the first time, I started taking classes with Vera Volkova. Margot Fonteyn was in the class with us. At one point something didn’t work for her – the problems weren’t technical but to do with the style, and she turned for help to Volkova, whilst we all stopped and watched. Volkova showed her what was needed; she understood instantly and

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that was that. An Australian girl who was standing next to me exclaimed, ‘How beautiful!’ I remarked that Fonteyn, at that moment, was the exact image of Maria Taglioni. From the way the girl reacted, I could tell that she had no idea who Taglioni was, and that she only knew the names of contemporary maîtres. Tell me about the Russian dancers with whom you danced in Australia. When I knew Kira Abrikossova, she had already retired from dancing – I never saw her on stage. (Bousloff, however, continued to perform with the Borovansky Ballet and with other troupes.) I remember how she helped me translate from French. Later, when a small company called the Ballet of the Australian Choreographic Society was created, she began working there as the permanent coach. I also danced there for nine months. Then the money ran out, the troupe disbanded. Abrikossova gave good classes, but very difficult ones. Discipline with her – as with Kirsova and with Borovansky, who was known as a tyrant – was very severe. Now pupils will find any pretext in order to miss a class. But back then a dancer would not be admitted the next day. What was it like working with Kirsova? She had only just founded her troupe when she invited me to join. The work gave me so much as a dancer. A pupil of Lubov Egorova and Léo Staats, Kirsova embodied the Danish, French and Russian schools. She had irreproachable technique with genuine dramatic quality. When she was still a teenager, the King of Denmark gave her a gold brooch in the form of a crown, scattered with diamonds, which she kept all her life. Kirsova danced with Ida Rubinstein and she was associated with the Ballets Russes of René Blum/de Basil from the day of its foundation in 1932. She worked with Fokine and with Massine, and she was brilliant in the waltz from Sylphides. She staged the wonderful ballet The Revolution of the Umbrellas, based on a Danish fairytale. It is true there was not very much dancing in it – more mime. In all, 14 ballets went into the repertoire. Kirsova remained true to the Diaghilev principles, aiming for the synthesis of dance, music and stage design, but she also took care about the dramatic expression. We worked all day; a class at 9am, then

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rehearsal, an hour’s break for lunch, rehearsals again, and a performance at 8pm. The troupe was enthusiastic – Kirsova used to say that if she could take us to Europe we would cause a sensation. But the company lasted only three years because it couldn’t keep its financial independence and, unlike Borovansky, Kirsova didn’t want to deal with a financial backer – she was afraid of losing her artistic freedom. After a few more years she left for Paris, where she lived until her death in 1962, but she revisited Australia regularly. There were legends about Kirsova. Until recently, nobody knew the year of her birth; in her childhood she attended the ballet school in Copenhagen using her mother’s maiden name – obviously her father wouldn’t countenance his good name being disgraced. In adolescence she apparently ran away from home in order to study dance with the Russian teachers in Paris, where she lived in such poverty that she had to cut off and sell her own hair. After the Kirsova troupe disbanded, I had to go and work in a bookshop in Sydney. At the end of the working day I used to run to have a class with Valya Kouznetsova, a dancer of the Moscow school, who had also remained here after one of the Ballets Russes tours (she should not be confused with Raissa Kouznetsova-Hirsch, whom I’ve already mentioned). Knowing that I was hurrying from work, Kouznetsova used to wait for me and delayed the class for ten minutes. She was no less strict than Kirsova. As I was more advanced than most of her pupils, she told me from the beginning that she wouldn’t waste time on correcting me, but would thump me with a ruler, which she did, so that I was covered in bruises. They taught that way in the Theatre School. Please tell me a little more about Borovansky. Having received financial support from an Australian entrepreneur, the Borovansky company (where I started out) turned out to be more lasting than the Kirsova troupe and in some way surpassed it in significance, although the Kirsova Ballet was the first company in Australian history to officially receive professional status. After its break-up, the best dancers joined Borovansky.

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Boro, as they called him, used to boast about his origins, saying that he was just a simple peasant. And he also loved to start his speech with the words: ‘We Australians…’ I read that his wife, Xenia Krüger, née Smirnoff, was the niece of Victor Dandré, Pavlova’s husband, and also danced in her troupe. She was the daughter of the former ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet, Alexandra Nikolaeva. Xenia learnt dance privately, then at the Bolshoi Theatre School. The family emigrated to Germany, where Xenia met Pavlova, who took her into her troupe, where she and Borovansky met. During the Ballets Russes tours in Australia, after which she and her husband decided to stay, Xenia was not employed as a dancer, but she worked as a wardrobe mistress. When they set up the school, responsibility for the teaching fell mainly on her shoulders. Boro responded to the German occupation of his native Czechoslovakia by choreographing the ballet Vltava based on motifs from Czech folklore, set to music by Smetana. Later he staged a ballet based on Australian motifs which he called Terra Australis. The man was full of energy, possessed by the idea of creating the Australian Ballet, and he did contribute greatly to its formation on the strength of his ballet troupe. Its first performance, in November 1962, was Swan Lake with Sonia Arova, Erik Bruhn, Tatiana Zimina and Nikita Dolgushin, the two guest artists from Russia. I continued dancing, teaching and staging ballets. However, I felt that I didn’t know enough, hadn’t seen enough, hadn’t learnt enough. And I went away to England. English ballet had developed rapidly after the war, but I realised that I was too late. Although I received the highest compliments, from Ninette de Valois among others, no one wanted to take me. I was an Australian, and the English companies wanted English dancers. I danced in a musical, and then I went to Paris and started studying with Egorova, Kirsova’s teacher, and Preobrajenska, who taught me so much, paying especial attention to style. Seeing how limited my funds were, she offered to give me every second class for free – I will never forget it. Eventually, I joined a small ballet troupe and, through its ballet master’s recommendation, my connection with the Diaghilev dancers started, first with Lydia Sokolova, then with Tamara Karsavina, but I have already talked about that. Subsequently, whilst continuing to work with

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Karsavina, I joined Keith Lester’s troupe. He was a British dancer who had studied with Serafima Astafieva and Nicholas Legat; he was the partner of Spessivtseva and Karsavina, and he had danced and staged ballets for the Markova-Dolin Company. Then I taught in various ballet troupes and theatres, including the Scottish Ballet, aspiring to achieve the purity of form that my Russian teachers had taught me.

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• Tamara Tchinarova (Finch) Here I am, and still a dancer! London, 1991

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his was my second conversation with Tamara Tchinarova, dedica­ ted this time to her involvement with ballet in Australia.

Why did you decide to stay in Australia?

I had been in Australia twice before with the Ballets Russes, first in 1936, then in 1938–9. After the American tour, which I have spoken about, I set off for Australia with the best dancers. The troupe had been divided into two – I have spoken about that as well – and those who weren’t coming with us had to demonstrate their roles to us in a hurry, sometimes between two stage entrances. We learnt the rest on the ship that was called the Moldavia, which was funny because this was my native country. The English ballet critic Arnold Haskell greatly promoted our success in Australia in his capacity as press attaché. At first, many of us didn’t want to go – we thought that kangaroos would be jumping along the streets and convicts would be going about jingling their chains. I had signed the contract for the previous tour on the condition that when we returned I would be given back my solo numbers. Of course, no one gave them back to me. I remember how soul-destroying it was after Australia, where I had danced the main roles; when we returned to de Basil, I was again pushed into the corps de ballet. De Basil also offended my mother,

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who had worked for him for many years as wardrobe mistress, by not wanting to pay for her passage to Australia. The main reason why a group of ten of us decided to remain there was, of course, the war; the company’s future looked extremely uncertain, and it was already impossible to return to Europe. Most of us had nowhere to live in France, where the troupe planned to return in 1939. In Australia we were received so well that the hope of creating a good new ballet company there took hold of us. So the rest of the troupe left for America, and we stayed ashore; Helene Kirsova (Danish by origin, who had married the Danish Consul); Kira Abrikossova with her husband Serge Bousloff; Edouard Borovansky and his wife; Raissa Kouznetsova and three Poles – Valery Shaievsky, Sobik Sobichevsky and Valentin Zheglovsky (the first two were Raissa’s lovers). A foreign country, where all of us were homeless – we lived in small hotels. We assembled a small troupe, my mother sewed the costumes, but Raissa, taking the costumes with her, ran away to New Zealand with the Poles, where they all suffered a total fiasco. My mother was very busy, sewing the costumes for the Opera and the endless tutus for the little girls studying the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus. Ballet in Australia was taught in private schools, there was no permanent company. Helene Kirsova had opened her school in Sydney and Borovansky, with his wife, opened theirs in Melbourne. I used to give ballet classes in Sydney. Kirsova had a fine, wellequipped studio. As a teacher she was a strict perfectionist. Borovansky’s wife, Xenia Krüger, was also a great teacher; she prepared students for her husband’s future troupe. One of her best pupils was Rachel Cameron. Thanks to their schools’ having trained a constellation of Australian dancers, Kirsova and Borovansky were able to create their own ballet companies, and they invited the Russians, who had remained in Australia, to join. I started to dance with Kirsova’s company. In the three years that her troupe lasted, she revived Fokine’s Sylphides, Massine’s Les Matelots to music by George Auric, the Blue Bird and Act II of Swan Lake. My mother made the costumes – she did 200 for the Kirsova performances! Kirsova also managed to choreograph several of her own ballets, including Faust to music by Henry Krips, where I danced the character role of She-Satan, the main temptress, whilst Raya Kouznetsova danced the Devil. This ballet was a great success.

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Please tell me more about Raissa Kouznetsova. She was a very good dancer. Apparently, she came from Moscow. Both her first and second husbands were Poles; Shaievsky and Sobichevsky were good dancers too, having studied in Warsaw, where the teaching system was Russian. One fine day they all refused to dance, just five minutes before the curtain went up before a packed audience, unless Kirsova raised their wages fourfold. And she had to agree. After that, they set up their own ballet company. When the Kirsova troupe disbanded, did you and other dancers join Borovansky? A year after it had happened, I wrote a letter to Borovansky saying, ‘I am here and still a dancer.’ At that moment one of his soloists had been injured, and I was able to take her place. I was the principal dancer in that company from 1944 to 1948. The first season, which ran in the capitals of Australia and New Zealand, was a huge success. The impresario liked the Russians’ repertoire. Borovansky, a remarkable mime artist, performed the character roles in all the ballets. With the Ballets Russes, he had danced the Cuckold in Le Tricorne, the Eunuch in Schéhérazade and Tsar Dodon in Le Coq d’Or. But at that time he couldn’t stage a classic himself, and I helped Serge Bousloff to revive the ballets from the Ballets Russes repertoire; Carnaval, Schéhérazade and Le Beau Danube. Bousloff gave me the main part in Schéhérazade and the part danced by Danilova in Le Beau Danube. Not much is known about Bousloff. Bousloff was a danseur noble. I don’t know where he studied but previously he had established himself in Paris. It is said that Borovansky had a difficult temperament. We Russians didn’t feel that. For example, I had a special relationship with him because he knew me from the Ballets Russes from 1932, when I was 12 or 13 years old. He had a sarcastic character, poked fun at everybody, but he somehow did it without malice. He gave everyone nicknames

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which could offend; for example, he nicknamed me ‘long nose’. But then when I was dancing with him in Australia, I became ‘long nose beauty’. But we got along in a Russian way. The same atmosphere was maintained in his troupe, he was often extremely rude to the young dancers, whom he loved to offend and to criticise. And they took revenge. He used to leave the rehearsals complaining ‘why does nobody love me?’ I understood him. This is widespread in Russia: whatever the problem, to start by shouting, instead of explaining distinctly and to the point. I often had to smooth over the conflicts. But behind the rudeness was hidden a heart of gold; he took trouble about his dancers, he tried to get the best engagements for them, he always included ballet shoes in the contract, he cared about living and rehearsal conditions during the tours. His wife, Xenia Krüger, was a very demanding teacher who inculcated the troupe with a sense of style. Even if Borovansky was considered a monster, I liked working with him better than with Kirsova, who was perhaps more restrained, but very dry, almost to the point of indifference. I also suspect that Kirsova envied my youth and my technique and only worked with me because she had no one to replace me. In the 1950s, the Borovansky company performed full-length classical ballets: Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, but by then I had left and had started to work with my husband in the theatre, and then we went to England.

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•

THE BALLET RUSSE DE MONTE CARLO IN AMERICA Frederic Franklin An argument started between Nijinska and Dolin – ‘pachimu? [why?]’ Paris, 2005; New York, 2007

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british-born dancer, pupil of Nicholas Legat and Lydia Kyasht, Frederic Franklin joined the Markova-Dolin ballet company in 1935, but after two years Massine invited him to participate in the Ballet Russe, to which Franklin remained loyal for the next three decades. From 1960–70, Franklin directed major American companies such as the Washington National Ballet. He continued to appear on stage with the American Ballet Theatre in his 90s. We spoke in Paris during that company’s tour, and spoke again at length on the telephone when he was back in New York. ‘Freden’ka’, as Danilova used to call him, was a courteous gentleman of the old school, a dazzling raconteur with a phenomenal memory not only for the choreography, going back to the Ballets Russes era, but also for a multitude of delightful anecdotes. How did you become interested in ballet? When I was four or five years old, towards the end of World War I, in our house, in Liverpool, a gramophone appeared, or (as it was called

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then) a phonograph. And from that moment, just as soon as music came out of it, I immediately dropped everything, ran to the source of the music and began to skip. And there lived in Liverpool an excellent ballet teacher called Mrs Kelly, Irish by birth. When I was six years old, my auntie introduced me to her. She noticed my enthusiasm and little by little she began to teach me classical ballet, and she was very strict and demanding. After that, I studied in Liverpool with another teacher, also a strict lady. And when I was 15 years old, the Diaghilev Ballet came to Liverpool. I saw Sylphides, Le Tricorne, Aurora’s Wedding. Danilova was dancing Aurora, Lifar was dancing Prince Desiré and Alicia Markova the Blue Bird with Constantin Tcherkas. I fell madly in love with Danilova. I hung her portrait above my bed. At that time, I didn’t even dream that I would dance with her one day. It was 1929… …the year of Diaghilev’s death… …and in 1938 I’m dancing with her! But the year after I had seen the Diaghilev ballet, I was going to join Pavlova’s company. I went to London; I did the audition. When I returned home, my mother told me the news in the papers: Anna Pavlova had died. So it was meant for me not to be in a ballet company; at that time in London there was no ballet company at all. Ninette de Valois only opened her school in 1931. A great event happened in 1932 when Colonel de Basil came with his company – with the three ‘baby ballerinas’, plus Massine, plus Woizikowsky, again with Danilova and several of the older generation Diaghilev dancers. I never missed a single performance. Then in London I read a notice in the paper, ‘Boy required at the Paris Casino.’ I went to Paris and worked there for a year. When I returned to London, I used to go to classes with Nicholas Legat, an old Mariinsky premier who had danced with Pavlova and Karsavina and had been a ballet master at Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. He possessed one extraordinary peculiarity; he always sat with his back to the students working in the classroom. He used to play the piano accompaniment himself, and, without turning his head, somehow managed to see everyone. The best dancers attended his classes: Markova, Dolin and, later, when the new Ballets Russes used to come to London, many dancers from there.

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Besides Legat, I studied with Lydia Kyasht. Another mad lady! She had a very definite style. She was more of a character dancer than a classical one, but perfect in classical dance as well. She used to give the traditional classes of the Imperial Ballet. Strict, very controlled, but at the same time she had a great sense of humour. Once I asked, ‘Madame, did you ever dance in Swan Lake?’ ‘Oh, I hate Swan Lake! No, I am not a Swan Lake dancer. I like “frou-frou”. I am that kind of dancer.’ We loved her. Did she ever say anything about her past in Russia? About the Mariinsky Theatre? Never. Not a word; not about Russia; not about her family. Her story is very interesting. In the 1900s, Kyasht danced at the Mariinsky and at the Bolshoi. She was born Kyakshto; in Russia she danced as Kyaksht; in England she became Kyasht. The surname is Lithuanian, meaning ‘jay’. Her father was a peasant from the Kovenskiy region. In 1908 she settled in London. In 1910 her brother, Georgi Kyasht, a soloist at the Mariinsky Theatre, also left Russia. In the 1930s, Georgi Kyasht (who by then had worked at the Hungarian Opera and at the Argentinian Theatro Colón) was ballet master of the Kaunas music theatre in Lithuania. He died just before the Soviet invasion. Lydia Kyasht had left Russia with her husband, a young officer graduate of the Corps de Pages, whose surname was Ragosin – his nickname was ‘General Ra’. And how was her English? Excellent! Strange, but very expressive. We had no difficulty understanding her, although she had a strong accent, like all Russians at that time. I studied more with Kyasht than with Legat, and I owe her so much. It was from her that I mastered the school of Russian classical dance. Much later, Dolin specially worked on the pas de deux with me, such as the one from Sylphides, a ballet that he had learnt from Fokine himself. I remember Dolin’s classes to this day. In Paris I studied with Egorova, I also used to go to Alexandra Fedorova’s and Felia Doubrovska’s classes. They were both Diaghilev dancers. But the most difficult classes were with Anatole Oboukhoff – he almost killed us. He demanded the most exacting technique. I worked with him, as well as with Nemchinova and Vladimirov

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when they were teaching at the school associated with the Balanchine Ballet. Vladimirov’s classes were more merciful. I started to dance with Wendy Toye, a dancer, choreographer and actress well known at that time. To be honest, Wendy Toye was not a proper ballerina but she was Anton Dolin’s protégée. I met her when I auditioned for a cabaret show. She liked me and said, ‘Wait, I’ll call Mr Dolin.’ At that time he was doing five shows a day at the Leicester Square Theatre. He came in full makeup and a dressing gown and he asked me to demonstrate something. Then he wanted me to do turns. I did one to the left. He asked, ‘Can you go to the right?’ ‘Sometimes.’ And he said to Wendy, ‘We’ll take him.’ Wendy and I danced together up until the war, until I joined the Ballets Russes. Later on she became one of England’s great directors; she worked with Gielgud, Olivier. When she did Show Boat (the famous musical comedy), she called me and said, ‘Freddie, dear, you have to come!’ So I came to London and staged the dances. My ballet career started in earnest when I joined the MarkovaDolin Company. There was one moment in 1935 when Dolin said to me, ‘Freddie, it’s about time you became serious about your art.’ I said, ‘Oh!’ He said, ‘I’m having a company with Markova and you’re to be in it.’ I hurtled back from Birmingham to London and we started working. We danced wherever we could, even on the end of the piers doing soli and pas de deux. The first ballet I performed in was Fokine’s Carnaval. I was dancing Harlequin and Alicia Markova was Columbine. Immediately after the show I got a rise in my salary, whilst Dolin made me his understudy. I knew Markova when she was 22 and I was 18. When Dolin was too busy or too lazy, he made me rehearse with her. Markova did not yet have the reputation of a great ballerina; fame came to her later on. Gradually, everything started to change. Markova acquired a certain special status. She was the only one in the company who came on stage in a white ballet tutu sewn for her by the same seamstress who had worked for Pavlova. She kept the status of the first British prima ballerina until the end of her career and then it passed to Margot Fonteyn. Markova behaved in a condescending manner. She had an inherent grandeur, just as Pavlova did. The English called her ‘little Pavlova’. She inherited a little make up table with a mirror, which had seen Pavlova herself so many times. All that she put in her London flat later on.

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I visited her in London. But how did you join de Basil’s Ballets Russes? In 1937, I was dancing the closing night of the Markova-Dolin season. In the audience there were many people from de Basil’s Ballets Russes, and amongst them Dolin pointed out to me Massine and his wife. Markova wasn’t feeling well, and they had asked Vera Nemchinova to replace her. Dolin and I were dancing in Nijinska’s ballets – Les Biches and La bienaimée. The performance was a great success, and Dolin, with Nijinska’s permission, asked me to do an encore of the Trepak from The Nutcracker. After the performance a young man came round to see me; it was Zoritch and he gave me a note from Massine inviting me to call on him at 9 o’clock the next morning. I went and I saw Massine and I was immediately struck by his extraordinary face and huge dark eyes. Massine said: ‘You will be the premier danseur in the new company which I am organising.’ He gave me the contract and I signed it, not even thinking what the pay would be. Only later did I see that the contract was for four years! Meanwhile, Markova also wanted to join Massine, but he asked her what would happen to the Markova-Dolin Ballet. However, their company eventually folded and we got Markova. How did you manage to keep your English name whilst you were working for the Ballets Russes? When I joined the Ballets Russes the question came up because everyone there had Russian names. But by that time I had already managed to make a bit of a name for myself in the Markova-Dolin Company, and Massine said, ‘Let him keep the name Frederic Franklin’, and he added, ‘We are going to America and all those “-eiskys” and “-ovskys” won’t be needed any more.’ So I stayed Frederic Franklin. Only, in France, I had to be called ‘Frankline’, just like Dolin was called not Anton but Antoine. Alicia Markova also complained that almost nothing was left from her charming name Lilian Alicia Marks. From London we set off to Monte Carlo, where we rehearsed and then danced the premieres of Massine’s ballets: Seventh Symphony by Beethoven and Rouge et noir (Shostakovich’s First Symphony), scenery and costumes by Matisse, with their colour symbolism. We had started to rehearse the ballet in London. I remember before the premiere my name wasn’t on the bill. And Mr Massine said: ‘Don’t worry, Freddie, you’ll be

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there tomorrow.’ I had the second movement. There were Markova and Igor Youskevitch in the first movement, then me, then Marc Platoff did the third movement with Markova. It had a very strange synopsis. We didn’t quite understand what was going on. For example, in the programme it said ‘someone comes down from the hills’ – it was me. And I had no idea what it all meant. But even with all the absurdities, it was a lovely ballet. The décor was by Matisse, who came to rehearsals and there were pieces of tissue all over. Matisse helped sew the costumes himself. We got along very well. All these living legends weren’t big names at the time. I caught the end of the Diaghilev era. What else did you dance? Massine lost the rights to the ballets which he had choreographed for de Basil but, according to his contract, he had to stage five ballets a year, so he had to create new ones, come what may. Besides that, we danced all the old Massine repertoire, La Boutique fantasque, Le Beau Danube, Gaîté parisienne. After that, Massine put on Nobilissima visione (music by Hindemith and décor by Pavel Tchelitchew). Meanwhile, Lichine started producing ballets for de Basil. But later on, on the tours, we didn’t pay much attention to these rights. Did Tchelitchew come to the rehearsals? Yes, he used to come and oversee the décor. I remember he adjusted a costume on me. Hindemith also came. He sat at the piano himself. Nobilissima visione is a ballet about St Francis of Assisi. When I danced it in San Francisco it was my first great success with the Ballets Russes. With de Basil I danced 40 or 50 leading roles. In 1938, I first met Danilova, whom I had admired dancing long before, in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. On one of my first days with the company we both saw that we had a joint rehearsal of Gaîté parisienne. She looked me over from head to toe and said, ‘Tomorrow we will see.’ When I came to the rehearsal she said, ‘Young man, I know that Massine liked you. How old are you?’ And when she heard that I was just 23 (the gap between us was 13 years) she hummed and said that, when I was 30, ‘then we will talk’. But as soon as we were on stage, she was reassured that she could rely on me, although she used to say that I still had to learn.

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In the end, we had an excellent partnership and danced together for 20 years. Choura was a real lady, clever and elegant, and well connected. In her career there were difficult moments, especially when the three ‘baby ballerinas’ appeared in the Monte Carlo ballet. But she adjusted and danced longer than any of them! For me, she invented a Russian diminutive – ‘Freden’ka’ – saying that generally there was no such name as Fred in Russian. Once, when I was in London, Danilova called me on the phone: ‘Freden’ka, I’m coming to see you.’ She came in a big black hat and goggles. When she took them off I saw all these little stitches. I exclaimed, ‘Choura, what have you done?’ ‘Freden’ka, if I’m going to dance with you, I don’t want to look like your grandmother!’ Twenty years it gave her! She of all of them gave everything she had to the ballet. She went every day for a class. That was her life. We had a good partnership because of that. Others might surpass her in technique, others might do 32 fouettés – but she was an original! The public adored her – she only had to come onto the stage and the applause started. When I met her I was surprised that she was so short. And there was something mysterious about her origins. I remember stories that Danilov’s son was out hunting and saw a pretty girl, and somehow they got together, and there was Choura. And Danilov’s parents took the little girl into their home. Choura never mentioned her mother or father. It sounds very romantic. I also loved Tamara Geva. She was the one that started it with all the Broadway shows. Despite her split with Balanchine, she invited him to put on the Broadway musical On Your Toes. But they were always at daggers-drawn with Danilova. I also knew Vera Zorina from time immemorial. In fact, she was Brigitta Hartwig, Balanchine’s second wife – or third one, if you include Choura. There was Wendy Toye and I and Brigitta in the London show Ballerina with Anton Dolin and two English stars. One day we all went outside the stage door and there were Massine and Dolin fighting! It turned out Dolin had discovered Brigitta somewhere in Germany and had invited her to take part in a show, but Massine had seen her in a performance and had invited her to sign a contract with the Ballets Russes. Mr Dolin thought, ‘She’s mine’, but she went with Mr Massine. And what is

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more, she moved in with Massine and his wife. When they got back from America she had already changed her name from Hartwig to Zorina. We couldn’t believe our eyes: Eugenia Delarova (Massine’s second wife) was looking after Brigitta, cooking for her – and of course she fed her specially so that she would get fat. And after all that, Mr Balanchine married Zorina! Balanchine had a string of wives, as everyone knows. He would fall in love, get married, work with the new artist, make a marvellous dancer out of her, then another one would appear, and everything would start all over again. However, Balanchine always remained on good terms with his wives, with no bad words or fights. Working with Massine was fascinating. Always calm, he demonstrated what he wanted to achieve exactly. During the years I worked with him he staged almost all of his famous symphonic ballets. In 1938, after a season in Monte Carlo, we had another in Paris and then in London. When the war started, we barely got out of Europe; we sailed for 11 days to America. It was a very rough crossing. Massine tried to rehearse, but after he tried demonstrating a jump and landed on a completely different part of the deck, he gave up trying. We arrived in New York in the morning and were taken straight to the Metropolitan Opera House; we rehearsed all day and in the evening we danced Gaîté parisienne and scenes from Swan Lake. We hadn’t danced for three months, and for the last few weeks had not even trained. Before we went on stage they gave us some brandy to drink – otherwise I probably wouldn’t have been able to dance. All the same, we set a box office record for the Met. That was the beginning of our famous tour around 110 American cities. The life ‘on the rails’ – we didn’t fly – has been described many times; we lived in the train, slept in the train, came to the town at 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon, gave a performance, after the performance we rehearsed and at dawn we set off again. There was a carriage for the ballerinas and principals, and another for the corps de ballet, another one for the musicians, two sleeping carriages, a restaurant car and a carriage for the props. The dancers were of 17 different nationalities, and there were eight Russian mothers. During the war it was much more difficult to travel because transport was taken up with carrying the troops. But somehow the practical questions were always resolved and we never missed a performance because the train hadn’t appeared. In many towns people had never seen a ballet before, ‘Here come some strange people, going on stage in strange costumes, making strange movements!’

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All the same they gave us a very good reception, and you could say we introduced ballet to the whole of America. After that you went to South America? Yes, we couldn’t go back to Europe because of the war. We sailed for three weeks to Rio de Janeiro. From there we went to Buenos Aires, then São Paolo, then Montevideo and two other small towns, and you couldn’t say ballet wasn’t known there. Well, in North America our performances had sometimes taken place to a deathly silence on the part of the audience. We wondered if it was because the public didn’t like our ballet. We were told, ‘No, we like it very much, we simply didn’t want our clapping to stop you!’ In contrast to the de Basil company (at that time called the Original Ballet Russe), our company – the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo – was managed by Serge Denham, a banker by profession. In the beginning we never saw him. Only later did he begin to appear at the rehearsals. Did he really understand ballet? He had an excellent education, beautiful manners, and he had good connections in Paris. At first, Mr Blum ran the artistic side. He was a charming man with fine artistic sensibility and excellent taste. He understood ballet very well and gave good advice. But when we came back to Monte Carlo in 1939 he wasn’t there and after that we never saw him again… He perished in Auschwitz. Why did Massine leave the Ballets Russes? To be honest, Massine’s ballets of that time didn’t appeal to the audiences. There was Saratoga and Labyrinth about Theseus and Ariadne (set to the music of Schubert’s Seventh Symphony, with décor by Salvador Dalí) and Vienna, 1914. Moreover, Massine, with his car-caravan, chauffeurcook and his dog Smokey, demanding huge sums of money, came to be too expensive for the company. So, in 1942, when Massine staged Aleko at Ballet Theatre and revived La Boutique Fantasque, Denham used it as a pretext to cancel his contract. It was the end of the Massine era. The troupe was left without an artistic director. In order to revive the

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situation, they asked Agnes de Mille to stage the American ballet Rodeo. The Russians hated the cowboy dances as well as Agnes herself, who was a rather rude lady. Incidentally, she was a pupil of the Diaghilev dancer Feodor Kozloff. At all events, Rodeo had a stunning success in America, and the next year Agnes choreographed an even more famous musical on Broadway: Oklahoma! Our Marc Platoff, having abandoned his Russian name to become Marc Platt, starred in it and he later did the film version of it. In 1944, all of us – Danilova, I, and others from our company – also danced in the Broadway musical Song of Norway. Before that, Balanchine had staged Serenade and Le Baiser de la fée for our company in 1940. I was dancing the waltz in Serenade, and I got along very well with Mr Balanchine. Then one day Eglevsky fell ill and I was suddenly told, ‘Today you will dance Le Baiser de la fée with Danilova and Toumanova.’ I had never even rehearsed that ballet. And I danced it! And such stories happened to me with other ballets too. I was very close to Balanchine and one day I said to him, ‘You know, I am now 30 years old, and I need to move on.’ He sniffed in his usual way, and said: ‘You wait a little.’ Well, a little later they made me the maître de ballet, as they called it. George said a wonderful thing to me, ‘Now, Freddie, you will stand in front of a company and it will be like that for the rest of your life.’ And I was in charge of everything, and I was still the premier danseur, dancing with Danilova. I was still so young. I must say that when Balanchine staged Song of Norway he had had practically no opportunities to stage real ballets and he was delighted that Denham had invited him to join our troupe, to which he restored real glory when he staged Ballet Impérial, Danses concertantes and Mozartiana. But for us his style was unfamiliar – in the old Ballets Russes, attention was always paid to the design and the costumes in the Diaghilev tradition, but Balanchine wasn’t interested in this. We had got used to being on the stage as ‘someone’, but here I was nobody, it was just my body. One of the best of his ballets of that time was La Sonnambula (then known as Night Shadow). Balanchine staged it for us in 1946 without a libretto; it was created during the rehearsal process. The role of the Poet is one of the most interesting parts Balanchine created for a male dancer. The Baron was played by Michel Katcharov, who had transferred to us from the de Basil

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company, where he had been dancing in the corps de ballet. Then, when the company was reborn in 1954, he was taken on as the ballet master. Balanchine worked for three seasons with us but he didn’t receive an offer to direct the Ballets Russes, and he needed his own company. Therefore, when Lincoln Kirstein created Ballet Society (the troupe which later became the New York City Ballet) he was delighted to move there. You, of course, rehearsed with Fokine in the Ballets Russes? When Dolin was teaching Wendy Toye and me the pas de deux in Sylphides, he told us that this was the way Mr Fokine had taught him. But later on, when we were rehearsing Sylphides with Fokine himself, I noticed that he had changed his old choreography. Moreover, with Lucia Chase of the Ballet Theatre he asked for 1,000 dollars for the changes! There was a sequel to this. When Fokine died and Vera, his wife, was left alone, Lucia Chase asked her to come and look at the ballets to see if they were all right. The next day Vera came back and said: ‘I went home and I asked Misha’ (who, of course, was dead) ‘and I prayed, and Misha said that I must charge 1,000 dollars.’ But Fokine was an unusual, marvellous person. I danced in three of his ballets: Schéhérazade, Polovtsian Dances and Petrushka. We got along very well. He particularly liked that I could do tour en l’air just as well on the right side as on the left. Baronova said that he made her do the same. Exactly so. When we were just starting Bluebeard with Fokine, he said, ‘It is a very funny ballet; you will laugh.’ I had to laugh, but it wasn’t funny at all. All of these people were great originals. Irina Baronova went to Russia on one occasion. They asked her what she thought of the Mariinsky’s Petrushka. She told them straight out, ‘You know, if I were you, I would take Mr Fokine’s name off the programme.’ They also restaged Schéhérazade but it was pure Las Vegas. The costumes were simply monstrous. The Zobeide in the Mariinsky performance looked quite helpless and there was nobody to show her what Fokine actually intended. And can you imagine, they answered back just as frankly, ‘At the Mariinsky, we never even liked Fokine’. So why stage his ballets? Les Sylphides at the Mariinsky was like looking at a mirror with all the patterns going the

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wrong way. And that was done for a special Diaghilev evening. Diaghilev must have been spinning in his grave! Then they did the old Fokine version of the Firebird. It was lamentable. Now they dance Fokine like Balanchine. When Balanchine started in America he made everyone get their legs up high. But what suits his ballets doesn’t suit other ones. I don’t understand why they didn’t take the opportunity to invite someone who had worked with Fokine. They do that when they revive the Balanchine ballets, but in this case they found some ‘expert’ Americans. It only required a telephone call. Pierre Lacotte asked me to come and do Schéhérazade for the new Monte Carlo Ballet, and we did Petrushka at the Metropolitan Opera House last season. I danced the Charlatan – in the old days I danced the Moor with Danilova. But how Massine and Woizikowsky danced it! Woizikowsky was a very special dancer. What a performance he gave in Massine’s Le Tricorne! And in Polovtsian Dances! After the war he couldn’t get out of Poland. He could have done so much… I worked extensively with Nijinska, especially when I was dancing with the Markova-Dolin troupe. One day Dolin announced that Nijinska would come in September, and that we were to do two ballets with her, one of which was Les Biches. She arrived and came into the rehearsal room wearing a navy blue outfit, with a matching handbag, accompanied by her husband Nicholas Singaevsky. The first thing she said was, ‘English people can’t dance ballet, with just two exceptions – Markova and Dolin.’ In other words, from the very start we couldn’t do anything. I remember I was the understudy for Anton Dolin. We came to Les Biches and she pointed at me and said: ‘That’s not right.’ An argument started between Nijinska and Dolin – ‘pachimu [why]?’ In the end the ballet was marvellous, but very difficult, with many tours en l’air. However, then Nijinska took pity and even studied a solo part with me, the Trepak from The Nutcracker, which I had done as an encore at the performance after which Massine had invited me to join the Ballets Russes. After two hours, two pairs of ballet shoes had gone – they’d been worn out. When the class was over, she went up to the pianist, Mrs Fox, who was a Russian lady, and spoke Russian to her. When Nijinska left, Mrs Fox said, ‘Freddie, you want to know what Madame Nijinska says?’ ‘Well, yes.’ ‘Madame Nijinska says, “Now you are a Russian boy.”’

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After that, Nijinska and I got along very well. I danced in three of her ballets. Many people complained about her, but I didn’t find her difficult. It’s true she sometimes lost her temper with some of the dancers and Mr Singaevsky, her husband, who translated her caustic remarks, always tried to smooth things over. But in my case that was never needed. Once, I visited her house in California. Her son-in-law lives there, her daughter Irina’s widower. He makes films about her and maintains her huge archive. I knew Irina very well too. She was not very strong as a dancer but she knew her mother’s ballets very well and could revive them. What about her uncle’s ballets? Neither Irina nor her mother ever mentioned the name Vaclav Nijinsky – there was complete silence. It was taboo. It’s understandable. I knew Kira Nijinska, Vaclav’s daughter, also an absolutely incredible phenomenon! She went to dance with Cochran. Knowing that she was Nijinsky’s daughter, they immediately made her dance none other than Le Spectre de la rose. Moreover, she was a generously-built lady. There was only one performance, after which they said ‘Bolshoe spasibo [Thank you very much]’. Essentially, she never knew her father. It’s a sad story. I also know Massine’s children well, especially Irina, but she never speaks about her father. Lorca is a sweet man, although there is very little of his father in him either. Which other Russian choreographers did you work with? We did not work exclusively with Russian choreographers. For example, there was Agnes de Mille or Ruth Page, a fine choreographer who, when she was a child, was noticed by Pavlova, and who danced with her and with the Diaghilev Ballet, and then created her own company in Chicago. I also choreographed a ballet, without any plot, for six dancers called Tribute to César Franck’s Symphonic Variations – it was my best work.

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Of course, at the beginning there was Lifar, who was involved with us for the first three years. When I joined the Ballets Russes there were four leading ballerinas: Markova, Danilova, Toumanova and Slavenska. The three leading choreographers were Balanchine, Massine and Lifar. Moreover, Massine and Lifar also danced themselves. In 1938, when Lifar came with us to America, he danced with us in Giselle and in the second act of Swan Lake. His repertoire was not very varied and it seemed to me that in America he was lucky because he was already a big name. As a matter of fact, before the war he did not play such an important role at the Paris Opera as afterwards. Massine didn’t like having Lifar there. There was even nearly a duel between them in Central Park, but luckily it didn’t happen. That means there were duels even at that time. There was later a duel between Lifar and de Cuevas! He loved the publicity! Dolin was absolutely the same; he adored having his name in the papers. During those tours Lifar began to stage Icare. So Mr Massine said we had to have a rehearsal of Icare and suddenly I came to a stop and Massine said, ‘Freddie, why did you stop?’ ‘But I don’t know any more!’ Massine exclaimed, ‘What!’ And Rachel, the pianist, said, ‘That’s all he taught Freddie.’ It turned out that Lifar had set sail for Europe that very morning, and so Icare never took off. It was only much later the ballet entered the repertoire. Do you consider that the spirit of Diaghilev lived on in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo? Absolutely. After all, besides Balanchine and Massine, Boris Kochno and the artist Christian Bérard continued to work with us – they had all worked with Diaghilev. Bérard showed great attention to detail, his eye was phenomenal. He used to work with the choreographers exactly as he had done in Diaghilev’s day. And the family atmosphere in the Ballets Russes described by Baronova? As I said, there were dancers of 17 different nationalities with a preponderance of Russians, of course. The main language for the Russians

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was Russian, and for the rest it was bad French. Essentially, we were a friendly family; we got along very well. Of course, there was friction – that’s unavoidable when you are together all the time, from morning to night. But our quarrels and reconciliations also had a family character. I can honestly say that I was very lucky. I got on with all the choreographers and I had a very wide repertoire, from Giselle to Le Tricorne. Massine created his very own style which I tried to master, and I always looked for something new. Essentially, it was contemporary ballet that was built on classical technique. Balanchine said ‘Ballet is woman’ but Massine strengthened the male dance in ballet. Besides the dance itself and everything connected with it – the classes, the rehearsals – that all gave me pure happiness. As for Balanchine – he played a very big part in my life. It is thanks to him, as I said before, that I became not only premier danseur but also the ballet master for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and continued for many years. But our relationship became closer after I had stopped dancing, when he went on helping me. It’s a funny thing – Balanchine never spoke about his family, about his mother or his father. The troupe only discovered after their tour in Georgia that his brother was living there and was a composer. Someone asked him about his brother. George said, ‘Oh, he’s a very nice man but I would never use his music.’ Once when the Bolshoi came to America, I’ll never forget, there was Danilova and Balanchine and Grigorovich, and they were arguing. Then Balanchine told me (he had just seen The Fountain of Bakhchisarai): ‘How can they bring such garbage? They are 20 years behind the times! We can’t see the legs!’ And Hurok said the same. At the end of the 1950s, all that seemed a completely different reality. You could even immediately identify these artists on the street. By the way, they got a better reception in England than in America, where Balanchine had talked about them so contemptuously. But then they came back again and they came back again, and we dancers, after first thinking it was all acrobatic, little by little began, for some reason, to see things in a different way, and it had an impact. There was also another story. Once, the Bolshoi was showing the second act of Swan Lake and Maya Plisetskaya was dancing. Balanchine and I were sitting in the front row of the Metropolitan Opera House. When Plisetskaya came on, Balanchine whispered in my ear,

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‘Honestly, Freddie, it’s a man!’ The ballerina was excellent, but she wasn’t at all to his taste. We also noticed that they never did the 32 fouettés in the third act – even Ulanova. But even when they did do them, it was terrible – bam, bam… By the way, the technique has changed since then, but a little bit of the artistic element has gone. With the Mariinsky, of course, everything was different. We saw the real Russian classical school. At Varna, I also met Natasha Makarova. Then, when the Kirov came to London on a tour, Dolin, whose pas de deux was still being danced, arranged an evening at his house. Wendy and I went too. I noticed that Natasha Makarova was very unhappy about something and was rushing to leave. But Dudinskaya said something in Russian to her, and she stayed. When Wendy and I were going, I said to her, ‘You know, Wendy, I think Natasha is about to do something.’ And exactly three days later there was an article in the papers that Natasha had defected to the West. Then when we became close friends (and even both godparents of Ivan Nagy’s child), I told her about my suspicions. I remember she said, ‘You saw for yourself I didn’t even have the right to leave the party!’ Now we are great friends. Did you ever work with Igor Shvetsov? Shvetsov was an excellent teacher. He staged The Red Poppy for the Ballets Russes. And was that Soviet propaganda ballet successful? And how! On the wave of Allied feeling; both countries were fighting the Germans. I danced the Soviet sailor. Shvetsov had the décor and score, which made things easier. He’d escaped Russia, only to stage that rubbish! Do you know his memoirs entitled Borzoi [Greyhound], in which he described how he ran away in his ballet shoes from Russia through China? He did like Russian greyhounds. He had two, and in his version of Giselle, Herzog the Duke came on stage with them. Please tell me about the last years of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

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I will have to digress here. The Ballet Russe owed its success before the war to the fact that nobody in America or Europe had seen such productions or such ballet dancers before. But with its influence, huge progress was made in the West, and by the 1950s the Russian ballet no longer meant so much. There was the Balanchine New York City Ballet with its clearly expressed identity; there was ABT, which was constantly inviting European dancers and choreographers. The dancers were leaving the Ballet Russe; new, less experienced ones, came and it was quite different. In 1952, the company simply stopped performing, and Mia Slavenska – a great dancer – and I founded our own company. Our most famous production was A Streetcar Named Desire, based on Tennessee Williams’ play. Please tell me a little about Mia Slavenska. I never met her. Not only was she a great dancer but she was also a very intelligent lady. Wherever she went it was like a bomb exploding. She was a mixture of Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. I don’t know with whom Slavenska studied with in Zagreb, but her technique (which she perfected with the Russian teachers in Paris) was magnificent. In Zagreb she received a Russian classical ballet education from the former ballerina of the Bolshoi Theatre and a Diaghilev dancer, Margarita Froman, who was the founder of the Yugoslav ballet. Later she studied in Vienna, and then, as you say, she trained with the Russian teachers in Paris. She also studied with Nijinska. After three years, our company folded because the administration was useless. We lost all our money and I had to start all over again. Denham’s Ballet Russe had also closed by that time, but he asked me to assemble another ballet company. I did that and revived 10 or 12 ballets there, among others Schéhérazade, the second act of Swan Lake, Gaîté parisienne and Le Beau Danube. Everyone mentions your incredible memory for choreography. We haven’t dwelt on your very fruitful activity in the United States after the Ballet Russe folded completely.

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My memory is my greatest fortune. I revived ballets not only for the Ballet Russe but also for American theatres – the complete Coppélia, ballets by Fokine and Balanchine – Sonnambula and Mozartiana. What was the finale of the Ballet Russe? It is a great pity that Mr Denham turned into Mr Diaghilev without being him. After Balanchine left he didn’t ask anybody else to come and be artistic director. When I assembled the troupe again it was always: Mr Denham says this, Mr Denham says that, Mr Denham chose suchand-such music. Another trouble (and here you have to say ‘cherchez la femme’) was Nina Novak, a lady with huge ambitions, who wanted to be a classical dancer although she was a character one. Denham was in love with her and conceived the idea that he was going to make her into a great dancer at the expense of the others who really were. So Danilova, Krassovska and Slavenska all left. The standards fell. New ballets were hardly performed at all; the repertoire became monotonous, the costumes and décor stayed the same. I remember once, in Schéhérazade, I landed, after a jump, on a cushion – there was a cloud of dust! The papers started to write about the fading glory of the Ballet Russe. Denham’s patrons began turning away from him. In order to save money, he started to do unimaginable things. I remember, in 1945, they asked Danilova to dance. The performance was long, the first piece was Giselle. In the interval the stage manager came up to me, ‘Don’t tell anyone, but the curtains for Gaîté parisienne are going to come down after the can-can because otherwise the orchestra will have to be paid overtime.’ And so, in the middle of the ballet, when the dancers fall one by one to the floor doing the splits – boom – curtain! Choura didn’t know what was going on. I said to her, ‘That’s the way it is.’ ‘Where’s Denham?’ But Denham and Novak had vanished. Scandal! The next day the papers read: ‘Madame Danilova’s misery.’ But we were still loved throughout America. The ballets continued as before, selling out, but no ballet company can survive just on the box office. When, on 14 April 1962 (it was the 25th season), we performed at the Brooklyn Dance Academy, no one thought it was the final curtain. All good things come to an end. It was just a pity that this story had such a sad finale. I am going to be 93 next year. Three years ago I had a heart operation – but I’m fine. As Choura used to say, ‘I have to have

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repairs.’ It’s amazing: I saw them all! I saw Diaghilev when I was young – I caught the end of the Diaghilev era. I was too young to dance for his company, but thanks to the old guard I felt I belonged to his world. Four people – Markova, Danilova, Dolin and Massine – I had close relations with them all. That was the thread directly from the Diaghilev Ballet. They were the ones who influenced my formative years as an artist. When I met Anton Dolin, I was only 18 years old. All of those extraordinary people played a part in my development, and to this day I am closely involved with them and with their ballet descendants. Later I knew Nemchinova, Zvereff and Oboukhoff. Vilzak and Schollar, Felia Doubrovska – they were all Diaghilev dancers. And, of course, Balanchine. So I lived my whole life in the Ballets Russes environment. You know, I still go on stage at ABT as the Charlatan in Petrushka, and in Swan Lake I am the Prince’s Tutor.

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• Nini Theilade I want a childish-looking Venus! Oure, Denmark, 2006

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he danish dancer Nini Theilade, 99th descendant of an Indian Maharaja (to whom she owes her name: Nini means 99) was 92 years old and one of the last people I spoke to when preparing this book. Today, aged 100, she is still teaching at the dance department of Oure Academy of Arts. She is almost the only Ballets Russes ballerina to have worked in contemporary dance as well as classical. I believe you were born in Indonesia? My father was Danish. He went to Java to work as an engineer in a sugar factory. He met my mother there, who had come to Java from Holland to see her sister, who happened to be married to the director of the factory. She, herself, wasn’t Dutch – she had Polish, German, French and Indian blood, but she had studied in Holland. We lived in Java until I was ten years old. My mother tongue is Dutch; I learnt Danish much later on. When my mother was young she was a great admirer of Isadora Duncan and wanted to study with her, but it was too late; Isadora only accepted children, and my mother, by that time, had already finished school. She went to Switzerland, joined the Dalcroze school, and after four years she got a diploma. When I was just old enough, my mother opened a school for the children of the Dutch and Norwegians living in

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Java. She taught them the Dalcroze system, and I studied with them. This was how I fell in love, if not with ballet, then with movement. When I was ten years old I contracted malaria, and the doctors advised that I should be taken away from the tropics – it was a matter of life or death. Once I had recovered, I studied for a year in an ordinary school but every week a ballet teacher, Asta Mollerup, visited and she worked with whoever wanted to learn, including me. At the end of a year she told my mother that I had talent and should continue taking classes at her private school. I studied classical dance there for another two years. The ballet master of the Danish Royal Opera was present at one of our performances and he said that to become a professional ballerina I must find a teacher in Paris. We went to Paris and approached Madame Egorova, but she said that she wasn’t taking children and advised us to go to her former teacher, Nadya Bryusova. In the second half of the 1920s, when Egorova had just opened her studio, she was only working with the professionals. Later, she worked with younger people. But Bryusova turned out to be a superlative teacher. Just imagine, I trained with her twice a day. That went on for three and a half years. Amusingly, when I again presented myself to Egorova, she praised me not at all, but congratulated Nadya. Egorova allowed me to attend her classes and, although she put me at the back, it was fascinating because Massine, Lifar, Danilova and many other stars came to train with her. Of course, I didn’t know them at the time, but I tried to imitate what they were doing. When I was 14 years old, a German impresario heard people talking about me as ‘an extraordinary child’. After coming to see me dance, he offered me a contract as a solo performer. It was very hard. I performed every day for three years. I usually staged the dance myself. Once, I had the good fortune to dance in Stockholm, where I received exceptionally favourable reviews from the critics and was noticed by the well-known German director Max Reinhardt. He came to see me dancing and after the performance he came back stage and invited me to join his troupe. As I was told later, he said: ‘I don’t understand anything about ballet or dance, but this girl is an artist.’ I danced in his Tales of Hoffmann as a soloist with only eight other dancers. Then I danced in the ballet scenes of his Belle Hélène, choreographed by Nijinska and Dolin.

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In 1935 in Hollywood, I danced Titania in Reinhardt’s film Midsummer Night’s Dream (again, I invented the dances myself) and before that I took part in his London show. I continued my solo performances in America, touring the whole country. I returned to Denmark, still very young, in 1936, and staged Psyche set to music by César Franck at the Danish Royal Opera. The ballet was so successful that I was honoured by the King. You are credited with bringing ‘symphonic ballet’ to Denmark. After two years there, I choreographed Orbits to Tchaikovsky’s music. Meanwhile, my mother had received a telegram from Massine, inviting me to join his company. That was in 1938, the time which one could call the Denham period. Massine had never even seen me, just read about me, heard talk of me, watched the film which I made with Reinhardt. As for me, I had always tried to see the Ballets Russes performances with Toumanova and Baronova, my idols. So I joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo; no one asked any questions – all I had to do was to dance. As for how I joined them in America: everything was on a war footing and when my father and I got to New York on a Swedish ship, the immigration officials looked at my passport and were suspicious of my having been in America many times before. They wouldn’t let me onshore but sent me to Ellis Island. And who do you think was the first person I saw there? In the huge hall where they were giving out food was Igor Shvetsov, holding a chair behind his back and doing battements. Of course, I went up to him and asked if we could train together, and so we did. The only worry was my father, who could have gone ashore but had stayed behind so as not to leave me alone. How many unfortunate people were gathered there! Finally, I was called for an interview and all these policemen were asking me questions. I said I had a contract; they could contact Sol Hurok and he would confirm that the troupe, directed by Massine, was expecting me. They were not in the least bit interested and kept on asking me why I had come to America so often. I tried to explain that I was a dancer. That didn’t work either. Then I said: ‘Listen, I wasn’t allowed to bring my luggage with me – my suitcase is in some cellar of yours. Let me get my suitcase, and show my diary to you – it has a day-by-day account of what I did when I came to the United States.’ They sent for the diary and

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I began to read out everything in detail. In the end, I bored them so much that they let me go on shore. They also released Shvetsov. I had two ‘ballet mothers’ in the Ballet Russe: Markova and Danilova. They were always fighting over me; if one showed me how to make my hands one way, the other showed me another way. They were very different characters – Danilova tried to help everyone, and when conflicts arose (not rare in ballet) she tried to reconcile everyone, but Markova behaved like a star. So my real second mother was Danilova. She was exceptionally kind, helping me and working with me. After all, I had never danced in a large ballet company before. She introduced me to all the classical ballets, to Les Sylphides, Carnaval, Le Spectre de la rose. Of course it helped that, besides the Danish classical tradition, I was trained in the Russian one, so I didn’t find it difficult entering into the Ballets Russes style. Amazingly, Massine did not show any interest in classical ballet. He never watched the performances, nor did he go to the rehearsals. He immediately noticed that I was a dancer who could do modern dance, and he started choosing me for his ballets: in Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, in Le Rouge et le noir or L’Etrange Farandole to the music of Shostakovitch’s First Symphony and then in Bacchanale, after Wagner and Nobilissima visione by Hindemith. Incidentally, it was Salvador Dalí who chose the dancers for Bacchanale and who also wrote the libretto. For a long time he couldn’t find anyone for the part of Venus. I was the least suited for the part, being so young, but he chose me. Massine tried to object, ‘Maître, Maître, how can she be Venus?’ But Dalí wouldn’t budge, ‘I want a childish-looking Venus!’ I read that the ballet gave rise to a small scandal: you were in a bathing suit, with loose fair hair, and appeared like Botticelli’s Venus on a shell, whilst the men wore leotards with large red lobsters attached to them. You danced in a flesh-coloured costume, which created a furore. Imagine how that surrealism looked in the backwoods of America where they were seeing ballet for the first time! Before that, in New York, the following happened. In this ballet there is an erotic scene when I appear from inside a huge swan. Just before that scene, Mia Slavenska was chatting in the wings with the Yugoslav Consul. The Consul kissed her hand, put on his hat and, thinking that he was still backstage, walked straight onto the boards. Just at that moment I emerged from the swan and

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looked at him in horror; he looked back at me with horror, took off his hat and said, ‘How do you do, Madame?’ The audience whistled, stamped their feet, and Massine afterwards said, ‘What a pity I didn’t think of such a scene before!’ Danilova paid special attention to you, but all the same, how did you, a Dane, feel amongst all those Russians? The troupe was very big, composed of dancers of many different nationalities. The core was Russian, but there were many Americans, there was a Swedish girl, another Dane, a few Poles… I felt absolutely fine with them all. I shared a dressing room with Krassovska. She was so naïve! You could tell her all kinds of terrible things, she would believe anything, go and tell others, and everyone teased her. The mothers came with us: Slavenska’s mother was known as ‘Mamma Mia’, because Slavenska was called Mia, and my mother was ‘Mamma Nini’. And Mamma Toumanova? We won’t speak about her. What a horror! Shall I tell you a shocking story? In Washington, there was a great buzz about Toumanova dancing Giselle. But then Tamara fell ill – she was all swollen and looked unrecognisable. At the last moment she had to be replaced by Alicia Markova, who danced with Lifar. After the first act, when Markova came into her dressing room to change, it turned out that the Giselle Wilis costume had been cut into tiny shreds. We never knew who did it, but I am sure that it was Mamma Toumanova. Besides the fact that it was repugnant, it was stupid as well – her daughter was ill! Mother, it seems, was in a fury that, instead of her Tamarochka, Alicia was going to dance in Washington – after all, Washington meant something. What did Alicia go on stage in? That was the snag! Alicia was so thin that practically no one else’s costume would fit her. Luckily there was an American girl in the corps de ballet who was just as thin. She had already performed one of the Wilis that evening, and she was dressed and made up. She was standing in the wings when suddenly our director raced up to her and shouted:

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‘Dorothy, get changed’. She protested but he literally pulled the costume off her – she was left almost naked. But all the same, despite all the intrigues, which no ballet troupe in the world can avoid, I had marvellous years in the company. I left the Ballet Russe in Rio de Janeiro. With the outbreak of war, the company went to America, from there by ship to Rio, then to Montevideo and Buenos Aires. The de Basil troupe was also touring South America at the same time but we never overlapped. Stefan Zweig, who had escaped from Germany with his wife, was staying at the same hotel as I was in Rio. Many people came to see him, but Zweig was in a profound depression; he didn’t believe that Russia or the Allies would defeat Hitler and, as you know, both he and his wife committed suicide. In Brazil, I met my first husband. He was Dutch and he was in Rio for business. When Massine heard about my marriage he was very angry – I’d never seen him in such a rage. He shouted that now I would stay in Brazil and that ballet was over for me. I told him there was nothing doing, and anyway my contract was coming to an end. But it felt very bitter when the troupe left and I stayed behind. In Brazil, I put on various dances for Tanyia Leskova. I worked at the Opera, and then, for the first time in my life, I started teaching. I opened a tiny school. At first I had only three pupils, then I got six or seven and I was very pleased. I remembered the way Nadya Bryusova and Egorova had taught me. After several years, my husband and I, our little daughter and a Brazilian nanny moved to Portugal because of my husband’s work. We stayed there for 16 years in Estoril, and for a long time I didn’t dance at all. I gave birth to a son, but when he was ten years old I separated from my husband and decided it was time to return to Denmark once and for all. There, I created ballets for the Danish Royal Opera, in particular one set to Schumann’s Piano Concerto for a ballerina and six soloists – I think that was my best choreographic work. Later on I revived the ballet Orbits set to Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony. In 1969, I opened a big ballet school in Thurø, Svendborg. Dancers of all nationalities studied there, including Americans and, especially, Japanese. But the time came when the owner of the building decided she wanted to build a children’s nursery there. My second husband, a Dane to his very bones, announced that if such a thing were allowed in his country, then he would leave Denmark forever. And we actually did leave for France, and many students followed me.

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In Lyon, I opened the Académie de Ballet Nini Theilade, which exists to this day. But when my husband died I realised that I couldn’t stay there alone. I sold the school to one of my three assistants, the one who taught classical dance, Marie Daniel. I love to teach but I think that times have changed; it is difficult to teach warmth to young dancers, they are more interested in how many pirouettes they can do than in the soul of dance. How can one convey to them what’s most important, what we are born with, what was taught to us and never left us, what we danced for? So I returned to Denmark. Now I am 92 years old, and I am still teaching.

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• Hélène Traïline Prince, would you bring me a glass of water? Paris, 2005

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f the many interesting stories told by Hélène Traïline, Boris Traïline’s sister, one in particular stands out, which I have heard from noone else (the other participants in this story are no longer alive to tell the tale). It was about the citizens’ punishment of Serge Lifar by members of the French Resistance. Please tell me about your family. Did they emigrate from Russia? Yes, with what is called the first wave of emigration. My father was a Don Cossack, a colonel; my mother was born in Moscow. After the Revolution, my parents found themselves in Greece, where my brother was born, and then they moved to Bulgaria. But my mother didn’t want to stay there, and she was right. At that time her family was in the South of France, and of course she wanted to join them. My parents arrived in France when my brother was five years old. I was born in a small village near Metz. Fairly soon, my mother managed to track down her relations, and our family moved to Cannes. My mother loved ballet, and in Cannes there was a marvellous ballet teacher: Julia Sedova. She was a well-known ballerina who had graduated at the same time as Egorova and they both danced for a long time at the Mariinsky.

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My brother and I started to learn ballet with Sedova’s daughter, Princess Ouroussova, and then with Julia Nikolaevna herself. She was very strict and demanding. She was tall, imposing, and she walked with her head very high. And of course we were all frightened of her. But, in fact, she was an exceptionally kind woman and helped Russian émigrés, teaching several pupils for free – including us. She used to tell us about Cecchetti – how they had worked, how they used to attach irons to their feet in order to strengthen the legs. She was continually going between Cannes and Menton and also she had a school in Nice. We put on shows quite often. My first performance was in The Little Humpbacked Horse. Sedova taught us the pas and variations from Petipa’s repertoire. I remember Mathilde Kshessinska once came and gave us a class. I studied with Sedova for five years, and then the war started and my mother decided to move to Paris. And there I studied with Egorova. During the war, many people tried to leave for the South of France, but your family went the other way, to Paris. Why was that? My mother was so frightened. She thought that there would be an invasion from the sea. The invasion did happen but it was not as terrible as in the North. However, my mother decided to take the family to Paris because one could sit out the air raids in the metro. For that reason, we moved to Montmartre: the Abbesses metro station was considered to be the deepest one. Could you say something about Egorova? I studied with her when she was already quite old and used to teach sitting on a chair. Sometimes the Prince Nikita Trubetskoy came in and she would say to him: ‘Prince, would you bring me a glass of water?’ I stayed with Egorova for a year and a half. It was a very difficult time with the war and air raids. I have to say that Egorova was not as strict as Sedova, who had been telling us how Cecchetti had worked with them, how they had to attach irons to their shoes to make the legs stronger. Egorova seemed simpler, although at moments one had an inkling of what an extraordinary person and beautiful ballerina she was. When after the war we returned to the Côte d’Azur, I joined the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo. The two ballet masters were Gustave

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Ricaux from the Paris Opera and Nicholas Zvereff. Of course, Zvereff was an exceptionally interesting Diaghilev dancer, whilst Ricaux was a pupil of Cecchetti – he gave marvellous classes. He revived Coppélia, whilst Zvereff worked on the Fokine ballets, including Polovtsian Dances and Schéhérazade. Tell me about Zvereff, please. I was barely 15 years old when I worked with him. I simply danced his ballets and listened to what he said and did what he asked. I wasn’t very interested in Diaghilev until much later, when we were reviving the Ballets Russes’ repertoire in Nancy, and when Nureyev joined us he danced in Le Spectre de la rose, L’Après-midi d’un faune and Petrushka. Was Lifar working there at the time? Lifar came soon afterwards and, with him, his dancers, all stars: Chauviré, Jeanmaire, Charrat and Olga Adabache. Very little is known about Adabache. History has forgotten her. Adabache reminded me of a boy and of a snake at the same time. There was something distinctly abnormal about her. But she was an interesting dancer. Lifar staged Salomé for her. She danced the Witch with my brother in Lifar’s ballet A Night on the Bare Mountain. As a character dancer, Adabache was a divine Carabosse in Sleeping Beauty, but she couldn’t dance the classical parts, the choreography had to be done specially for her. Then she married an aristocrat and led a slightly dissipated life. A strange family – her mother was a member of the Communist party. There was also Skouratoff, whom everybody loved. The point was that, by then, the atmosphere in the ballet world had changed enormously. There was a dancer at the Paris Opera called Michel Renault who told me: ‘In my time, when the old étoiles used to come to the theatre, the young dancers treated them with great respect. But when I recently happened to be there they pushed and shoved in front of me at the canteen.’ No manners.

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As for Lifar, he, of course, staged revivals of his old ballets, but he also choreographed new ones, like that splendid Dramma per musica set to music by Bach, with décor by Cassandre. When Lifar returned to the Opera, he had to recreate this ballet from memory; unlike Massine he was not keen on recording his ballets on film. Before that, Lifar had an immense success in Monte Carlo. People gave standing ovations at the end of the performances. He also choreographed Shota Rustaveli. Oukhtomsky told me he had noticed that Lifar surrounded himself with Georgians for protection, having received death threats from the Communists for collaborating during the war when he was the director of the Paris Opera, from which he had been expelled. There were Georgians, it’s true; they taught us to dance the lezghinka, a Georgian national dance, which we needed for Shota Rustaveli, a ballet based on the story of their national epic poet. But I will tell you a story. We had an impresario called Eugene Grünberg, who brought Lifar to Monte Carlo. When Lifar left Monte Carlo and was going back to the Paris Opera, Grünberg organised a performance in Lyon at which Lifar was to dance the second act of Giselle with Lycette Darsonval. Grünberg, whom I already knew from the Monte Carlo time, telephoned me and said: ‘Lifar wants you to revive the ballet and dance the Queen of the Wilis’. I set off for Lyon and we did the ballet. Then we were meant to repeat some excerpts without the corps de ballet in Saint-Étienne. But meanwhile Lifar had received a threatening letter: ‘Don’t come to Saint-Étienne,’ signed by the Resistance fighters. Lifar said that all of that was ridiculous, and we would go there anyway. After the performance, we had dinner in a restaurant and got into the cars. The police escorted us as far as the suburbs and we drove on alone. Suddenly, after a bend in the road, we saw some cars with dimmed headlights. Around us appeared some frightening figures with guns. It was all like a film. We were stopped – my heart sank. They opened the car doors: ‘Where is Lifar?’ And in the car were Darsonval, Max Bozzoni, Lifar and me. ‘Follow us!’ Well, I thought, now they are going to shoot us. One of their people got in instead of our chauffeur and we drove for a long time, circling around some roads. Obviously, the partisans just

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wanted to frighten him. It was 1948 and it was no longer possible to get away with killing someone as it had been after the war. After taking us around for three hours, they stopped the cavalcade in front of a monument to the Resistance fighters. Lifar was made to kneel down in front of it and they took a photograph of him. We didn’t get back to Lyon until 6 o’clock in the morning. Of course, the whole thing was perfectly absurd. But what was remarkable was that he wasn’t afraid of the warning. There is nobody left to tell this story. Bozzoni and Darsonval have died. I am the only one still here. Was Shota Rustaveli a success? It was a very long ballet. It was only partially successful and Lifar never revived it. Lifar loved me, and when I joined the troupe he made me prima ballerina. When I was young I had thought that I would get nowhere. And, all of a sudden, my brother announced: ‘Have you heard the news? Lifar has decided to make you prima ballerina.’ Eventually, Lifar returned to the Paris Opera, and our troupe merged with de Cuevas’ company, who brought Skibine, Eglevsky, Hightower and Tallchief with him from America. I danced with that new company for less than a year. Bronislava Nijinska was there too and I was able to work with her when she restaged Les Biches, a very beautiful Diaghilev ballet, but possibly incomprehensible to a contemporary audience. Later, we staged a revival in Nancy. Nijinska also choreographed Pictures from an Exhibition by Mussorgsky. Working with her was hard. But when she was alone with someone, she was completely different. When I met her outside rehearsals, she talked to me so kindly. Besides that, she had a hearing aid that she would switch off when she didn’t want to continue the conversation. Oukhtomsky told me that he got along with her very well because he himself had a deaf grandmother. Did he shout in her ear? That was also not recommended, apparently, because she would say: ‘I’m not deaf!’ It seems you didn’t get on with de Cuevas?

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When I was young, I was quite plump. I found it impossible to lose weight and that made me very distressed, although I danced well. Skibine would often say: ‘Hélène, get thinner and I will give you a part.’ But it never happened, and I decided to give up dancing and leave the troupe. I went to the South of France, to my mother and father. But my love of dance prevailed; I improved my physique and went to Paris where I joined the Ballets des Champs-Élysées – my good friend Marika Besobrasova was the ballet master there. I learnt the parts and danced in the Roland Petit ballets Les Forains to music by Henri Sauguet and Treize danses to music by Grétry. At that time, Roland was particularly famous for his ballet Le Jeune Homme et la Mort set to music by Bach, with a libretto by Kochno and, decor by Georges Wakhévitch. This ballet is done everywhere, even at the Mariinsky Theatre. Jean Babilée was undoubtedly striking in it, dancing with his wife Nathalie Philippart. At that time the whole world was talking about that ballet. And, later, all the dancers – Nureyev, Baryshnikov – wanted to do it. It would be interesting to hear what you have to say about Boris Kochno. When I met Kochno I was too young. But when Nureyev and I were arranging the last Ballets Russes memorial season at the Châtelet Theatre, Kochno came and gave advice. That was very shortly before he died. He was an amazing person. He and Lifar had both been close to Diaghilev, and the competition was fierce. How Lifar hated Dolin! As much as Dolin hated Lifar. As a matter of fact, Lifar had an outstanding gift for telling anecdotes. Of course, it was Diaghilev who had introduced him to the arts. Just two weeks ago I saw his Suite en blanc and Mirages at the Paris Opera. There are some lyrical passages, but there is too much fuss there. Lifar is a choreographer of details. So, in 1950, the Ballets des Champs-Élysées folded, I worked in Italy intermittently and then moved to Ballet Janine Charrat (later known as Ballet de France).

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Who was the choreographer? Charrat herself, but she was not a great choreographer and invited others: Balanchine, John Taras, Milko Sparemblek. I worked with her for nine years until this company also closed. I went to work with Béjart in Berlin, who had staged, at Charrat’s, the ballet Haut-voltage (set to Musique concrète by Marius Constant and Pierre Henri) especially for me and Miskovitch in 1956. So when one of his ballerinas left the troupe, he invited me to dance in Le Teck. It is a ballet about Marta Pan’s sculpture. Tell me please about the young Béjart. Although Béjart had a classical training, he quickly realised that he didn’t have the gifts of a classical dancer. He made a name not through classical ballet but by winning the audience over to his way of looking at things. He kept his bow-legs safely hidden. Later on I did more work with him in America, where he came to stage Tanit by Maurice Ohana. They also invited Nina Vyroubova from Europe. By the way, she was my son’s godmother (and Oukhtomsky was the godfather). Did they stage anything new when you were with the Ballet Russe? The Béjart ballet; but they also put on smaller works, and we danced the old ballets in the original costumes – imagine! The divine Sophie Pourmel, the mother of Ada Pourmel from the corps de ballet, was working there. She didn’t allow us to touch the costumes. If she saw you taking off your costume and throwing it on the chair, she was ready to beat you. However tired you were, we had to go and carefully hang the costume on the hanger. Later on Balanchine took her as the costumier for the New York City Ballet. Not much has been written about the last years of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. I understand that it was already in decline. In 1954, after a two-year break, Frederic Franklin reformed the company. He had been principal dancer for many years, but had already stopped dancing and was the ballet master for the two seasons I was there. But

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earlier Franklin had caught the most interesting period of the Ballets Russes. He often talks about it. He had seen the best years: the Massine-Danilova productions with the young dancers and ballerinas – Slavenska, Krassovska. I used to meet Tata Krassovska often, when she danced with the London Festival Ballet and performed in Paris. She used to dance with my brother. Then we saw one another several times in the South of France (her mother lived in Nice) and in America when she had switched to teaching. The money for the Russian Ballet was raised by Denham. I remember how in Florida, during my first season, he took me to dinner with the President of Morgan Bank, who was giving a subsidy to the ballet. I had a good relationship with Denham. He was a very kind man, and despite all the rumours I still think fondly of him, although not everyone found him sympathetic, but I’d rather keep quiet about that. The people who worked in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo before or during the war said that the company was like a family – almost everybody was Russian. I have to say that, for the two seasons I was there, everything seemed very Russian. Denham was Russian, the administrator, Subbotin, was Russian, the director, whose name I’ve now forgotten, was Russian. The pianist, Margarita Shapman, and Sophie Pourmel, the wardrobe mistress, were also from Russia. But there were almost no Russian dancers left; Danilova, Zoritch and Youskevitch were no longer dancing. Most of those who remained were Americans, Franklin was British, Nina Novak was Polish. She was a good dancer in the strict sense of the word, but not a great one. Denham was her protector, and gradually she started to play a major role. She took up all the rehearsals and she revived ballets that she didn’t know. Franklin cannot bear to hear Novak’s name, even now. Nor could any of the older dancers because she forced them out, slowly but surely. For Denham she was the best and, more than that, he couldn’t

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do without her. The beginning of her life in Poland at the time of the war was exceptionally hard. Yes, she spoke about it in our conversation. After the war she married an American soldier and thanks to that she went to America. She joined the Ballet Russe corps de ballet and then, having become close to Denham, she acted as the real boss. It was the beginning of the end of the Ballet Russe – and yet it had been a great, dazzling ensemble. By the way, it’s not quite true to say that she drove out all the good dancers. Things were more complicated. The company was in its death throes. It had fewer and fewer opportunities. The best dancers had left, aiming to join either the New York City Ballet or ABT, like Alicia Alonso and Nora Kaye. It was already time for the older dancers to retire, which they did naturally. But she was young, full of energy, projects and the desire to work. Then she remarried, to a diplomat, and went away with him to Venezuela, where she created a school of classical ballet. An amazing woman and, all that said, a true professional. The last performance of Denham’s Ballet Russe took place in Monte Carlo. My brother Boris knows all about that; he organised that last trip. I think at that time not all of the company went to the South of France. And it all ended with Denham’s dying by falling under a bus. He was in his 70s. After that you worked with various ballet companies, then you were the ballet director at the Ballet de Nancy, where you arranged so many interesting revivals of the Diaghilev Ballets Russes repertoire, some of which you have mentioned already, including Massine’s rarely staged Sacre du Printemps. And then you stayed for six years at the Paris Opera. At the Opera we introduced the ballets of MacMillan and Kylián, then there was an evening called Picasso et la danse. Robbins revived In the Night, Glass Pieces and some other shorter works. Irina Nijinska, Bronislava’s daughter, came and revived Le Train bleu to music by Milhaud, from the Diaghilev times.

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How did you find the atmosphere at the Opera? Everyone was always discontented; none of the artists ever had a nice word to say about the director, whether it was Dupond or Nureyev. Tell me about Nureyev. I met Rudolf in 1963. Then he went to England and we didn’t see each other for a long time until I was working at the Ballet de Nancy. In 1981, he took part in our Russian Ballet Night. We showed it first in Nancy, then at Châtelet in Paris, then at the Coliseum in London. Massine’s La Boutique fantasque, then Fokine’s and Nijinsky’s ballets, in which, as I said, Rudolf danced, were in the programme. I never had any difficulties with Rudolf but he was often very rude to people. He could be politeness itself but he might equally be on the point of slapping someone in the face, throwing chairs or smashing thermos flasks filled with tea. It’s true I never saw anything of the sort, I only heard about it. He was always very sweet with me. I was still at the Paris Opera when he staged his last ballet, the Bayadère, and I gave him all my help. I have the first night’s programme, which he inscribed: ‘Thank you for La Bayadère.’ During Nureyev’s time at the Paris Opera there were constant arguments and even strikes. But when he was dying and Bayadère was being performed, everyone was in tears. I loved him very much. I went to visit him in hospital every day, until the last.

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• Nina Novak For me, to work on stage is the same as living and breathing Caracas, 2005

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lthough in the ballet world Nina Novak spread controversy, Hélène Traïline and Miguel Terekhov praise her energy and her professionalism; therefore, I was particularly happy to have Nina Novak speak for herself. I managed to track her down in Venezuela, where she had founded a ballet school and a classical ballet troupe, which she directs to this day. You speak excellent Russian! Is that from childhood? No, I only learnt to speak Russian when I joined the Ballets Russes. And then my second husband was Russian. How did you begin dancing? My family lived in Warsaw. The teachers there noticed that I had a talent for ballet. When I was eight years old I joined the ballet school associated with the Warsaw Opera. I know that you studied with Woizikowsky. Yes, with him and with Bronislava Nijinska. At the beginning of 1939, a Polish Ballet Company was created and Bronislava Nijinska came from

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Paris to be its director and the choreographer. I was among those selected from the school. We went to London, where we performed at Covent Garden, and also to Paris. Later the same year, Léon Woizikowsky came from Paris accompanied by his second wife Raievska and by Sonia, his daughter. He directed the company when we went to the New York World’s Fair. Just before World War II started we returned to Poland, as did Léon Woizikowsky and Raievska, but Sonia stayed with her mother in New York, whilst Nijinska had left Warsaw just a month before the war started. Later on, when I was living in America, I took classes with Nijinska occasionally, as she lived in California. She taught me Giselle and the solo part in Polovtsian Dances, which we performed at the Metropolitan Opera. Her classes were very hard, she was very persistent but she gave important demonstrations, and Nijinska’s husband always toned down her remarks. For example, she would say, ‘You dance like an elephant.’ But he would translate, ‘Madame says your dance is not as lightweight as it could be’. It was very funny. Did you know that her and Vaclav’s parents were Polish circus artists who moved to Kiev? When the war came, the Opera building was bombed in the very first days. I continued to train with Woizikowsky, whom I remember as a very modest, nice man, but exceptionally precise – he liked things to be neat. It was difficult to find premises; if we did find a place, it was often bombed after a few days. Of course, it was impossible to find ballet shoes. I could not take classes regularly but I practised whenever possible. After the Warsaw uprising, I found myself buried alive in the basement of a house that had been bombed. They dug out the basement and we were able to escape. I ran home, covering my head, because the German planes often shot at pedestrians. I lost my whole family: my father died in Dachau and a brother died in Auschwitz. At that time they were deporting the whole of Warsaw; they just took people indiscriminately, Jews and Catholics like my family. My brother had joined the Resistance and they took him earlier. But my father was taken for no obvious reason, unless it was because of his son. The Germans sent to the camps everyone who seemed to them even remotely suspect. Innumerable Poles suffered simply because they were Poles. Many were killed. Eventually, I too was sent to a camp in Germany. When they were taking us to the shower we never knew whether water or gas would come out. And when I was liberated at the end of the war,

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I found that our house in Velichka had been bombed by the Russians. By the way, Woizikowsky also went through the camps, together with my other brother, Edmund Novak, who is a character dancer. My brother described how he and Woizikowsky escaped from the camp which was somewhere not far from Prague. They had to go into hiding. The adventures they had! But then, as I understand, Woizikowsky joined the Ballets Russes again? I don’t know much about that, as after the war I got to America. I arrived in New York in terrible shape, but all the same I began training hard. I was helped enormously by Sonia, Woizikowsky’s daughter. Also a ballerina? Yes, a born dancer. Her mother, Helena Antonova, was a dancer in Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and her godfather was Picasso. Sonia studied in Paris with Egorova, and with Ludmila Schollar in New York. She first went on stage as a little girl in Diaghilev’s production of Petrushka holding the hand of none other than Enrico Cecchetti, who was dancing the Charlatan, and with whom her father had studied in Warsaw. Then she appeared on stage wherever her father was dancing – in the Ballets Russes, for Rubinstein, in his own company… Before the war she became a soloist with de Basil’s Original Ballet Russe, then with Denham, and later in various American troupes, and she taught as well. So Sonia advised me to take classes with Tatiana Chamié, the soloist from the Diaghilev Ballets Russes who taught following the Russian system. Besides that, in New York I also studied with Pierre Vladimirov and Anatole Vilzak. It was also thanks to Sonia Woizikowsky that I got my first job. She had been allocated two auditions, which were happening simultaneously, and she suggested I went instead of her. This was how I began to dance professionally. When I had got into shape, Sonia telephoned Serge Denham and said something like, ‘There is a young girl who has come for help, from Europe. It would be good if you saw her.’ He came to the class, watched, and immediately took me into the Ballet Russe. At first Franklin was against it but then I even became his partner. By the way, Chamié, my teacher, was a very close friend of Serge’s. Moreover, the Poles from the Ballet Russe put in a good word for

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me – Shabelevsky, Lazowsky and especially Marian Ladré, who used to dance for Diaghilev and had authority. When I joined in the Ballet Russe at the beginning of 1948/9, I found the company was held together by Serge’s energy. The choreographers were Massine and Balanchine, although Balanchine left after that season. My first stage performance was the can-can in Gaîté parisienne. My partner was Leon Danielian, dancing his crowning role – the Peruvian. As I had a good memory I was kept as an understudy. I often replaced dancers during tours or when they were ill. My first serious opportunity came in Chicago when Danilova had an injury but the tickets for Coppélia were sold out. When I got to the theatre they told me I was performing. They announced the replacement to the public just before the start of the performance. There was whistling, boos, hisses. I burst out crying but there was nothing to be done and everything went well; in Chicago, the audience gave me an ovation and I was praised by Claudia Cassidy, an influential art critic of The Chicago Tribune. So very quickly I went from being a corps de ballet dancer to soloist, and then to prima ballerina. And after the Paris ballet season, I started to help stage the ballet revivals. Which of the older dancers were still with the Ballets Russes? Igor Youskevitch, Frederic Franklin, Zoritch, but Leon Danielian had joined the company during the war. Before that he worked for Mordkin in the Ballet Theatre and in de Basil’s troupe. He was born in New York, where his parents had immigrated (his father was Armenian and his mother was Georgian). He danced a season at the Ballets des ChampsÉlysées for Roland Petit, and he partnered Yvette Chauviré on tour. He was considered a great classical dancer, added to which he had a dramatic gift. In 1946, when Balanchine staged Sonnambula for the Ballet Russe, Danielian became Choura Danilova’s partner. Then there were the other dancers: Terekhov, Yvonne Chouteau, one the five Native American dancers of whom the most famous were the Tallchief sisters. I watched them both recently in the film Ballets Russes. I saw that movie too. Franklin isn’t very complimentary about me, suggesting that I was jealous. There is nothing you can do about those

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conversations – they happen in every ballet company. Serge sympathised with me and tried to protect me. Some people misconstrued his sym­pa­thy, and reacted very badly. I can say one thing: I always worked hard. Right up to the very end. How I loved dancing! For me, to work on stage was the same as living and breathing. Which ballets did you like best of all? Coppélia and La Dame à la Licorne. Heinz Rosen himself staged a revival of this ballet for us. In the last years the Ballet Russe put on performances of short ballets good for touring – which, after all, is the most complicated thing, going from one town to another. What about the Balanchine ballets then? There is so little stage décor, either none at all, or very little. I danced only one Balanchine ballet, the Ballet Impérial restaged by Frederic Franklin. But the old Ballet Russe repertoire was the most steadily popular; the productions by Fokine and Massine, which the troupe was famous for. Going back to Woizikowsky, I believe after the war he returned to Poland? Yes, and he worked there. But he was unable to leave Poland when it became Soviet? Or he didn’t want to? He was very much in love with a dancer – Maria Krzyszkowska, who later became the director of the Warsaw Opera. I think he stayed because of her. But Raievska, his wife, went to Paris. At that time it was very difficult to leave, even if he had wanted to. Did you meet Woizikowsky when you went to Poland in 1961? Yes, we saw one another. Did he have good working conditions at the Opera?

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Yes, he was greatly respected and received many medals. He was allowed to travel to Cologne, and to the Festival Ballet in London. What did you do when the Ballet Russe folded? We performed for the last time in 1967 in Monte Carlo. Then the company was due to go to Spain but it could not survive any longer. However, I had married a Venezuelan whom I had met in New York and he took me to his country. I kept dancing and I created a small ballet troupe of my own. We went on tour to London, Paris, Latin America. But the marriage lasted only seven years. I was planning to leave Venezuela when I met a Russian called Vladimir Sukhotin, who was the son of a Tsarist officer. His family had emigrated to France when he was only one year old. We used to speak in Russian or in Spanish. He worked in the oil business but he was a very cultivated man, a polyglot and a balletomane. He was the one who helped me establish my ballet school, which developed into a major one. The government gave me practically no help but nonetheless I produced many good dancers. The students came to us mainly from Cuba, Argentina and Chile. Teaching became my second profession. I remain loyal to the Russian tradition and I try to impart what I was taught by my principal teachers – Nijinska and Woizikowsky.

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•

PART II THE MARQUIS DE CUEVAS AND OTHERS

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he grand ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, directly descended from Serge Lifar’s Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo (1945–7), was mostly composed of Russian artists. After the break-up of Colonel de Basil’s company, many dancers transferred to the Marquis. Though little new work was created here, for 15 years after the war, when only Denham’s Ballets Russes remained in America, the Marquis de Cuevas’ Ballet, with its dazz­ ling dancers, continued to keep up its repertoire and traditions. For all the differences between Colonel de Basil and the Marquis (who, although born in Chile, was a Parisian aristocrat), both of them had a sincere love of ballet and were devoted to their companies. And just as the tours of the Ballets Russes acquainted the public with classical ballet in many lost corners of both of the Americas, so did those of the Marquis’ company in France.

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• Maria Kirillova (de Fredericks) Madame de Fredericks always retains her charm and courage Paris, 2003

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aria kirillova was the Marquis de Cuevas’ permanent secre­ tary. She received me at her home on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris. Her first acquaintance with the ballet world was through Katherine Dunham, the Black American dancer, whose secretary she became in 1952. The following year she went to work for the Marquis de Cuevas and stayed with his ballet company as chief secretary until the Marquis’ death in 1961. She was introduced to the Marquis by the Chilean businessman Raymundo de Larraín, who was to marry de Cuevas’ widow, born Margaret Rockefeller Strong. Maria Kirillova never specially mentioned her comital origins, which could be conjectured, however, from her deportment, but she stressed instead that her eighteenth-century forebear had been the first author to write a history of Russia. She spoke beautiful Russian and could not bear Soviet Newspeak; almost blind at the time we met, when inviting someone to read for her, she would dismiss anyone who did not have perfect old-style pronounciation. I was born a Tatishcheva – my ancestor Vasily Tatishchev was the well-known historian. My parents married very late, when they were both almost 40. My father, who worked mostly in Siberia, was later involved with the irrigation of Turkestan. After the Revolution he was

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lucky to escape Russia via Crimea on board the French steamer Amiral Daumesnil. From Constantinople he went to Berlin, where he met my mother. My first husband was Baron de Fredericks. I was 20 when we got married and after four years we separated. He went to South America whilst I stayed with my son in Paris. I fell ill with tuberculosis like my father, who died when I was 22, and my mother died a year before him. I sent my son to his father, and when I got better I began working in the advertising business. Then I worked as secretary to Katherine Dunham, and that way I got to know something about the mechanics of theatre and ballet. Once, when I was dining at the Volkonskys’, I met someone called Raymundo de Larraín, who had just arrived from Chile. He belonged to a well-known Chilean family (I think one of the family was even the country’s president) and he had come to France to set up his business here. Prince Andrei Volkonsky’s wife, Chita, was Chilean by birth, and knew both Raymundo, whom she had taken under her wing, and the Marquis de Cuevas, who was also a Chilean based in Paris. She said that Raymundo must meet ‘Cuevitas’ (small and fidgety, the Marquis was often so called). A year later, I met Raymundo by chance in a hotel lift and I asked how he was doing. He told me that he was working for the Marquis de Cuevas, his uncle. I was surprised as I remembered that the Volkonskys were meaning to introduce him to the Marquis, so how could he be his nephew? But, however it came about, by the time I met him, he had already managed to arrange the staging of La Légende des trois soeurs with the Ballet Marquis de Cuevas and he started telling me about its success. Working for Katherine had become quite difficult so I asked Raymundo if by any chance de Cuevas was looking for a secretary – incidentally, I was multilingual as, in the past, children in Russia were taught several languages. Raymundo said that if there was a vacancy he would let me know and, indeed, he soon telephoned me to say he had arranged for me to have a meeting with the Marquis, who had a house on Quai Voltaire. I arrived, rang the bell, the door opened and I saw a young man in black, with a flattened nose, bare-legged and wearing sandals. I went in. There was quite a big front hall, then a dining room with a huge marble table with a door leading into a small windowless bedroom. There was a huge four-poster bed, and a gentleman, in a

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white shirt with a pearl necklace around his neck, was lying on it. The young man who had led me there dropped to his knees and almost kis­ sed his feet. Then he said: ‘I have brought Madame de Fredericks to you.’ I had heard about the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas but I didn’t know who he was and where his money came from. I had no idea that he was married to Rockefeller’s granddaughter. He informed me that Raymundo had told him that I was a very good secretary. Addressing me informally, that is, using the ‘tu’ form, he said, ‘I have a feeling that you will save our ballet.’ And he added: ‘Everyone is swindling me. You could do so much, but I don’t have an office.’ If I had known how much money he had, I wouldn’t have believed him. I would have decided that he simply didn’t like me and wanted to get rid of me. But I didn’t know that and I said, ‘Marquis, if I find you an office, will you employ me?’ He answered in the affirmative. In 1953, finding an office space in Paris wasn’t that easy. I went down the Champs-Élysées but there were no vacant premises in any of the large buildings until I found one in a house of the Baron Haussmann era near the Rondpoint des Champs-Élysées. I immediately telephoned the Marquis. ‘Marquis, I have found it. Rue Jean Mermoz.’ He couldn’t refuse. He came, looked at it, and decided, ‘You will sit in this office and be my secretary’. He did not need it at all. His affairs were looked after by an American company, whose representatives came to Paris from time to time. With the creation of the Paris office, the tax authorities immediately descended upon us. Our impresario Claude Giraud had a separate office. I worked with the Marquis in his own wonderful apartment. At first I used to see him every day; he would dictate letters and ballet programmes to me. He was helpful and very kind, he was afraid of nothing and nobody. But at the same time he liked placing people in difficult situations and observing how they got out of it. Sometimes what he asked me to do was quite cruel. I first met the company at a celebration at the British Consulate on the occasion of the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. The Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas had been invited to dance in the Embassy garden. It was here that I also first met the Marquesa. Claude Giraud introduced her to me. If I had been told that she was a Gypsy fortune-teller I would have believed it. She was small, quite plump and she dressed very eccentrically; she almost always wore a scarf on her head. She would order haute

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couture dresses at the most famous maisons, then have them reworked to her taste, and they did not fit anymore. When, after we became acquainted, I used to come to Quai Voltaire, she sometimes came into the Marquis’ room and sat in the corner. I got on well with her. I worked for 35 years, first for the Marquis, and then for her when the ballet disbanded; not permanently, but whenever she was on one of her trips to France. At that time, I was already married for the second time and was living in Mali, but every year in June I would return and stay with her for as long as she was in France. I was paid a small wage but it was for the whole year, regardless of whether I worked for three days or five months. She was always very friendly and sweet to me – in that sense I was lucky. Once the company was giving a performance in Vichy. Someone called Benjamin Karlin from the American Inland Revenue had been attached to the company, as we received money for the ballet from the Marquesa, which she had the right to put against tax. Indeed, at first we thought that the fewer the bills, the better; therefore, when the Revenue decided to check where the money was going it turned out to be quite impossible to do so. And so Karlin came with his wife in order to take care of all this. He had a very good salary, he went around with the company and was completely self-sufficient. The Marquis sent me to Vichy to meet him. We watched the performance together and he made advances. The ballet moved on and I had to return to Paris. He came to me at 9 o’clock in the morning and put on my bed 2 million francs that I had to take to Paris, and so I did. I still don’t know whether he was hoping that I would keep some of it. Later on, during one of the yearly tours of the French Atlantic coast, where, by the way, Nijinska had already arrived, Mr Karlin kept on looking at me more and more amorously. The Marquis gave his famous ball at the Club Gilbert, on Gilbert island, close to Biarritz. The previous year, the owner of a Mexican gold mine had given a similar ball in Venice, and now the Marquis decided to outdo him. A man who wanted to become the Mayor of Biarritz helped him, and it was good publicity for the Marquis. We used to put on ten performances in Biarritz every year, so this time a ball was organised on the lakeside to follow. They built a little stage on the water where Act II of Swan Lake from Nijinska’s production was performed; the dancers sailed over on a raft from the other shore. All the participants in the ballet had to wear costumes from the eighteenth century and earlier.

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I read that the Marquis appeared dressed as the Sun King with a sceptre in his hand. There were around 5,000 articles about that ball in the press, describing it as ‘The Ball of the Century’. Yes, and his daughter was dressed as Winter, and her husband as Autumn, whilst their friends Giovanni Agnelli (the owner of Fiat) and his bride came as Spring and Summer. The well-known toreador Dominguín was dressed as Casanova, Zizi Jeanmaire rode a camel, the American journalist Elsa Maxwell (the merciless society chronicler) dressed up as Sancho Panza and was riding a donkey. All the ballet dancers wore costumes from Massine’s ballet Les Femmes de bonne humeur. Much was written about that ball. I have kept the invitation cards to this day. The security was so tight that they didn’t want to let the Marquis himself and his family through – they, of course, had no invitations. After that, we returned to Paris. In the meantime, in June, Nijinska had appeared there. The Marquis was also on ‘tu’ terms with her, and called her ‘chérie’. He introduced me to her, saying: ‘Chérie, voilà Madame de Fredericks qui travaille pour nous. Elle va sauver le ballet.’ Nijinska looked at me, then at him, and said in her broken French: ‘Ça, Marquis, ç’est pas sérieux.’ That was her first impression of me, but she became very sweet, maybe because I used to talk to her in Russian. She spoke very bad French and not very good English; Russian was best, but when she didn’t understand something, her second husband, Nicholas Singaevsky, used to translate for her, but only what he wished to be said. Dancers did not like him because he presented everyone and everything in the worst light, and so she got irritated by everyone. Luckily, these problems didn’t arise for me; I used to talk to her in Russian, and she was well disposed towards me. I have to tell you that in Gérard Mannoni’s book on the Marquis de Cuevas it says that I was the Marquis’ closest assistant. That is not so. I became something like the chief secretary of the troupe and the tour administrator. When we were travelling, I took care of the troupe, which had from 55 to 75 people. I was responsible for everything. The Marquis always attended during the Paris season and at Cannes, and often at Deauville, but he didn’t always travel with us. All in all, we were in South America three times, but he only came in 1956. He met the Argentine Horacio Guerrico there, whom he asked to become the artistic director.

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After Biarritz, we gave performances in Paris at the Théâtre de l’Empire, which no longer exists. It was a charming theatre on the avenue Wagram where there was a promenoir – one could walk, stand, watch the performance or stroll behind the stalls. There is nothing like it any longer. The stage in that theatre was large, and the ballet looked much better. Besides Petrushka, Nijinska put on Aurora’s Wedding and other ballets there. After an enormously successful Paris season, the company went to England to the London theatre, the Stoll. And suddenly the Marquis said to me, ‘So you’ll go, you’ll take Karlin’s place.’ He didn’t go himself, nor did Claude Giraud. I set off for work, still suspecting nothing. Karlin gave me a paper detailing how much the weekly wages would be for the dancers, and the two types of contracts – for France and outside France. More than three performances in a week was a ‘full show’; if there were only three, that was a ‘half show’. He would issue me with the money in dollars, but he didn’t say how much. I set off for London for three weeks. I sat and converted the dollars into something quite amazing. On top of this, every week one had to take off two per cent of everyone’s wages for what was called la caisse maladie, a health insurance. For the whole three weeks I went to bed at 4 o’clock in the morning. Everything that had to be paid was paid; everything that needed to be taken home was taken back. We returned to Paris, whence the troupe was going to Cannes. I was told, ‘Bravo! Bravo! Excellent! Benjamin Karlin will take over.’ I had to give all the money to Mr Karlin, who was going with the troupe to Cannes. But I was also sent to Cannes where I stayed at the Majestic Hotel, as usual in the ‘chambre de chauffeur’, that is, in the cheap room in the attic. I went to the performance. And Mr Karlin immediately said to me: ‘Good to live in a fine hotel and do nothing… ’ I gradually got to know the dancers, some of whom were Russians. But they didn’t understand who I was – I didn’t come to the rehearsals and I didn’t dance. Nor was I doing what I had done in London. Should they be polite to me? It was a mystery. In this way six weeks passed. At the end of that time, Mr Karlin was told, ‘Your contract is over. We will not renew it, you will hand over your responsibilities to Madame de Fredericks, and she will go with the ballet to Egypt.’ They also gave notice to the impresario who to all appearances worked perfectly with Karlin – I think that they had mutual financial interests, but perhaps I am wrong. And so Mr Karlin left without having given me any instructions, just the money

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for the dancers (from the account that they were paid in France) and a paper saying how much to pay to each choreographer and each musician. With that, I went off to Egypt. The company had already been once to King Farouk’s Egypt, in 1951 or 1952; Claude Giraud used to go there. The performances went very well, but problems arose with the Egyptian tax department; we had to pay a large tax bill as we had not declared all our outgoings. Before my visit there, Karlin or the impresario should have advised me to save every piece of documentation of our expenses on the costumes, music and the choreography. All this should have been possible to declare; we spent almost as much as we earned. But no one warned me of such problems. Moreover, in 1954 it was quite difficult working in Egypt, especially for a woman. And so at the end of the tour I was asked: ‘Do you have those papers? We gave notice that they would be necessary.’ I sent a telegram to Paris. Our impresario replied: ‘You sort it out. You should know what to do.’ Then a young official from the tax department came and asked me out to a small restaurant, quite a bad one. Of course, I went. One has to, as the Marquis would say, save the company! They brought some kind of green soup – all lumpy when you stirred it with a spoon. Horror. I gulped it all down, after which he suggested another course. I said: ‘You know, I only eat very little. That was so delicious that I couldn’t have any more…’ The Cairo performances were very successful (the theatre no longer exists – it burnt down – but in those days everyone was still proud that, at its opening, the Empress Eugenia, the wife of Napoleon III, was present to watch Aida). Here, the Director of the Opera made advances to me. When I went past him with some paper or other, he grabbed me by the waist and sat me on his knees. Our local representatives watched, horrified, not knowing what to do. Save me? But then our situation in the theatre would become even more difficult. I managed to escape from him. On a photograph that the Director gave me later, he wrote, ‘Madame de Fredericks always maintains her charm and courage.’ Then we travelled with the ballet to Alexandria, where I was summoned to resolve the tax question. But it was very important for me not to pay them, to show that I could get out of the situation. I returned to Cairo by myself by train and went to the Ministry. There was a gigantic hall, chairs along the wall – and a little chair in the middle where they sat me down. And there were Egyptians all around me, all bawling at the

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top of their voices. I asked them to speak English. I can’t say what exactly happened, but despite the fact that I didn’t have the papers we were let off just like that. Before that, there had even been a question of our stage scenery and costumes being confiscated. It appeared that I had saved all that. In October we went by steamboat to South America. Our first performances took place in Argentina and after that in Rio, where we also had many adventures. In Argentina, it was the end of the Perón regime and the country was in a quite difficult position. Our impresario signed all the contracts according to the official exchange rate, which had nothing to do with the one on the street and in the banks. As soon as we arrived, I had to pay the wages. My dancers said that they would go on strike because they wouldn’t dance for so little money. Something had to be done. Our stage director, Jack Stefan, Hélène Sadowska first husband, told me that in the theatre where we were dancing, there were two brothers interested in some of our lighting equipment. I sold them the projectors and with this money I paid the dancers. After that we went to Montevideo, where the same problem arose, but there I found my third cousin Gorchakov, the director of a bank. When I saw him, he said, ‘Are you mad? No one makes contracts like that here.’ So I came up with a new idea. I agreed with the dancers that I would send a telegram to the Marquis, who in turn would telegraph the director of the Central Bank, saying that if he did not increase the exchange rate, then they would not dance. And that helped. I reckon that, for those nine years when I was working with the troupe, something unexpected happened at least twice a week. Do you know what happened later on? When Georges Hirsch was the director of the Paris Opera, he was madly in love with one of the Opera’s ballerinas, Liane Daydé. She left the Opera and joined the de Cuevas, and married our impresario Claude Giraud. Two years after the Marquis’ death, Giraud created the Grand Ballet Classique de France with Liane Daydé, using some of our costumes, our music and our scenery. When the Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas disbanded, Georges Hirsch was working in the Paris City Hall and he had arranged for the city of Paris to buy what was left from the company – the scores, scenery, costumes, photographs and programmes – but all

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that somehow went to Claude Giraud and now they are in his son’s keeping at a château near Poitiers. When our ballet company dissolved, I went away to Africa. I gave my archive to the Société des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques. The part of the archive that used to be kept in the New York office disappeared, no one knows how. When the office closed, Raymundo de Larraín, who was intimate with the Marquis, gave it all away or destroyed it. Irène Lidova wrote the article about the Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in the Ballet Encyclopedia. According to her, the Marquis’ secretary was called Orphée. Why? Perhaps Jean Cocteau’s film had an influence. His real name was George Laneau; a completely ordinary young man whom the Marquis liked. Before that he was a boxer and he had a squashed nose. The Marquis gave him the chance to have an operation. Was it thought at the time that the Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas was a continuation of the Ballets Russes? No, although in actual fact, that was mostly true. By the way, several of the stage sets, including those for Petrushka, came from the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Do you think that the Marquis copied Diaghilev a little? It’s hard for me to answer that question. I never saw Diaghilev or knew him. The Marquis had the money to put on the ballets. But none of the new productions had the same quality as Diaghilev’s. Diaghilev was always looking for the best composers, the best artists everywhere. When I started work in 1953, the Marquis was staging the ballet L’Aigrette to music by George Chavchavadze. He was a benevolent man who tried to help everyone, and he was a friend of the Chavchavadze family, but the music was far from great, and the ballet wasn’t successful. The classical ballets and some revived Diaghilev ballets were the most successful. Although there were some new interesting pieces. Did Lifar work for the company?

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Yes, he put on Noir et blanc for us. And when we were in Cannes, Massine staged Gaîté parisienne with us. His contract was a very good one and he was staying in an excellent hotel. The premiere was in Paris. He came to me and said that the hotel was very expensive and that he needed more money than was in the contract. I suggested he send a telegram to the Marquis, saying that he would be sure to agree. A telegram came back, ‘Pay that much’. At the end of the week Massine came to me and presented a bill that included the price of the telegram to the Marquis! I think that even in the corps de ballet no one would have thought of that. When the ballet gave its last performance on 30 June 1962 in Athens, a gentleman came to me in order to collect Massine’s fee. With Lifar, on the contrary, I used to have to send a letter in order to inform him that we had the money for him, which he, by the way, never demanded. The Marquis died in 1961 but I continued to pay money, for instance for the stage scenery, right up until 1964. The New York office existed for a long time. Two secretaries remained there and we couldn’t turn them out onto the street. The Marquesa’s secretaries were also in the same office, working on her affairs. It’s usually considered that the Marquesa couldn’t bear the ballet. Surely that can’t be true? I think it was. The ballet got on her nerves. The Marquis could dispose of the money that was put against tax, but that was not enough, he asked for more, and that irritated her. She never gave anyone the right of signature on her bank accounts. The Marquis was allowed to have $2,000 every month. In 1956, that seemed an inordinate sum to me. But he constantly travelled and he used to leave huge tips. People used to throw themselves at him – they knew that he handed out money lavishly. $2,000 was never enough. The Marquis loved worldly life, society, but she didn’t; she was very reserved. She disliked many of the ballet people. She loved Nijinska, Ana Ricarda and she loved me. Could you tell me something about the Marquis’ personal history? His father belonged to an aristocratic Spanish family and his mother was half-Danish, but he was born in Chile. As far as I know, his grandmother was wealthy and helped her grandson, as it seemed to her that the little

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George was very talented and should be encouraged to work more than his many brothers and sisters. So, thanks to his grandmother, the Marquis received a good education. The Marquis said he had three children. The first died very young, less than a year old. Then his daughter was born, then a boy. They moved to America, where the Marquesa’s grandfather, John Rockefeller, lived, whom all the family were afraid of. But the Marquis was very funny, he knew how to tell anecdotes – he could draw out a two-line story for half an hour, and Rockefeller became fond of him. On one occasion, the Marquis brought the children to Rockefeller and they all said: ‘Grandpa, you have forgotten us…’ Rockefeller took the colossal sum he had apportioned to the Marquesa, invested it on the Stock Exchange, and made more. When he died, the Marquesa had the largest personal income of the family. The money put against taxes went to the Ballet and towards the Marquis’ living expenses. But after his death she married Raymundo de Larraín, who spent it all. She was 80 and he was 42. Unfortunately, she gave him the right to sign her cheques. She had married the Marquis when she was 28 years old and he was just under 40. During the Marquis’ lifetime the money for the Ballet was always strictly controlled, everyone knew that more than the allotted sum couldn’t be spent. But Raymundo spent freely. I think the Ballet dissolved partly because of him. Claiming that he was the Marquis’ nephew, Raymundo took over the management and began spending the money. His relationship with the dancers was completely different. He promoted the young ones, like Ghislaine Thesmar, who moved from the corps de ballet to being a star, and the same with Francesca Zumbo, or Marcia Haydée. Indeed, all of them made brilliant careers, but at the time it harmed the company’s reputation when, instead of advertising the well-known artists, the young dancers performed. In addition, Raymundo also spent enormous sums on new costumes and sets. It was not long before I received a telegram from a lawyer in New York saying the Ballet would close in three months’ time. The Marquis had died in February 1961 and the company’s last performance was in June 1962. It had been kept going, firstly by the success of Sleeping Beauty, abandoned by Nijinska, who clashed with Raymundo (who, by the way, designed the production) and completed by Sir Robert Helpmann, and secondly by the triumph of Nureyev, who, after his defection to the West, appeared before the Paris audiences in that ballet. Nureyev’s first contract

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was with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. Much has been written about this, I have nothing to add. How did he appear in the theatre? How did he behave? Nureyev did whatever he wanted. I had a very civilised relationship with him. I used to speak Russian with him; at that time he didn’t speak French, only English. He quarrelled almost immediately with Raymundo de Larraín, who didn’t wish to renew his contract, but he had immense success. Take Act II of Giselle: Albert appears on the stage, wrapped in a dark cloak, in his hands is a lily. He approaches the grave. He does nothing, he is not even dancing – he is just walking across the stage and I had tears in my eyes. How did he do it!

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• Ethéry Pagava I expect champagne from you, and you give me Coca-Cola Paris, 2004

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met ethéry Pagava in Paris. Her name, going back to the biblical Esther, and directly to the Georgian legend about Abesalom and Eteri, splendidly fitted her ethereal appearance, already familiar from the old ballet photographs. She was promoted to étoile at the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas when just 15 years old. She developed a brilliant reputation for her innovative spirit and charisma. My grandfather on my mother’s side was Noe Jordania. He was the first leader of the Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1918. As the head of the government he undertook national reconstruction by instituting important democratic reforms. When Georgia was seized by the Soviets in 1921, he was forced to emigrate to France, where he continued to lead the government-in-exile. He was charged by the Georgian parliament to continue the struggle for independence  from abroad and he dedicated the rest of his life in exile to this. He is buried in Leuville, not far from Paris. There is a Georgian cemetery there, and an old people’s home for Georgians. But my grandmother, née Inna Koroleva, was from Moscow – one of the few women of that time who studied at the Sorbonne. In exile, she kept a boarding house in Paris on rue Soufflot, next to the Sorbonne; Lenin and Jordania stayed there. That’s how she became acquainted with

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my father who, aged 17, had escaped from Georgia, having fought against the Bolshevik occupation. He never saw his family again. I had a magnificent reception when I went to Georgia in 1967 – not just as a ballerina but as Noe Jordania’s granddaughter. But during the television broadcast they asked me what I wished for Georgia, and I said ‘independence’. After that, I was banned from revisiting Georgia. Only in 1991 did I receive a letter saying: ‘Now you can return.’ But I never went again. How did you come to dance? Like many people, I loved dancing when I was a child. When I was five years old I was asked to perform – it was during the holidays in Mouans-Sartoux in Savoie. Serge Lifar’s pianists – Sonya and Nicolas Stein – were present in the hall, and they said to my mother that I must study dance. My mother took me to Lubov Egorova. She took one look at me and said: ‘I won’t take this little thing…’ And then she added, ‘But let’s try’. So I began to study. We didn’t have much money and Egorova taught me for free. Wonderful classes! Pierre Lacotte was also studying with me. We went to her classes together, and on the way back we would stop off at his house and dance Giselle, quite forgetting ourselves. Egorova prepared me to go on stage in her company, called Ballet de la Jeunesse, with George Skibine and Algaroff. My part was very small but I was dancing in a real ballet. That year, Lifar organised an amazing Pushkin exhibition with ballet at the Louvre. All the ballet schools came, including Egorova’s. When the show started, Lifar immediately picked me out of the crowd and put me at the front. Janine Charrat, who had already danced with Roland Petit and knew Lifar well, became my ballet godmother. When I was 11 years old she invited me to dance at an event at the Salle Pleyel. And after a year I was already dancing in Roland Petit’s Les Forains at the Ballets des Champs-Élysées. When I was 15, Lifar saw me dancing a pas de deux with Béjart. He rang Egorova’s school and asked me to join the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo. I danced in Suite en blanc – a role which Yvette Chauviré herself danced at the Paris Opera. I disagree with people who say that Lifar rehearsed with the help of a stick. That was more the Cecchetti school. There was no such thing

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in the Russian schools; certainly, I never saw the enchanting Egorova with a stick. And Lifar, like Egorova, was an exceptionally open and kind person. He used to call me ‘my little one’. Working with him was a joy. Today, when they revive Lifar’s ballets, his style is lost. Dance is a fragile thing. It’s not enough to stand in an exact position, the movement might turn out completely differently. At that time, of course, there were no video cameras. Lifar was a dance magician, he had that unusual expressiveness, and he conveyed that to us. And how he danced! He was 60 years old but he brought the fury and passion of a 20-year-old to it. (I observed the same energy later with Chaboukiani when I danced with him in Tbilisi.) Lycette Darsonval used to say of Lifar that one would work with him until midnight, unaware of the time passing. In those days the question was, ‘When does the rehearsal start?’ And not, as now, ‘How long will it last?’ But the fact that Lifar gets forgotten today seems to me a great shame. It’s thanks to him that ballet in France became what it is. When he returned to the Paris Opera, the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo was taken over by the Ballets du Marquis de Cuevas, the Marquis saw me in the Suite en blanc and invited me to join his company. I was still 15 years old when I became prima ballerina. The Marquis de Cuevas adored ballet and continued the Diaghilev tradition – a fine troupe, fine stage décor, fine costumes. We went around the whole world with the Marquis de Cuevas. The theatres were always full, a delighted public met us everywhere; our orchestra of 40 musicians followed us everywhere. Tell me, please, what distinguished your different teachers? Egorova’s school was famous for the beauty of the arms, the expressive­ness and the poetic quality. In that respect, she was unique. Many profe­ ssionals – Nina Vyroubova, the dancers of the Paris Opera – used to take classes, accompanied by marvellous music, at her school on rue de la Rochefoucauld. Egorova introduced us, the little ones, to the works of the great composers. She developed a musicality that is often missing with the contemporary dancers. Music not only accompanied the movements, Egorova taught us to listen to the music attentively and express it in dance. Classical dance includes glissés, assemblés, changements de pied and so on, and Egorova taught us how to join up the pas, gliding from one movement to another. Dancers often simply neglect this – it’s as if there

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is a hole between two movements. When I took the place of Chauviré in Lifar’s Suite en blanc, my mother, who understood dance and adored ballet, said to me about the Dance with a Cigarette, ‘It’s good, but your movements aren’t linked up.’ And we worked together at home on every pas in order to understand the flow. I try to convey the same to the pupils at my school. With Egorova we danced quite long passages from the very beginning, in contrast to the present practice, when the teachers give only small extracts. Thanks to this I was able to go on stage early on, and, which is perhaps the most important, I was able to understand the Russian style still perpetuated by the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi. It no longer exists in France, where there are great dancers with excellent technique, but they lack musicality and expressiveness. In the Russian school the arms are as important for dance as the legs are. Lifar had beautiful port de bras and he explained how Diaghilev took him around the museums to look at the pictures by Leonardo da Vinci. With Lifar, the arms spoke. And now dancers’ arms are disconnected from the body. After Egorova, I worked with other Russian teachers. You have probably heard about the Salle Wacker, where Kniaseff, Gsovsky, Madame Rousanne and Madame Nora Kiss, her niece, all taught. It was the original ‘Russian House’, a unique school; unfortunately it has now disappeared. Most of the people involved have passed away. There are not many teachers left, and they are spread across the world, still carrying the tradition of the Russian school. In France, people say that Marius Petipa brought the French school to Russia. That is so, but to us our school came from the Mariinsky Theatre. I should say something about Kniaseff. He was a great teacher with his own Russian passion and temperament. He loved repeating, ‘I expect champagne from you, and you give me Coca-Cola’. I’ve still got a notebook in which I wrote down what he said to us. For example: ‘Every movement comes from the hip’, and that is true. One of his favourite pupils was Zizi Jeanmaire. He coached Yvette Chauviré and made a great dancer of her. When she came to his school she was not nearly as accomplished as she became later. She was almost 20 years old, and she was already prima ballerina at the Paris Opera, but Kniaseff said to her, ‘Mademoiselle, you will have to start all over again.’ One has to acknowledge her courage in doing so. Their work continued for six years and everyone noticed how Chauviré had changed when she danced in Serge Lifar’s ballet Ishtar to music by Vincent d’Indy in 1941. She had become a different person

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– before that she had ‘sat on her hips’, but now she became elegant and gracious. Kniaseff had changed her delineation of dance. Kniaseff was responsible for introducing la barre à terre. It’s very simple, you lie on your back on the floor and do the same exercises as you do standing up. It helps to open the hips. All movements, coming from the hips, change one’s outline according to the turnout. It works the stomach muscles, something that doesn’t always happen standing up, and it works the spine. When you reach a certain age your legs become more brittle but by forcing the muscles of the tummy and spine to work, we compensate for this brittleness; we place less weight on the legs. The barre à terre helps with this. When I give a class we often start on the floor. It develops the dancers’ lightness and co-ordination in their work on different parts of the body. By the way, Jean Babilée, with whom I danced at 13, was someone whose movements always came from the centre of the body. Kniaseff came from St Petersburg and he studied in Russia with various teachers, including Mikhail Mordkin and Kassyan Goleizovsky. He began to dance in the provinces and, having emigrated in 1917, he immediately began staging ballets – in Constantinople, in Sofia, then in Paris. At the end of the 1920s he married Olga Spessivtseva and danced with her; he was ballet master in various troupes, including Njinska’s. His dance passed away with him – nothing survived of his choreography, but as a teacher he left a big mark. With which other Russian teachers did you work? I gave birth to my son quite late on and then decided to go back to the stage. Roland Petit said that there was an amazing teacher – Mischa Resnikov, who had danced for de Cuevas and was married to Rosella Hightower. He also used Kniaseff ’s method, considering him the perfect teacher. As for Victor Gsovsky, I wasn’t his student, but I worked with him. He put on a very good pas de deux. He used to say that you had to learn to dance with a partner and to fall into his rhythm; you should feel as if the two of you were one. Madame Rousanne taught precision and speed of movements, and she was a great master of that. In dance there are short and quick movements

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in which the dancer has to constantly be just ahead of the music in order to fall into the rhythm precisely. The dancer has got there if he performs the quick and slow tempo with equal virtuosity whilst keeping the lyricism and the precision in the movement. Frequently, a dancer is good at the smooth, slow movements, but hasn’t got the purity in the quick ones, or the other way round. At Madame Rousanne’s classes there was beautiful music – in this way her class was similar to Egorova’s. Madame Nora’s was about dance technique. She taught absolute co­ordination in turning, which is part of the Russian school technique. It was a special kind of expressivity, not an end in itself. I always sought a liberation, a freedom of the body. Another of my teachers was Olga Preobrajenska. Today I am amazed at how 20 people fitted into her tiny studio and found room to dance. She demonstrated épaulement inimitably. This is essential in classical dance: the position of the dancer’s body to the right corner of the stage, the slight twist in the torso from the waist upwards, which tilts one or other shoulder slightly forwards, thus giving an extra three-dimensional quality to a pose. It is this that makes dance beautiful. It is very important when doing the movements to feel the space of the stage, and she taught us that. An excellent example is Nureyev, who mastered that technique beautifully; another example is Serge Golovine. It’s a pity that now it is vanishing from classical dance. Could you say something about your Russian ballet partners? First and foremost, I would like to mention Milorad Miskovitch – he also worked with the Marquis de Cuevas. We danced together, especially in Romeo and Juliet. We understood each other perfectly. André Eglevsky was an exceptional dancer, able to do ten pirouettes in a row. He often danced with Rosella Hightower. I first met him at Marquis de Cuevas’, and saw in front of me a true colossus. The Marquis loved him very much. I danced with him in Mad Tristan, staged by Massine to the music of the Wagner opera with scenery and costumes by Salvador Dalí. I read that in this ballet, after Tristan is driven mad by his parting from Isolde, she appears to him in a Kafkaesque incarnation – in the aspect of a gigantic praying mantis. Dalí called this work ‘the first paranoiac ballet’.

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We performed this ballet in many countries. On stage Eglevsky seemed completely light-hearted, executing the most difficult movements as if they were the simplest. He was one of those who could ‘hang in the air’ when they jumped. He had great technique, unlike George Skibine, with whom I danced in Lifar’s Romeo and Juliet, and Balanchine’s Sonnambula. It was one of my best roles. I had 20 encores in London. Skibine didn’t have such phenomenal technique but when he appeared on stage he was dazzling. And I used to dance with Youly Algaroff for the Marquis de Cuevas. He was romantic and amazingly handsome. After he stopped dancing, he became an impresario. He inherited the position from his uncle Grünberg in Paris, at the Salle Pleyel. I used to dance a lot with Serge Golovine. He had a very good technique and an unusual expressiveness at the same time. He got tuberculosis; he had to leave the Paris Opera and when he recovered he danced for the Marquis de Cuevas. Later, he partnered Rosella Hightower and Nina Vyroubova. I danced with Massine in his Le Beau Danube (he was much older and seemed to me a living legend) and with David Lichine in his Ice Heart. I worked with Nijinska – a marvellous woman although very severe – which was difficult but interesting. She couldn’t hear very well, she shouted and made us repeat one movement 20 times. But she achieved perfection. Could you say something about Lidova. Her husband, also Russian, took the name of Serge Lido, he was a famous ballet photographer. Irène Lidova was a writer who adored dance and had an extensive knowledge of ballet. But she was not only a good journalist – she had the extraordinary gift of discovering new talent. She organised the famous evening in memory of Sarah Bernhardt where Roland Petit, Zizi Jeanmaire, Nina Vyroubova and Janine Charrat were noticed for the first time – only she could have gathered all those young people together. She gave enormous assistance to Roland Petit’s Les Ballets des ChampsÉlysées, where I also danced. For his Les Forains she managed to attract the artist Christian Bérard, even though the company had almost no money. She wrote ballet librettos, such as for Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe by Roland Petit (in which I danced with Jean Babilée). And, of course, she

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helped artists to gain the acknowledgement of the public, as she did for Roland Petit and Janine Charrat, organising for them a solo evening with the Marquis de Cuevas. She also helped me. And she helped Milorad Miskovitch to organise a world tour when he had his company Paris Ballet. Miskovitch became like a son to her, and indeed, she was a mother to all of us. She did so much for ballet and for the dancers whom she knew all over the world. They always went straight to her whenever they came to Paris. Her death was a great loss to ballet. Were you with the Marquis de Cuevas’ company when Nureyev appeared in it? I was no longer dancing, but I went to see him. It was a revelation for all of us. We thought it was a pity he didn’t stay in France instead of going to England to dance with Margot Fonteyn.

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• Milorad Miskovitch A new style of classical dance alongside a fiery Serbian temperament Paris, 2004

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met the benevolent and charming Milorad Miskovitch in Paris at a conference he had organised to mark the centenary of Serge Lifar, at UNESCO, where he was the President of the International Dance Council. Several days later, Miskovitch received me at his Paris apartment near the Picasso Museum. Could you tell me about your family roots? I am Serbian, from Belgrade. I began my artistic career as a singer in the Children’s Theatre until I was 14 and my voice broke. I began to dance. In Belgrade I was lucky to have Russian ballet teachers who had come there after the Revolution. Most important, there was Elena Polyakova; she had danced solo parts at the Mariinsky Theatre, she toured Europe with Anna Pavlova and danced in Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. She taught at the dance school of the Belgrade State Theatre and then she opened her studio. Anatoly Joukowsky put on some fine productions in Belgrade. He studied folklore and was very knowledgeable about it. There was one other Russian dancer, Tornikovsky, who had apparently left after the war. There was also Igor Youskevitch, a real athlete – in his childhood he was

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a ‘falcon’ with the Russian Scouts. Then he studied with Preobrajenska and became a great dancer. The beautiful ballerina Natasha Boshkovich, also from Belgrade, danced in the Ballet Russe of René Blum. When Spessivtseva fell ill, Natasha replaced her in all her roles. Margarita Froman, who did so much for Yugoslav Ballet, worked in Zagreb and then in Belgrade. I was truly fortunate – I began training with Nina Kirsanova. She was from Moscow and she was Alexander Gorsky’s pupil; in the 1920s she danced with Anna Pavlova, often standing in for her, and after Pavlova’s death she toured with Mordkin, who, by the way, also worked in Belgrade. Both of them, Kirsanova and Polyakova, revived classical ballet at the Belgrade Opera, where I became a soloist. After her ballet career, Kirsanova became a professional archaeologist. In 1946, when I was 18 years old, I came to Paris. And I went to Olga Preobrajenska because Kirsanova had told me, ‘You must train with her.’ We used to call her ‘Préo’. Préo was wise, and very meticulous as a teacher. We, her students, have kept the memory of her classes all through our lives because every element was logical and simple with her. She used to say, ‘Imagine a pair of compasses. You are in the centre, and you must dance so that the centre remains still in all positions.’ I remember that I raised my legs high in the jumps and turns. She used to say, ‘That’s appalling! You mustn’t have your legs up so high. It is horribly ugly. That is music-hall, not dance.’ Now I understand that; perhaps for some contemporary ballets such acrobatics are good but not for classical ballet – you lose the line. Preobrajenska kept saying: ‘For your port de bras, imagine raindrops are falling on your shoulders.’ I met many people at her classes, who later became my friends: Marika Besobrasova, the enchanting Valentina Blinova, Alice Nikitina and Margot Fonteyn. Then I took classes with Boris Kniaseff. He was a remarkable teacher. Thanks to him, I learnt Russian. He introduced me to Nina Raievska – a character dancer of rare beauty. When I was 18 years old, Raievska presented me to Colonel de Basil, saying, ‘This young dancer is just right for your ballet company.’ Basil looked at me and immediately took me on. We went to London, where I danced Les Sylphides and The Prodigal Son. I was Roman Jasiński’s understudy. This was one of de Basil’s last seasons. We danced in Paris, then we went to Spain. Soon afterwards the troupe was disbanded. I settled down in England, where Nicholas Sergeyev was teaching at the International Ballet, a company created

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by the fine English dancer Mona Inglesby; she had also trained with Egorova and other Russian teachers in Paris, and had danced throughout the 1939 season with de Basil’s Ballets Russes. (In Russia, Sergeyev was a Director of the Mariinsky Ballet until he fled after the October Revolution, taking with him his famous collection of the Stepanov system ballet notations.) This became a remarkable school for me – I was able to learn the whole Mariinsky repertoire: Swan Lake, Giselle, Sleeping Beauty. Sergeyev’s archive later went to Harvard University Library. Yes, but that was after his death, when Mona Inglesby sold it. Later, I joined the Marquis de Cuevas company after it had merged with Serge Lifar’s troupe and Lifar had returned to the Paris Opera – it became the Grand Ballet Marquis de Cuevas. It was one of the best ballet companies in the world. As quite a young soloist, I took all the main roles. Before that, the troupe’s most famous soloists were André Eglevsky and George Skibine. But after the London tour of 1948 they had to return to America so as not to lose their American residents’ permits – they were fed up with being stateless. Eglevsky continued to dance in the USA. He was a great dancer with impeccable technique; Skibine, on the contrary, was not such a great technician, but his style was exceptionally elegant. After their departure the repertoire was under threat, and the Marquis tried to invite Youskevitch from America, but the latter was engaged at the American Ballet Theatre. Then the Marquis said: ‘We have one other dancer – Mishka.’ (He always called me Mishka.) They gave me all the roles that had been danced by Skibine and Eglevsky: in Giselle, Swan Lake, La Fille mal gardée, Lifar’s Romeo and Juliet and in Constantia by William Dollar. Aged 22, I became a star, dancing with Rosella Hightower and Marjorie Tallchief. The girls from Oklahoma, of pure Native American blood, had decided to become dancers after seeing the Ballets Russes touring in America. Hightower, the Tallchief sisters and also Moscelyne Larkin and her husband Roman Jasiński, having danced for a long time in the Ballets Russes, revived its productions in America. And the young Ethéry Pagava danced Juliet. Bill Dollar rehearsed with us, and then John Taras. Balanchine came to stage La Sonnambula and Concerto Barocco. When I had to go into Giselle all of a sudden, he rehearsed all night with

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Hightower and me – a great choreographer but, between you and me, an indifferent coach for the classics. I won’t conceal that the whole world called me the king of dance, but I decided to leave that troupe. I was invited everywhere, including to America by Balanchine. But I wanted to stay in Europe with Roland Petit and his company Ballets de Paris. Roland invited Bill Dollar, who choreographed for me and Colette Marchand Le Combat (The Duel), based on Tasso’s poem Jerusalem Delivered. For my performance I received a prize in New York as the best dancer of the year. After Dollar’s death I revived this ballet with Balanchine, Jacques d’Amboise and Melissa Hayden, and at the Paris Opera with Claire Motte and Cyril Atanassoff. After that, I danced in England and in the USA. Yvette Chauviré, the beautiful Chauviré, asked me to be her partner, as did Janine Charrat when she was creating Le Ballet de France. Lifar loved me and worked with me on Romeo and Juliet to Tchaikovsky’s music. Wherever he went, he would always be creating something, and he knew how to gather people around him. He was a great man. I was just about to move to the Paris Opera when Alicia Markova, who had seen me in London in Giselle with Mia Slavenska, sent me a telegram: ‘Milorad, I need you for a concert tour of Europe and America. Would you like to be my partner?’ I was mad about Markova and I asked my close friend Irène Lidova what to do. She replied: ‘Your heart should tell you.’ I said: ‘My heart says Markova.’ I went to her. Her pirouettes, her équilibres were extraordinary. Her idol was Pavlova. In some ways she became her. People wept seeing her pas de deux in Giselle. The older she became, the more her soul expressed itself in dance. I first met her when I was 18 years old. There was an extraordinary moment when Markova, after dancing La Sylphide at Covent Garden, visited the 83-year-old Queen Mary in her box, and Queen Mary began to show Markova the steps of the mazurka, which she had been taught by Taglioni. Markova danced with me for two years – at that time I was 25 years old and she was at the end of her career. She danced her last performances in London with me. Her retirement opened the way to Margot Fonteyn, Alicia Alonso, Yvette Chauviré, Tamara Toumanova, Natasha Krassovska. The choreographers loved me because I had a new style of classical dance alongside a fiery Serbian temperament. Maurice Béjart staged

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Promethée for me with music by Maurice Ohana – a ballet that was acknowledged as the best dance piece of 1956. Then at the Festival de Lyon, in the ancient theatre, we performed Glazunov’s Seasons by the excellent British choreographer Walter Gore and, with Irène Skorik, La Dryade by Victor Gsovsky to music by Louis Aubert. When, a few years later, Béjart created his own big ballet company, he invited me to come with his troupe on a tour in the USA as ballet master. But Béjart was not very much liked in America. Could you tell me more about Gsovsky? He was an admirable person. Gentle but passionate about classical dance. He had a great, pure Russian style. I think that Gsovsky – very tall and a little ungainly – was not a good dancer. But there was an amazing harmony in his movements when he demonstrated. It was as if he was a sculptor; Gsovsky modelled the body of the dancer or ballerina. I wanted to ask you about Irène Lidova. She came from a noble Moscow family. Her father’s name was Malinin. He loved art; together with Rachmaninov, Lifar and Prokofiev he was involved in the creation of the famous Conservatoire Rachmaninoff in Paris. At that time the great composers taught there. Lidova grew up in an artistic environment. She adored dance. She studied with Preobrajenska, although she never became a ballerina; she simply danced for herself. A talented journalist, before the war she started writing ballet reviews for the magazine Marianne, and she worked with other magazines such as Vogue. She adored Lifar and took every opportunity to publish an article about him. Lifar also loved and respected her. It was she who discovered Roland Petit and Janine Charrat. At the end of the war she organised their first performance, and after the war she created the Ballets des Champs-Élysées with Roland Petit and Boris Kochno. Lidova was a bit like Diaghilev. When she saw a young talent she immediately rushed to telephone London, Berlin, America, Italy, Lifar, John Taras, saying, ‘I’ve found an extraordinary dancer, you must take him, you can’t waste such a talent.’ The Marquis de Cuevas and Martha Graham adored her. She was a second mother to me until the end of her life in 2002.

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Did your path cross with the older generation of dancers from the Ballets Russes? Zoritch continued dancing in the USA. Almost all the ballerinas left the stage, opened ballet schools and became coaches and directors of ballet troupes. Skibine invited me for a year to his Dallas Ballet, which he directed for the last ten years of his life. During one of the London ballet seasons someone wanted to gather the great pairs of the Ballets Russes: Markova–Dolin, Danilova–Massine, Riabouchinska–Lichine, Slavenska– Miskovitch. Slavenska was born in Zagreb, a divine ballerina. But how her ‘ballet mother’ tyrannised her! She herself had a terrible temperament. I remember us dancing together at the London Festival Ballet – just before the curtain went up she refused to go on stage and Dolin gave her a slap on the face. Did you ever work with Massine? Massine loved me very much and helped me very much. My first big role with de Basil was in the old Diaghilev ballet by Massine, Les femmes de bonne humeur, based on the play by Goldoni with music by Scarlatti. The ballet had wonderful scenery by Bakst. Massine, who usually took the part of the garçon from the café, promised me the role once he had danced the premiere. I was 18 years old and when everyone around started saying, ‘Wait, he is so young.’ Massine replied, ‘It’s just what I need – young, southern, fiery temperament!’ He was a great man and everything around him was afire with passion. It was very difficult to contradict him. Could you tell me about Nina Vyroubova. I met her in 1946, when she was already an étoile. Vyroubova took classes with Egorova and Preobrajenska. She was a beautiful dancer, the most beautiful Sylphide I have ever seen. Incidentally, Irène Lidova opened the way for her too. Thanks to her Vyroubova started dancing with Roland Petit and this led her to become a great ballerina. She danced a lot for Lifar with the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo, she then joined the Ballet de Marquis de Cuevas, where she danced with me. When Chauviré left the Paris Opera, Lifar invited Nina to replace her. She worked like a

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madwoman. She did not have very beautiful legs, she didn’t have extraordinary technique but it was dance. Kniaseff helped her perfect her technique, corrected her legs, and Vyroubova became a grande étoile. For me Sleeping Beauty is Margot Fonteyn and Nina Vyroubova. She was a great Giselle. She was very successful in Paris, London and in the States. But because of her complicated character she didn’t take her rightful place. For me forever: Chauviré is precision and musicality in dance and Vyroubova is the Russian soul. Did you have artistic links with the three great dancers Makarova, Nureyev and Baryshnikov? I was dancing in Cinderella while Nureyev was in Sleeping Beauty with the Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. I knew Rudi from the very beginning of his career in the West. He was delightful; he had greatness and integrity. At first he was not very elegant; this he acquired dancing with Margot Fonteyn. Even the sensation around him enhanced the reputation of classical ballet, as well as making him still more famous. For me he was the greatest. Baryshnikov came later. Carla Fracci, a remarkable dancer, invited him to come to Italy. I often danced with her and staged several ballets for her. Carla called me and said, ‘There is a young artist for your Giselle who has just arrived in Europe. His surname is Baryshnikov.’ I asked, ‘But how can he be Albrecht? He is short. An excellent dancer for the pas de trois.’ ‘No, no. He absolutely must dance Giselle. He danced it in Petersburg.’ I agreed to see him. If Nureyev was a vandal, a tartar, Misha was quite different: reserved, thoughtful, questioning. Carla said, ‘Try to give him tempo, gestures, movements – everything that he needs for the part.’ I tried but, without success, he remained himself. Simple and very pure. I was in despair and said, ‘Listen, Carla, he isn’t a prince and will never be one, there’s nothing to be done.’ She replied, ‘Wait until Act II, you’ll see his variation.’ So Act II began. The first pas were enough. He was much lighter than Nureyev, lighter than Vasiliev. After that, I said: ‘Carla, let him dance as he wishes. He is a great dancer.’

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• Hélène Sadowska Très élégant at Egorova’s; très authentique at Preobrajenska’s Paris, 2004

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élène sadowska was the widow of the ballet master John Taras, who worked with almost all of the famous ballet troupes in the world. In 1947 he joined the de Basil company as premier danseur and participated in its last seasons in London and Paris. Long ago, he visited Russia with the Paris Opera Ballet and the Balanchine ballet. I remember him interrupting a class that he was giving to the Paris dancers with the words, ‘Ceux qui ne veulent pas travailler peuvent aller à la maison’ [‘Those who do not wish to work may go home’]. In recent times, he twice staged revivals of the Balanchine ballets at the Bolshoi Theatre. Sadowska, who danced with Roland Petit and then in the Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, taught ballet until very recently. Every time I was in Paris, we would meet in a café on the Paris Left Bank and she never forgot to remark that French coffee was not improving with the years. Where were your parents from? They were from Moscow. They met in Austria after they left Russia at the time of the Revolution, then they lived for a time in Germany. I was born in Paris. My mother wanted me to be a Parisienne.

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How did you start ballet? When I was three or four years old, my mother took me to Olga Preobrajenska, who said that I was too little and suggested that I come back in two or three years. When the time came I began studying with her. She worked with everyone: children, teenagers and stars. She had no assistants. She never pushed us; she never hurried. She waited until we were ready for the next step. But if we made a mistake she would slap us with her tiny hand. When I was older, I wanted to work with Victor Gsovsky and I went to ask for her permission. She looked at me and tears came to her eyes – I was the first of her pupils to ask for such permission. Later, when I was in Paris, I went to embrace her but she didn’t recognise me – she was already very old by that time. But she worked until the end of her life. Why did you want to study with Gsovsky? He was an excellent teacher, he even taught Eastern European dances: Russian, Hungarian and Georgian. Everyone worked with him, not only Russians but the French and ballet stars as well: Chauviré, Jean Babilée, many artists from the Paris Opera. His style was pure Mariinsky, and in just one year I learnt a great deal from him. He choreographed Grand Pas Classique set to music by Auber, which is still in the Paris Opera repertoire; he did La Sylphide for the Ballets des Champs-Élysées; he did something in England and in Munich. Grand Pas Classique was staged for Yvette Chauviré – though, strictly speaking, that is not a ballet but a sequence of pas de deux. Now it is danced everywhere, even in Russia. He was married to Tatiana Issatchenko, who worked in Germany, and that is where he died. Tatiana Gsvosky came from a cultivated St Petersburg family; her mother was an actress. An island in the Kara Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia, is named after her uncle Boris Issatchenko, founder of sea and arctic microbiology. From the age of seven, Tatiana studied dance in St Petersburg, with Elena Sokolova and with Preobrajenska, and later, contemporary dance in the Duncan studio. She danced a little at the Mariinsky theatre and, in 1925, she and her husband, whom she had known since childhood, moved to Berlin, where Gsovsky became ballet

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master at the Berlin Opera. Besides this, they opened their own ballet school, which trained a constellation of classical dancers, and they founded their own troupe, the Gsovsky Ballet. Gsovsky didn’t want to stay in Hitler’s Germany and in 1937 he went to Paris to open a school there. But Tatiana stayed on in Berlin – even during the war she continued to teach and put on ballet performances, despite being denounced first by the Nazi censors and later by the East Berlin authorities. Her first staging of Hans Werner Henze’s ballet The Idiot, based on Dostoevsky, was a triumph. For a long time she directed the Deutsche Oper ballet, staging a great many works, including ones by the avant-garde composers Luigi Nono, Edgard Varèse and Boris Blacher. At the end of the 1950s, Victor Gsovsky returned to West Germany and worked as ballet master in the great ballet companies, including the Hamburg Ballet, which his pupil Peter van Dyk directed until the arrival of John Neumeier in 1973. How did you start teaching? Once Gsovsky had to go to Béjart’s for two weeks and asked me whether I could teach his class whilst he was away. I thought that I would die on the spot but all the same I said, ‘Very well. Do you think I can?’ ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘You can!’ I taught for two weeks and it was enough to realise that Gsovsky had made me not only into a dancer but into a teacher as well. When Nicholas Polajenko asked me if I could take over his classes while he was going to America, I thought, ‘Why not? It’s better to be a young teacher than an old dancer.’ I still teach at the studio attached to the Salle Pleyel. I believe you also studied briefly with Boris Kniaseff. A very fascinating person and a good dancer in the past. He struck me as slightly strange. I would say he was extravagant and not very modest. He had to be called maître. If we addressed Gsovsky in that way he would say, ‘No, not mètre, not centimètre, but Victor Ivanovich.’ Maurice Béjart and Roland Petit studied with Kniaseff. He wasn’t very kind. Once, a new boy came to his class and asked Béjart to demonstrate something to him. When Béjart had demonstrated, Boris said to the boy, ‘You saw that? Well, that is how it should not be done.’

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Did you know the other remarkable Paris teachers – Egorova and Kshessinska? I didn’t know Kshessinska. I studied with Egorova for a month at the beginning of the war. It was August and Preobrajenska wasn’t in Paris. Was there any essential difference between the teaching of one and the other? It was ‘très élégant’ at Egorova’s; ‘très authentique’ at Preobrajenska’s. When she demonstrated something, one immediately wanted to dance it. With Egorova, it was style and musicality. Your first stage performance was with Petit? I joined his company when I was just 15 years old. My debut was in his ballet Les Forains set to music by Henri Sauguet, with a libretto by Boris Kochno. Roland himself, Nina Vyroubova and Ethéry Pagava were dancing. The ballet was so successful that Roland decided to create the Ballets des Champs-Élysées, in which I danced for four years. I met my first husband there. Of the Russian dancers, who else was in the Ballets des Champs-Élysées? After all, there was not a single ballet troupe without Russian dancers. Nina Vyroubova, Ludmila Tcherina and Youly Algaroff. Tcherina danced in Les Forains, although in the beginning Zizi Jeanmaire was meant to dance the main role. Tcherina was a pupil of Preobrajenska, Clustine and d’Alessandri. She was the celebrated Juliet to Lifar, who loved her very much. She danced in his Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo. She was unbelievably beautiful. Tcherina was born in Paris. Her father was Avenir Tchemerzin, who was from a noble Russian family of Circassian origin. A mathematician and inventor, he published a book of poems in 1911. With his French wife, a highly educated woman, he created a unique library of first editions of French poetry. According to legend, when Tcherina was ten years old she became passionate about gypsy dancing, which she saw on the street in

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Paris, and her parents took her to Preobrajenska. Captivated by her beauty, it was Lifar who really gave Tcherina a chance. In 1959, she went to Russia and danced Giselle; besides that she was seen there in the ballet film The Lovers of Teruel. Béjart and Salvador Dalí created the ballet Gala with her, dedicated to Dalí’s legendary wife. She had many talents: she painted, she sculpted (including a monumental sculpture dedicated to the European Union in Strasbourg) and she wrote two novels; she was a society hostess with her own salon. You joined the troupe of the Marquis de Cuevas. Could you tell me about him, please? You know, we hardly saw him. He came to every performance, he sat in the auditorium and shouted bravo! but he never came to the rehearsals. He didn’t come on the tours with us, only in January to Cannes, in August to Deauville and in September to Biarritz; more often he stayed behind in New York or Paris. Maria de Fredericks was in charge of the everyday running of things – a very clever, educated person. She spoke four or five languages. She was too young to become the director but she had great authority. We toured all year round, we went to little towns – it was fairly tiring. The Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas lasted for almost 15 years and we were just happy that we could dance. After all, besides the Opera, there was nothing else in Paris. So thank you, Marquis! And his wife – she provided the money but she hated the ballet. It was understandable: her husband was never at home. So for de Cuevas the commercial side was a secondary consideration? He did not care about that. When he didn’t have enough money, he called his wife in America; she was a Rockefeller. The troupe also earned money, of course, but not enough to cover the overheads. But he was not a Diaghilev, therefore he didn’t look for a choreographer who could give the troupe its own identity. No, he was not Diaghilev – he wasn’t even a Boris Kochno. For him, ballet was a kind of whim. Some people have race horses – he had a ballet

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troupe. Perhaps that is not a very apt comparison, but that is how I view his interest in ballet. After ten years he did understand that classical ballets were important – Swan Lake, Giselle – but were not enough. The most interesting of his original ballets was Massine’s revival of Mad Tristan with scenery by Salvador Dalí. John Taras specially choreographed Piège de lumière set to music by Jean-Michel Damase. The subject was very whimsical: fugitive convicts chasing butterflies in a tropical forest. Serge Golovine and Volodya Skouratoff danced in it. The troupe performed very harmoniously. It was as if we had worked together all our lives. But in most of the ballets there was nothing new, as a rule. Were you at the famous ball in Biarritz? Of course! I’ll never forget it. But after that I left the company. Later I took part in the ballets at the Aix-en-Provence festival. I danced with Pierre Lacotte in Les Noces by Stravinsky, reconstructed by Skibine. Did Balanchine choreograph anything for the Marquis de Cuevas? We did Concerto Barocco and La Sonnambula, a very beautiful ballet. But I doubt that he restaged them himself – I think John Taras or someone else did. Skibine, the premier danseur in the Cuevas company, danced the Poet in Sonnambula. What can you say about Skibine? I already knew him from Preobrajenska’s studio. Then he left ballet and, like Youskevitch, he went to America. He took part in the Normandy landings. When the war ended he was invited to return to ballet, but he said, ‘Too late, I haven’t danced for four years.’ However, Sol Hurok, the impresario, promised to pay for all his classes and he became a star again. He danced in the Markova–Dolin ballet, then for de Cuevas. Then he married Marjorie Tallchief. You know about his career at the Paris Opera. He not only danced but also choreographed.

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And also he did opera. His best ballet was The Prisoner of the Caucasus, based on the Pushkin poem, with music from Khachaturian’s ballet Gayaneh and designs by George Wakhévich. It was a great success. Then the Opéra Comique bought the ballet. Did Lifar stage anything for de Cuevas? We had his Suite en blanc in 1958, but this was after I had left. With de Cuevas, the ballet was called Noir et blanc (Suite en blanc). It was a very beautiful production. I am surprised that the Lifar ballets aren’t performed anywhere, even in France. Suite en blanc was only ever performed in England. Now, again, it is at the Paris Opera… There was an enormous scandal around Noir et blanc. Lifar protested against the changes done to his ballet, which he even had forbidden to restage. And when he claimed his rights οn it, the Marquis publicly slapped Lifar in the face. And then they had a duel. I think that duel was for publicity. Something happened every season in Paris. It was a big show. The Marquis’ second was Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was then young and unknown. How did he fall into that artistic crowd? They needed a second and Claude Giraud, the Marquis de Cuevas’ impresario, asked Le Pen. Lifar’s second was Max Bozzoni from the Opera. The duel really took place – there are photographs. It’s funny. Photographs of a duel – that is probably the first time ever. Lifar, of course, could act any role he wished, including a duellist. But the Marquis? He was 72, Lifar was 52… There were always dramas. Anyhow, in 1954 Lifar staged the ballet La Dame de Pique in Monte Carlo and in Lausanne, having added music from Eugene Onegin to the score. I was one of the three cards. It was a marvellous ballet, but it was performed only four or five times.

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Did Nijinska work with you as well? Yes. She was extraordinary – a great artist, but a difficult character. As you know, she was deaf and had to wear a little hearing aid. She didn’t speak French very well, so I tried to speak Russian to her but she didn’t understand me. Then I realised why: she had turned her hearing aid off and was trying to lip-read, but she thought that I was speaking French. Did you take part in her last Sleeping Beauty? Nijinska didn’t finish it; she didn’t like the costumes and she abandoned the work. Then Sir Robert Helpmann, a very interesting dancer, came from London to complete the ballet. Could you say a little about John Taras? He was born in America into a Ukrainian family. He studied with Fokine. He danced and then became a choreographer. We worked together when staging various ballets for the de Cuevas company. He became my second husband. He worked mostly with Balanchine and took his ballets to many theatres, including the Bolshoi.

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• Vladimir Oukhtomsky I fell in love with dance even before I started dancing Perpignan, 2005

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t the time we met, Vladimir Oukhtomsky lived in the South of France near the ancient town of Perpignan. He spoke a marvellous old-fashioned Russian, and took care of the local Orthodox parish. His sister, who was married to Nikita Struve, the first world publisher of The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn (YMCA, 1973), was a painter of Orthodox icons. I would like to ask you first about your family. As I understand, Oukhtomsky is an ancient princely surname. Yes. Oukhtoma is the name of a river and a village on the White Lake in the far north-west of Russia. Later on, the White Lake princedom, like many others, divided into different branches and that is how the Oukhtomskys appeared. However, in our family there were three generations of priests in Moscow and St Petersburg, and my ancestors adopted the surname of Protopopov. I took back the original name when I started my ballet career because the church surname seemed to me misplaced for a dancer – I didn’t want to offend my priest ancestors. Your parents emigrated during the Revolution?

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Yes and no. My grandfather had served as priest in Wiesbaden. That was before the Revolution? At first he went to serve in Nice, I think, in 1905. Then he was sent to Wiesbaden, where he stayed until the beginning of World War I, when he had to leave Germany. He served for a short time in Paris. After the war he returned to Nice, where he stayed until his death. My father served as the Imperial Consul attached to the embassy in Vienna. When war was declared in 1914 he was moved to Paris, and afterwards to Nice. My grandfather on my mother’s side, General Levantovsky, was commander-in-chief of the general staff at the Turkish front during the war, but the family lived in Tiflis [the old name for Tbilisi, Georgia]. My grandmother established a grammar school in Tiflis with Father Alexander Elchaninov. After the Revolution, my grandfather took the family to Constantinople and from there to Marseilles, where my parents met. Since my father had been a consul and knew French law, he was helping emigrants with their papers. So your childhood was spent in Nice? Yes, my childhood and youth. Perhaps it would interest you to know how I began dancing? My mother was in love with the Dalcroze system. When I found out that my brother was learning to dance, I thought, why not me? I thought that we would be taught to dance with girls. My mother took me to a ballet school. They started making me stand in what seemed to me very ugly poses. I was horrified and ran away. At that time, several of the Mariinsky stars were living in the South of France, and when World War II started and we moved to Cannes, I joined the school run by Madame Julia Sedova. A whole gang of boys studied with her. At this point, I simply fell in love with ballet. Even before that I had been interested in its history, décor and the costumes. I still am. Did your family accept your passion for ballet? By no means! My father was horrified. He was a graduate from the illustrious St Petersburg Lycée, as was Sedova’s husband. He went to her and

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said, ‘I don’t want you to make my son into a dancer.’ She replied, ‘What do you mean a dancer? He is going to be a ballet dancer!’ My father was very displeased. He was hardly going to allow me to become a professional. But I continued studying with Sedova all the same. I was exhausted, the war was on and there was almost nothing to eat. I became very ill and was sent to the mountains near Grenoble to get better. One day towards the end of the war, my uncle, a French officer, arrived in a huge Jeep, bigger than any I had ever seen, and with him was my mother. He told me he would send me to the American military base in Toulon. My mother made me kneel down and blessed me, and within half an hour we were going ‘to the wars’. Miraculously, I beefed up at that American base. I stayed there till the end of the war and literally the day after it was over I joined the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo. It was just as Mikhail Panaieff (the dancer who worked as a translator in the American army during the war) described it in a chapter of his memoirs, entitled From Army Boots To Ballet Shoes, or similar. The company’s director was Serge Lifar, whom I had read about in my childhood. Arnold Haskell, the English ballet critic, sometimes came to visit my godmother, a ballerina, and he would give her his books about the Russian ballet. I had read about Lifar and about the Ballets Russes tours to Australia. And on one occasion Sedova took me along to his class, saying, ‘Pay attention and copy every one of Lifar’s movements like a monkey.’ I did so. It seemed fascinating: his movements somehow flowed one into another, so elegantly, so beautifully. There was something heroic about it. When I joined the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo I was still a novice. Lifar staged interesting productions with us, mostly one-act ballets, lasting a maximum of 40 minutes. Even Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty were staged as one-act performances. We got used to that, which meant that when the Bolshoi Theatre first came on tour and brought those fulllength productions, it really surprised and even annoyed us. For Giselle, where Yvette Chauviré was dancing the main role, Lifar invited Sedova to dance the role of the mother. The only long ballet that Lifar staged immediately after the war was Shota Rustaveli, a strange work. Perhaps it was to do with life outside the ballet – Lifar was a great dreamer. Well, after the war he had some unpleasantness in Paris… I imagine that, by ‘unpleasantness’, you mean the fact that the French Resistance movement more or less condemned him to death. That is why

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he had to go into exile in Monte Carlo. How was your everyday work with Lifar? Recently, in a book of ballet memoirs (I think by one of the English dancers who danced with us under a Russian name), I read that Lifar didn’t have a strong character, and that was true. I learnt probably 10 or 15 roles with him, but there was never any warmth; it is strange but one could say he was somehow indifferent. I stayed on with the company under Lifar, and later under the Marquis de Cuevas. When the Marquis bought the troupe, our wages were doubled. During the two-week tour in London in 1948 we got a relentlessly bad reception. Then, in 1950, I went with the de Cuevas company to America. The Marquis had a row with the American critics, apparently provoked by his wife who had interfered, demanding a change in the programme at the last moment. I stayed in Los Angeles. At first, there were problems with my visa: I received it for only six weeks, but I stayed in California for 21 years. In America, I formed a partnership with Tamara Toumanova, with whom I danced for more than ten years. My second wife, a pianist, accompanied us everywhere, as did Toumanova’s mother, no less famous in the ballet world than Tamara herself. Before the beginning of a tour we rehearsed in Los Angeles, which was illegal as I didn’t have a visa. We performed with great success. In California, I founded a troupe of about 10 or 12 dancers, The Oukhtomsky Ballet Classique. On one occasion, when we had trouble with the local police in a small American town, I suddenly realised that there wasn’t a single American in our troupe – everyone was a foreigner. What did you dance? Classical pas de deux and ballets, specially staged for five, six, ten people at the very most. I tried to invite various choreographers, and at first they agreed, but then it turned out that they were involved in other projects. At that time, I did not think that I could choreograph myself. During the times when you were with the Marquis de Cuevas, you must have worked with Nijinska?

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Of course I did. She was greatly respected but she was a difficult person. Besides, she was rather deaf. The dancers were forewarned that they had to speak to her loudly and clearly or she would get very angry. And nobody understood what she was saying either – like all deaf people she was afraid of raising her voice. She whispered or, when she wanted to correct something, she tapped lightly on the shoulder. But I had an easier time than most. The thing is, I had experience of dealing with deaf people. My Ossetian grandmother had very bad hearing, so I knew how to converse with Nijinska. I shouted, ‘Forward’, ‘Back’, ‘Yes’ and ‘Good’, and so on. Everyone was terrified, but she was delighted and gave me roles – even more difficult ones than I might have wished for, like the mazurka in Les Biches. Only the first part of her biography has been published. I saw Irina Nijinska, her daughter, for the last time in Monte Carlo when I was invited to watch a revival of Les Biches. The two English choreographers who had revived it were in raptures about their work, but I said that it was nothing like the original. Of course, no film exists. They had revived the ballet from the notes. It is very sweet to do a revival of a ballet from paper, but it is complete nonsense. As Bronislava Nijinska would have said, ‘ça regrettement, cher ami, pas classique, dondis.’ In her pronunciation, it meant ‘Unfortunately, dear friend, this is not classical, do not do this!’

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• Vladimir Skouratoff In France, male dance has always been in the shadows Léognan, France 2005

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searched a long time for Vladimir Skouratoff in Bordeaux, where he had directed the Ballet de L’Opéra de Bordeaux company for 20 years, but the memory of his colleagues appeared to be short and no one could tell me where he lived. At last, I was put in touch with an old theatre costumiere who instantly gave me the sought-after address. It turned out that the 80-year-old Skouratoff was living on the outskirts of Bordeaux. Skouratoff rarely comes across people who are interested in his ballet past and he was openly delighted by my unexpected visit. As with Zoritch and Oukhtomsky, our conversation turned out to be rather fragmentary. All the same, he told me a great many interesting things. Where does your family come from? They come from Tula and from Kremenchug. Was it you who wanted to study ballet? No, my mother decided for me. She loved ballet. At first, I felt ill at ease, but later on I too was imbued with the spirit of ballet, and came to see its beauty. For me, it is first and foremost theatre. By the way, I’ve noticed that Russians generally love dance. I remember once a Georgian steamer

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came from Russia to Bordeaux, and we discovered that in the evening the sailors were giving a show. It included dances and the sailors danced very well. That is called ‘do-it-yourself culture’; I doubt that the ship carried any true artists. Do you remember the Soviet film of War and Peace? On the eve of the battle of Borodino, the soldiers started to dance in order to forget their predicament. Where else is that possible? Who taught you dance? My teachers in Paris were Preobrajenska and Balashova. Only Russians! It was thanks to Vladimir Dokoudovsky that I began dancing. My mother saw him on stage, then she met him and he suggested that she took me to Preobrajenska, with whom he himself had studied. Dancing in her studio wasn’t very comfortable but it had a very special atmosphere, like a beehive. The dancers knew that Preobrajenska’s pupils always found work. The pianist sat by the door as we came in and, next to her – Madame Preobrajenska. I was the only boy, surrounded by 20 girls, and training was focused on the girls. They came to her from as far away as Australia and America. I, the newcomer, didn’t know how to do anything. I was very embarrassed. The whole class was laughing at me. Later on I became acquainted with Serge Peretti, a teacher from the ballet school associated with the Paris Opera. He gave a class for male dancers at a studio on Place Pigalle. In France, male dance has always been in the shadows; having danced the whole repertory, Peretti was the first male dancer to achieve the grade of an étoile during the war – until then, only ballerinas could be stars. Peretti’s system was very different from the Russian one. For instance, according to the Russian school, the leg should not be lifted higher than 45 degrees in jambe à la seconde. Historically, the first classical school was Italian but now almost nothing remains of it – the French and the Russian schools have taken its place. Opera and bel canto swallowed up Italian ballet, though there was a fine Italian ballerina: Carla Fracci. I danced with her in London.

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I started to dance professionally under Serge Lifar. After the end of the war, Lifar was driven out of the Paris Opera, and he invited me to his Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo. It was a hand-to-mouth existence. There wasn’t enough money but we didn’t mind – we were young and absorbed in the work. I danced there with Zizi Jeanmaire. Then, after two years, Lifar returned to the Opera, and I began dancing with the Roland Petit company. I was Yvette Chauviré’s partner in the Grand Pas Classique at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Then Colonel de Basil arrived from America: he was looking for dancers for a tour at Covent Garden – and I set off for London. There, I saw all the famous ballets, which we didn’t know; after all, we had been cut off not only from Russia but also from the rest of the world. What I saw was splendid: Le Coq d’Or, Schéhérazade, Paganini and, of course, Polovtsian Dances by Mikhail Fokine, and Symphonie fantastique by Léonide Massine, and Balanchine’s Prodigal Son. What ballets! We danced at Covent Garden for three months, then two weeks at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. Of course, it was a success. But we felt that it was the end of the line – there wasn’t enough money. It is difficult to pay 80 dancers. In 1952, the Marquis de Cuevas invited me to join his company. I danced with them until 1960. He was a Medici. He loved art. He had plenty of money – at least, the money was Rockefeller’s, whose granddaughter he had married. It’s good the money went to ballet. He didn’t pay badly. We started to live properly; until then we had lived like gypsies. The Cuevas company performed a huge repertoire. Has anybody heard nowadays of Skibine’s ballet Achille set to music by La Rochefoucauld? Or of Piège de lumière by John Taras set to music by Jean-Michel Damase? I danced a convict who has escaped to the heart of a jungle where he is bewitched by the beauty of the tropical butterflies and goes mad because of it. Bronislava Nijinska used to direct us for two months every year. It was heaven and hell at the same time. In the evening, for example, you’d be dancing Giselle and at 9 o’clock the next morning you were just a mere student with her. When she staged Petrushka she alluded to her brother all the time and said that we weren’t doing it right. By the way, the contemporary Ballet de Monte Carlo has acquired the original Petrushka stage scenery. After the Marquis’ death I was invited to Geneva. I worked there for three years. Amongst other ballets, I danced Balanchine’s Sonnambula

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and then I worked in Marseilles. After that, I was invited to La Scala. It was difficult there. I arrived in Milan and settled in a pensione. The landlady asked, ‘You have come to La Scala? You sing?’ This young woman took me for a tenor. ‘No, I have come to dance in the ballet.’ ‘In the ballet? What is that?’ I was dancing the Blue Bird and when Yvette Chauviré came I was her partner. Then I choreographed Prokofiev’s Chout for the Florentine Musical May festival, and danced with Toumanova in Giselle – that was a great piece of luck. She danced marvellously in Act II. It was dangerous dancing with her: she made it look so easy that one became careless. The public used to say, ‘How light she is!’ but lifting her was difficult: she gave no help. The same was true of Markova, with whom I danced Giselle at the London Festival Ballet. Then I was invited to the Geneva Opera for another three years, where I taught and worked as a choreographer. Janine Charrat was director of the ballet company. She was very talented but difficult. I revived Petrushka and worked on productions by Taras, including his Persephone set to music by Schumann – a splendid ballet. From 1963 to 1966 I worked as ballet master in Strasbourg, where the repertoire was interesting. When I arrived in Bordeaux, there were 30 ballerinas and eight dancers. I worked there for a long time. On one occasion in Toulouse they decided to stage the opera Eugene Onegin and they invited three Russians. One was the designer George Wakhévitch, originally from Odessa; his famous ballet production was Le Jeune Homme et la Mort by Roland Petit. The other two were the stage director Sasha Pitoyeff and me as the choreographer. I staged the Scottish Dance, the Grand Waltz and other ballet scenes. I love not only opera but operetta as well. Massine also loved Offenbach. A comedy ballet is more difficult to stage than a tragedy; it’s hard to warm people up, to make them smile. Massine managed to do it; Le Beau Danube and Le Tricorne are coloured by his own special style. He had one drawback: he was slightly bow-legged. When he danced Fokine’s Légende de Joseph in a Greek tunic it became noticeable; it was even written about. Then he tried to dance costume roles so that his legs were hidden. A wise man finds a way of hiding a defect.

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• Boris Traïline Boy, come over here, explain it to these blockheads! Paris, 2005

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fter leaving the stage almost half a century ago, Boris Traïline (brother of Hélène Traïline) became a ballet impresario. It seemed there was nothing he did not know about contemporary ballet troupes, dancers and choreographers. You were born on the island of Lemnos. How did your parents happen to be there? My father was a Colonel in the White Army. My parents escaped Sebastopol on one of the last steamships when the Red Army was already at the city gates. Only the wounded and the elderly who couldn’t be left behind were being embarked. I’ve heard that when the Reds came they shot down 10,000 people. Holding hands, my mother and father were standing on the quay by the cordoned-off area; there was no chance of getting on the steamer. Suddenly – as my mother used to describe the scene to me – a soldier saw her, smiled and said, ‘You can go, girl.’ ‘But I am with my brother’, she replied. ‘Then both of you go through.’ That is why I am here. My mother was a wonderful person. I owe everything to her and to my father. My mother had a great power of imagination and an excellent memory. My father was a man of duty; he loved everything to be in order; he was blessed with a great sense

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of humour but he wasn’t very imaginative. My mother, on the other hand, was a stranger to all order, and as for her sense of humour, it showed only inadvertently. For instance, when my fiancée told her that she was going to marry me, my mother said, ‘I wouldn’t advise it.’ I was born in a tent on the island of Lemnos where there was a Franco-British military base. After a year we moved to Bulgaria. But the valuables my father had taken with him were gradually sold off. Before long, my mother realised that Bulgaria was too close to Russia to feel safe, which was borne out afterwards. She found some friends in France who sent her 500 francs and we moved to the town of Rombas in the Moselle region where there was a large factory. My father became an unskilled labourer. I started going to a French school, where I was the top student. But because of industrial pollution, my mother decided it was time to move on. She found an acquaintance, the majordomo to a rich English lady in Cannes. He also sent us 500 francs, and we moved to Cannes’ La Bocca, which is two kilometres from the town. My father found a job there at a rubbish recycling plant. One day my mother learned from the Russian newspaper Vozrozhdenie (Renaissance) that Madame Julia Sedova, an ex-ballerina from Mariinsky theatre, was giving classes in Cannes, Nice and Menton. Mother went to see her and said, ‘Madame Sedova, we have a large Russian colony of émigrés here. If I get a group of 10 or 15 girls together, could you come to teach them?’ Sedova replied that she was too busy but she suggested her daughter, Princess Ouroussova, instead. Was she also a ballerina? No, but her mother had taught her, and she could teach the beginners. I was 12 years old at the time, and my sister was five (she was born in 1928 in France). One day my mother asked me if I wanted to do dance too. ‘No way!’ I replied. She said, ‘First of all, it’s gymnastics. Secondly, all I am offering you is three classes. If you don’t like it, I won’t mind. And as a treat, I’ll give you ten francs.’ Well, for ten francs you could go to the cinema ten times, so I agreed. During the first two classes, I stood at the back. At the third one, Princess Ouroussova said, ‘Girls, you are stupid. I am showing you a simple pas and you don’t get it! There, the boy at the back, he grasped it.

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Boy, come over here, explain it to these blockheads!’ She played on my pride. And I decided to continue taking the classes, all the more because I saw that it was truly a kind of gymnastics. I graduated from secondary school with distinction and went to the Jules Ferry School of Engineers in Cannes. But we had very little money. At that time my father left the factory and started to earn his living by gardening. By then I was studying with Sedova, and as soon as my morning lessons ended at 11am, I ran to the Villa Baron. After a while, Sedova put on The Little Humpbacked Horse and asked me if I wanted to dance the main part, which was a very simple one. The first performance was in Grasse, and the young Marika Besobrasova was the other soloist. Meanwhile, I started working and decided that ballet was more important than school. I polished floors, I was a house painter, I stitched ballet shoes and installed electrical equipment. From the money I earned I paid for an apartment and in 1935 we were able to move to the centre of Cannes. I used to go and watch Lifar, who came to dance at the Casino Municipal with Adjemova; she came from a rich family who lived in the Midi and they used to give money to the ballet so that their daughter could dance. In 1934, Léon Woizikowsky’s ballet company was touring at the Casino Municipal. I performed as an extra for him and he was very pleased with me. I was almost 15 years old, already strong, and I did everything well. I was the Bear in Petrushka. Later on, during the war, I danced Petrushka in Monte Carlo. Before long the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo started to give performances in Monaco with Massine as the main choreographer. Amongst the dancers were Danilova, Misha Panaieff, Mia Slavenska, Eglevsky, Youskevitch and Nini Theilade, who danced in Massine’s ballet Nobilissima visione – a very beautiful dancer, but lacking technique. When I was 16, Sedova said, ‘Boris, you are ready to join the Ballet de Monte Carlo.’ I went to a class at which Massine and René Blum were present. When it ended, Blum came up to me and said, ‘Young man, you have talent. Do you want to join the company?’ I replied, ‘Mr Director, I am very touched by your offer, but my mother says that 16 is too young to join the troupe because in the corps de ballet I will have no opportunities. First I have to improve my technique.’ Blum replied, ‘Your mother is right.’ I continued studying with Sedova until 1939 when I was 18 years old and the war started. I was meant to do military training but in 1940, after

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the Germans had utterly defeated the French army, obligatory military service was abolished. At that time Suzanne Sarabelle, a ballerina from the Paris Opera, came to the South of France. She was Jewish and it was dangerous for anyone Jewish to stay in Paris. She came with her husband, Mr Parisot, a rich man. She started taking private classes with Sedova. In Nice she met a great man, Ivan Clustine, formerly a soloist and ballet master at the Bolshoi Theatre, the only one of the dancers to be given royal permission to wear a moustache. He had emigrated very early on, in 1903, and opened a ballet school in Paris, then in 1911 he became choreographer for the Paris Opera. He staged Suite de danses, which was another look at the music of Chopin used in Les Sylphides. Then he toured around the world for 18 years with Anna Pavlova, choreographing ballets for her. One day Sarabelle told Sedova, ‘I’ve invited Mr Clustine to choreograph an evening for me but my partner is in Strasbourg. While he is away, perhaps that young man could take his place?’ When Sarabelle’s partner returned from Strasbourg, Clustine looked at him and said, ‘That’s not a partner, that’s a chimpanzee.’ (His arms went down to his knees.) So I kept on dancing with Sarabelle. Up until then I usually earned five francs a day, and he offered me 1000 francs a week. After the performance a famous Paris impresario bought the show from Sarabelle and reserved the theatre for the next week. Posters appeared in the streets saying, ‘Suzanne Sarabelle – Boris Traïline’. Sarabelle ran to me, ‘What have you done?’ ‘Me, nothing.’ She rushed to the impresario, who said, ‘I have bought your show and will present it as I think necessary.’ At the beginning of the war, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo left for Australia and Serge Lifar went with them. As the Casino was obliged by law to hold cultural events, the management decided to create a new ballet troupe. Marika Besobrasova and her husband George Raymond (the former private secretary to Denham with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo) arranged the performances with whatever dancers they could find – some were from Marika’s school, like the young Jean Babilée. Babilée was a pseudonym. His father (whose name was Gutman) was a well-known Jewish doctor in Paris. To protect his son, he sent him to the South of France. However, Marika and George quarrelled with Sablon, the Casino manager, and in 1940 Marika went to Cannes and organised the Ballet de

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Cannes, which I joined together with Babilée and Mikhailova (a pupil of Sedova’s). Though, in fact, Babilée won his real fame in Paris after the war thanks to Roland Petit’s ballet Le Jeune Homme et la Mort. Life became very difficult when the Allies landed in North Africa, and the Germans, who had up until then observed the neutrality of the South of France, occupied it. And, of course, the Ballet de Cannes fell apart. At that time it was decreed that all French men born between 1921 and 1923 had to report for registration; then they were sent to work in Germany. I had a Nansen passport, but I figured that I’d be taken all the same, so in March 1942 I went back to Monaco, where Sablon was setting up the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo. I was offered the place of premier danseur and my salary increased from the 4000 francs that I was receiving at the Ballet de Cannes to 9000 francs. I told them they had a weak repertoire and that Fokine’s ballets should be revived. At my suggestion Nicholas Zvereff, Nijinsky’s understudy, came to Monte Carlo from Paris and staged all the Fokine ballets: Carnaval, Petrushka, Les Sylphides, Le Spectre de la rose, Schéhérazade. I danced in all of them. The other soloist was Serge Golovine, who was two years younger than me. I also suggested we should invite Mikhail Larionov as the artistic advisor, as he had worked with Diaghilev. He and I became friends. At the Casino there were slot machines and in idle moments Larionov and I started watching them and discovered that there was a certain order to the way the numbers were coming up. When we didn’t have enough money for supper we used to say, ‘Let’s go and fill the hat.’ We would go there, put in the coupon and choose the winning combination. We would pile up five or six such capfuls and would go off to have dinner. Was the whole Golovine family there? Yes, Serge’s brother Jean and sister Solange also danced. They were born, I think, in Monte Carlo and didn’t speak Russian. Later Serge went to the Paris Opera corps de ballet, and from there to the Marquis de Cuevas. Meanwhile, in 1946, we were told that the Nouveau Ballet needed a trade union. Before the war, when Diaghilev and then Denham had directed the troupe, the Casino had signed a contract with them by which it provided the company with costumes, stage sets and a sewing studio. In return, the company gave 24 shows from November to December and

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12 at Easter. The rest of the time, the company went on tour. From 1942 to 1946, it was part of the Casino staff and everyone was paid a monthly salary. Now that was over. The management had no interest in keeping on the troupe, which everyone had seen many times and which didn’t have a repertoire. The frontier was open again and the Casino was receiving a huge number of offers from ballet theatres throughout the world. They suggested we find an impresario who could take charge of the company like Serge Denham had before the war. They would sign a similar contract for performances in Monte Carlo with him and for the rest of the time we could go away wherever we liked. We couldn’t find such an impresario for a long time until Eugene Grünberg, Youly Algaroff ’s uncle, appeared. He agreed to take charge of the company on condition that Serge Lifar was the artistic director. But Lifar at that time had gone into hiding in Paris; people wanted to kill him because he had continued to direct the Paris Opera under the Germans. But had the Chinese come, he would have danced for the Chinese – after all, the trains were going, the post was being delivered, one ought not to condemn someone for doing his job. And our unions, too, dug in their heels – we couldn’t employ Lifar. They organised a general meeting of all the Monte Carlo unions: the orchestra, the electricians and so on. And our dancers’ union leader, Gerard Mélisse, whose parents had perished in Buchenwald, also said that we must not allow his appointment. There was complete silence. For us dancers, Lifar was a god. He was at the height of his fame. And I got up and said, ‘Lifar isn’t our friend or relation but how can we refuse to accept him? What will we do? The company will fall apart, we will lose our work and we will all die of hunger. Either you negotiate with the Casino so that they employ us as before or you invite another famous person like Balanchine, Massine, Nijinska, so that we get invited on tour. There is also a third option – agree on Lifar.’ The management decided to reassemble in a week’s time. The dancers asked me to be the union secretary. So I, the son of a White Army colonel, became the general secretary of the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo’s left-leaning union… After a week, the governing body agreed to take Lifar, as long as he only worked in the studio, and was not seen in the theatre. Lifar came, bringing with him Chauviré, Jeanmaire, Skouratoff and Tcherina. He created an excellent troupe, one of the best ever. He revived Suite en blanc, which was renamed Noir et blanc; he staged an excellent

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ballet, Dramma per musica, to the music of Bach with décor by the brilliant artist Cassandre. What was it like working with Lifar? Lifar was a fine person. But when he didn’t like something, he would swear like a trooper: ‘Fait chier! Coup de pied dans le cul!’ He went through variations of the mazurka from Sylphides and Le Spectre de la rose with me. When the Monte Carlo season came to an end, the tours started. We reckoned we could be sure of good audiences in the neutral countries – Portugal, Italy and Switzerland – where Germans, Americans and English preferred to meet and where diplomats gathered for talks. So Grünberg arranged a tour through Italy, but people there were thinking more about meat and potatoes than about ballet. The tour turned out badly; the takings were low and the impresario wasn’t always able to pay us. Returning from Rome by train, we stopped at the French border at Ventimiglia and the whole company spent the night in the station waiting room. Only Chauviré was put up at the station hotel. When we returned to Monte Carlo, Lifar told me that in Rome he had met the Marquis de Cuevas, who had his own company in America called the Ballet International where Eglevsky, Toumanova and Skibine were dancing. De Cuevas knew that our affairs were going badly and he said to Lifar, ‘Arrange it so that they sell me the management of the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo.’ And Lifar, knowing that the Marquis had a lot of money, said to me, ‘Boris, you have already done me a good turn once. Do something to make Grünberg leave.’ I started to look for such an opportunity. After Italy, Grünberg and Julian Braunsweg organised tours of the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo in London. The English responded to Lifar in the same way as the French; there were picket lines at the theatre, though the performances went well. We danced in London for three weeks, after which Braunsweg said that we had to go home – the audiences were low. Julian Braunsweg describes this in his reminiscences Ballet Scandals. He came from a rich Polish-Jewish family in Moscow, which had lost everything during the Revolution and fled to Germany. Having seen how his

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father lost his fortune overnight, Braunsweg decided once and for all that he would never aim to amass capital. He and his wife were devoted wholeheartedly to ballet and they used to put their own money into it. He became the impresario for Boris Romanov’s Russian Romantic Ballet and then he created the London Festival Ballet with Markova, Dolin and Krassovska. We returned to Paris, and Grünberg invited his nephew Youly Algaroff into the troupe, having said to me, ‘Boris, people have seen enough of you. To give the public a respite from your excellent talent, Algaroff will dance the major part of the ballets.’ I was taken out of Le Spectre de la rose. It has to be said that Algaroff was gasping for breath in the first performance. After that they took the Spectre de la rose out of the repertoire. It was either him or nobody. Grünberg’s affairs went from bad to worse. There were no performances. We went on a tour of the French provinces. Lifar had patrons – the Aga Khan III, the spiritual leader of the Ismailis, and his wife Yvette Labrousse, the daughter of a train conductor and a seamstress who, in 1928, had become Miss France. When we returned from the tour, the Aga Khan invited us to his villa. I complained about Grünberg; he had been unable to organise anything either in Italy or in England and now we were required to go around the little towns of France: Perpignan, Limoges, even to Angoulême. (At this, Yvette Labrousse said: ‘Don’t say anything bad about Angoulême, I was born there.’) All in all, it was time to part with Grünberg. But how? His contract was for five years. I found an answer: in January 1946, everyone had to register with the social services by a new law. Grünberg was supposed to insure us starting from March. It was already November and he still hadn’t done anything. Our stars – Chauviré, Jeanmaire and Skouratoff – went to the governing body with a complaint: our company had lost its reputation in Italy and England and it was Grünberg’s fault he hadn’t insured us… They offered to transfer us from Grünberg to the Marquis de Cuevas, who had substantial means and organised the ballet on a solid financial basis. And we presented an ultimatum: either he retired or we would all leave and take him to court. In the end, Grünberg agreed to go, but he demanded compensation of 5 million francs. The company was taken over by the Marquis de Cuevas, who brought his artists with him:

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Toumanova, Eglevsky, Skibine, Tallchief. Of course, Lifar didn’t like this, but soon he was invited back to the Paris Opera and he, of course, stopped fighting de Cuevas. We, dancers from Lifar’s old troupe, were left alone with the Americans. Gradually, all the old artists were chucked out. I was the first. It happened like this. Our first season was in 1947 in Paris. The troupe was initially called the Grand Ballet de Monte Carlo (then they dropped Monte Carlo from the name; the ballet no longer returned there and was renamed the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas). From Paris we went to Portugal; there I again danced Le Spectre de la rose, Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor and the second act of Swan Lake with Toumanova and Eglevsky. After the premiere there were very good reviews and the papers singled me out as the best dancer, saying, ‘Not only has he remarkable technique, he has soul.’ At this point, Eglevsky had enough. He was a friend of the Marquis and all my roles started gradually to slip away from me – this time to him. In the end, he persuaded de Cuevas not to renew my contract when it ended in June. I went to Paris and danced at gala performances. I partnered Yvette Chauviré, Tamara Toumanova and Liane Daydé. Meanwhile, in the de Cuevas troupe, they replaced Lifar with Bill Dollar. The Aga Khan, who was supporting us financially, once said to de Cuevas after the performance, ‘How many Dollars do they give for one Lifar?’ Tell me please about La Dame à la Licorne. Everyone has heard of it but nobody has seen it. In 1953, a very good Paris impresario, Léonide Leonidov, suggested I go to Munich, where Jean Cocteau was creating his ballet La Dame à la Licorne with Heinz Rosen, a student of Rudolf von Laban, Kurt Jooss and Gsovsky. One could say it was wholly Cocteau’s ballet: the design, the libretto, the décor and the costumes. The ballet was based on an old tapestry depicting the unicorn, which takes food only from the hands of a virgin and dies when she gives her love to a knight. I danced the Knight. It was an immense success. But in the ballet world it was not widely acknowledged and was rarely revived. When I was 40, I decided it was time to retire so as to preserve my reputation. There is nothing worse than elderly artists clinging to the limelight. I left the stage and became an impresario.

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Did you work with Balanchine? Once Balanchine came to Paris and said, ‘Boris, I want you to advertise the Geneva Ballet. I am sending my soloist Patricia McBride to Europe, together with several pupils from my school. She is already 40 years old – time to leave the stage. I’d really like them to have success.’ I said, ‘George, write me a letter from New York to show it to the theatre directors.’ He replied, ‘Very well. I’ll post it.’ Then he thought and said, ‘No, I’ll forget.’ He took a piece of paper, put his signature at the bottom and said, ‘Write whatever you wish.’ No one else in the world would have done that! I shamelessly wrote, ‘Dear Boris, I authorise you to stage all my ballets in Europe.’ Massine would never have acted that way – he was too miserly. When he staged ballets in Florence he sent all his letters through the theatre so as not to waste money on stamps. Once, he invited me to the Brasserie de Lorraine to eat oysters. I ordered the best, and he chose the smallest and cheapest.

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• Nicholas Polajenko ‘Don’t worry, dearie, let’s just dance the waltz’ Palm Beach, 2005

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icholas polajenko’s story points out, among other things, how much the Ballets Russes impressed a young American boy of Georgian and Russian extraction who studied ballet with the former Mariinsky-Diaghilev dancers. My father was born in Perm and my mother was born in Tiflis, as Tbilisi was then called. My father’s family, to judge from his surname, was originally Ukrainian, but we always spoke Russian in our family, even though we lived in New York. My father worked as an accompanist for the ballet classes at various studios. I often had to accompany him after school and spent hours gawking at the ballet students. When I was ten one of the teachers said, ‘Why doesn’t Nicholas give it a go as well?’ That is how I started. My first teachers were Anatole Vilzak and Ludmila Schollar, the most famous ballet teachers in New York at that time. Schollar taught the younger pupils and Vilzak was with the older ones. As I was starting, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was on tour in New York. They made a tremendous impression on me, more than any other company I had seen before. Furthermore, many of the dancers, both soloists and corps de ballet, used to come to Vilzak for class every morning. Having just been moved up from Schollar’s class into Vilzak’s, I got to see all these amazing people. Having contact with them

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influenced me as much as seeing their performances. Igor Youskevitch made the biggest impression on me – I simply worshipped him. Later on, when I returned from Europe to America, I always went to his classes. I also liked Vladimir Dokoudovsky. I trained with Vilzak for quite a long time. My first partner was Nicholas Beriozoff ’s daughter, Svetlana Beriozova. Our debut was in The Nutcracker with the Ottawa Ballet. Afterwards, Vilzak staged for me and another of his pupils Valse Triste (set to music by Sibelius), a pas de deux, which we danced for ten evenings at Carnegie Hall. At that time I was just 17. Twice, in 1946 and 1948, I performed in Broadway shows. Then I danced in Music in My Heart, a musical about the life of Tchaikovsky, but the production lasted only six months. I went away to work in Europe. Svetlana Beriozova’s father invited me to be her partner and we joined the Metropolitan Ballet in London – for all of one month. The ballet master there had been Victor Gsovsky, but he went back to Paris and was replaced by Papa Beriozoff – as we all called him – who warned me that the company would soon fold, even though thanks to him Londoners were able to see quite a few excellent dancers like Sonya Arova and Erik Bruhn. Under Beriozoff, classical ballets and ballets of the Diaghilev repertoire were performed, whereas Gsovsky and Taras had staged new works. In fact, the company fell apart in 1949, after only three years. Nicholas Beriozoff was born in 1906 in Lithuania. However, he trained and first danced in Prague where the Petipa ballets were preserved untouched, having been brought there at the beginning of the century. After becoming a soloist, he went back to his native Kaunas where the older Diaghilev dancers Anatole Oboukhoff, Vera Nemchinova and Nicholas Zvereff were working while the country was still independent from the Soviet Union, and he lear­ ned much from them. In 1935, he moved to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and travelled with the company to America. He worked closely with Fokine, having been appointed his rehearsal assistant, and after the war he staged revivals of his and Petipa’s ballets. Svetlana Beriozova, his daughter, stayed in London and became a well-known English ballerina at the Royal Ballet. I left London for Paris and joined the Ballets des Champs-Élysées. At that time, Roland Petit left the company and founded his own troupe, whilst Gsovsky and Boris Kochno continued working with us.

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Funny trifles come back to me. Kochno kept a little dog constantly by his side. He took it with him on tour to Rio de Janeiro. On the ship this unfortunate animal had certain problems because of the absence of trees. Kochno was genuinely upset by this, whereas of course to us young people it seemed very funny. His furious swearing left nothing to the imagination thanks to my knowledge of Russian, which added to the amusement… I stayed with that troupe for a year until it disbanded. Then I moved to Roland Petit’s company and turned out to be the first person to dance in Carmen after Petit himself. Although that ballet had already been seen in America, we returned there after the Paris season. Next, we were invited as guest dancers to work a season in Peru with Tatiana Grantseva. The ballet master was Dmitri Rostov. They were both from the Ballets Russes. I was 21 and Grantseva was 15 years older than me but we became excellent partners. In 1954, Papa Beriozoff again invited me to join the London Festival Ballet. I found Anton Dolin and Natasha Krassovska from the Ballets Russes, but John Gilpin and Markova had just left the company. Oleg Briansky was dancing there and so was the great Choura, who had made such an impression on me as a child when she was performing with the Ballets Russes in New York, dancing with Frederic Franklin. How wonderfully we danced Le Beau Danube together, though on one occasion I forgot that when she jumped on my shoulder I had to give way, and so I received a knee in my chest. Danilova, with a dazzling smile, whispered: ‘Don’t worry, dearie, let’s just dance the waltz’ – a reference to the moment in the Strauss waltz where the lady goes up to her partner and lightly taps him on the chest. I worked for 18 months at the London Festival Ballet, touring extensively. Beriozoff staged Esmeralda to music by Cesare Pugni, with magnifi­ cent stage decorations by Nicola Benois. They borrowed a live goat from London zoo, which chewed everything that came its way – including the ballet costumes. It also left puddles on the stage, which were a particular hazard for Natasha Krassovska dancing the heroine. Today only a small pas de deux remains from that ballet. It was gradually replaced by Roland Petit’s Notre Dame de Paris. I think that my generation was lucky. Νot only did we see the great ballerinas – Danilova, Toumanova, Krassovska – but we also got to dance with them. They were wonderfully sweet and kind, although they seemed

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a little strange to us. Toumanova’s mother had the most fantastic reputation – there were many anecdotes about her. When we were playing poker, which we used to do to while away on tour, she always cheated – but in such a tame way that everyone laughed about it. During a tour around America another mother came with us – Violette Verdy’s. The old lady Toumanova nicknamed her ‘Madame Merdy’ and waged a war of attrition against her. Toumanova’s mother would be standing in the wings, making the sign of the cross over her Tamarochka, whilst in the opposite wings Madame Merdy would be doing her magic, protecting her Violette. The daughters had to check their ballet shoes in case there might be glass or bread in them. Mamma Toumanova maintained that she possessed healing powers and indeed a dancer with a twisted knee got better as soon as she placed her hands over it. She also arranged séances and invoked the spirit of Diaghilev, who gave advice somehow always to Tamarochka’s advantage. Ballet people are generally superstitious but she was in a league of her own! I recall her story of how Pavlova’s portrait fell off Tamarochka’s wall and immediately there was a call from Hollywood inviting her to play Natasha Rostova in War and Peace. Nothing came of it of course, although Tamara did have film parts later on. It’s possible she was asked to double for Natasha in her famous ball scene. I don’t know. There was also a time when the morning after a premiere a florist would arrive with a basket of flowers for Tamara – Mamma Toumanova had hired him. When we were on tour in Egypt she boasted that a certain colonel had left a pearl necklace for Tamara at the stage door – but it turned out she had ordered it herself. Why did she do these things? Tamara was a beautiful dancer who didn’t need any such tricks. Natasha Krassovska lived in a world of her own. On tour someone always had to accompany her, otherwise she would be certain to get on the wrong train. Long before the beginning of a performance she would immerse herself in her role, especially when it was Giselle: on those days after breakfast Natasha would assume the identity of a Wili. In restaurants she used to insist on making her own salad. The surprised waiters would bring her the ingredients, which she would chop up at her table – and as the tables were usually very small, they used to spill over onto the floor.

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She spoke English with a strong Russian accent, à propos of which there is another story. Once she declared to someone: ‘I am the best Fokine dancer.’ But in her pronunciation the meaning came across completely differently. When Charlie Chaplin (her admirer) came to see her backstage in London in the beginning of the 1950s, Natasha asked in a weary voice, ‘So are you still making those films of yours?’ She, herself, used to joke how she was lucky: not only did she do what she loved but she was also paid for it as well. But she could be tough in financial matters. At the slightest provocation she would threaten to leave the company – and do so immediately. She met her match, though, when the Marquis de Cuevas wished to entice her away from the London Festival Ballet to dance Giselle for him: Rosella Hightower, who was the company’s prima ballerina, said, ‘It’s either me or her.’ Natasha returned to London empty-handed, although with presents for all the dancers, as always. She was very religious; having settled in Dallas she bought a plot of land, which turned out to have oil, and she collected over a million dollars, with which a Russian Orthodox church was built. She taught in Dallas until the last day of her life, quoting the fact that her teacher, Antonina Tumkovsky, worked until she was 92. What would you say about Dolin? I notice that people aren’t very willing to talk about him. In fact, Dolin wasn’t always a pleasant person, because of his tendency to make sarcastic comments. Once at a rehearsal, when a girl walked in front of the dancers’ line, he beckoned her over and asked in a loud voice, ‘Why are you so fat?’ I couldn’t contain myself and I said: ‘Mr Dolin, you son of a bitch!’ But he was a remarkable dancer and ballet master; you couldn’t take his mastery away from him. It was interesting working with Massine when he staged a revival of Le Beau Danube. Besides the actual part, he taught me some peculiarities of conveying character. In 1959 in Germany, I played one of the three main parts in his ballet film. Before the film launch, Dance Magazine published a cover photograph showing the three of us: Massine, his daughter Tatiana and me. I remember when we were rehearsing a scene from that film, he made me repeat an arm movement (which wasn’t very difficult) so many times that my arm felt as though it was about to fall off.

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Could you say a little about your work with the Marquis de Cuevas. My meeting with the Marquis came about thanks to Krassovska. Somehow en route from Rio de Janeiro to the States, I went to Peru, where Natasha was doing a ballet season with a local troupe. She suggested we join the Marquis’ company together (she had already got de Cuevas’ agreement and she thought that having me as her partner would be the best option). When I got back to New York I rang Natasha, as agreed, and she announced that we were going to have tea with the Marquis. I was amazed: I had never signed a contract over tea before. We stayed with the Marquis and his dogs for around half an hour. We talked about everything under the sun: who, where, what and when. And suddenly he asked completely out of the blue, ‘So when are you joining us?’ I asked what he meant, to which he replied, ‘At once.’ Soon we said goodbye and left, and when we were outside Natasha said, ‘I’m so pleased now you are my partner.’ Not a word was said about the contract. But later on, of course, I signed one. I had one more amusing twist of fate linked to the Marquis de Cuevas. About ten years earlier, he had brought his European company to New York for the first time and he needed an extra to hold a spear at the performance. Vilzak, to whom he turned for help, sent me along. And do you know how much I was paid? One dollar! And 10 or 11 years later I became the company’s lead dancer. I danced with them until the company disbanded. After the Marquis’ death this brilliant group of people went to his soi-disant nephew, Raymundo de Larraín, who kept it on for all of one year. It was during that period that they took on Rudolf Nureyev, who had just defected to the West. How did he behave in the company? A dazzling dancer but a real boor! He was rude to everyone including his peers. He behaved correctly only with me – I can’t remember a single unpleasantness – probably because I spoke Russian and was the leading dancer, in other words our status was equal. He didn’t stay long in the company – only until he got a more advantageous contract. It was like hotcakes, everyone wanted him. For Nureyev the conjunction of the planets was right: a fine dancer, still young and a political sensation. By the time I saw him performing in Geneva he had become more polished.

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And only after many years did we meet again: I was already living in Houston, Texas, and he had come there to dance. I went to see him in his dressing room; we met like old friends. I asked him, ‘How many performances have you got this year?’ He replied, ‘280 or 250. I don’t remember.’ ‘Aren’t you tired?’ ‘A little.’ After the break-up of the de Cuevas company and my return to New York, I was invited to be a soloist by various companies. In the end, I joined George Skibine’s small troupe (there were only six or seven dancers, including Marjorie Tallchief). We toured in a minibus around Germany. When I got back to New York I received a telegram from Serge Golovine, saying that he needed a lead dancer and a ballet master for his troupe. So I joined the Geneva Ballet. Svetlana Beriozova and Nureyev came to dance there. To my great regret I never managed to go to Russia and find out more about the ballet companies there.

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• Jean Babilée There was something so amazingly lyrical about the Russian ballet training! Paris, 2004; 2006

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first met Jean Babilée at his Paris apartment, where he had been living for half a century. He continued to work as a stage actor and was in between two touring engagements. After two years we met again, this time in a café near his home. Despite an illness that had left its mark, he had just returned from Cuba and was as flamboyant and original as ever. Is it true that your first crucial experience of dance was linked with the Ballets Russes? When I was a child, my mother would take me to performances at the Paris theatres, of which I have wonderful memories. One day she said, ‘We are going to the Russian Ballet at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.’ It was the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, directed by René Blum. A car stopped in front of the theatre and we saw a man in an unusual hat. My mother whispered to me, ‘It’s him!’ At the beginning they performed Les Sylphides, choreographed by Mikhail Fokine. I was a schoolboy then and I hated school, I hated everything. I was sick of my school companions’ crudeness. I felt awkward and very unhappy. And suddenly I saw a magical tale – Les Sylphides. I was moved and enchanted. The second ballet, also

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by Fokine, was L’Épreuve d’amour with music attributed to Mozart; they had only just found his score. Whoever’s music it was, the ballet, a fantastical embroidery of Chinese motifs, was divine. Nemchinova, Oboukhoff, Eglevsky and Jasiński were dancing, and the décor was by André Derain. The ballet was so beautiful that I, who up until then had never been keen on dance, have remembered this throughout my whole life. I still remember Eglevsky’s variation and the steps he performed. The evening was completed by Schéhérazade, with stage designs by Bakst. When we emerged from the theatre, I said to my mother, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ My father, a doctor, thought it was nonsense. But I insisted. Finally he said, ‘Listen, a dancer’s profession requires a huge effort. If you really want, I will enrol you at the Paris Opera ballet school.’ We agreed that if after my first year exams the teacher said that I had talent and I still wanted to continue, then I would stay there. So, when I was 12 years old I found myself at this school. And on 3 February 1936, on my 13th birthday, I went on stage for the first time. I had a solo part. They lifted me onto the stage through a trap door. I was standing below, and above me was a dark hole. The stagehand said to me, ‘Close your eyes, little chap.’ And I found myself under a table with a tablecloth trailing down to the floor. The public couldn’t see how I had come up. I was wearing a dark tricot decorated with flowers. And then I heard the music. The feeling was so overwhelming that tears filled my eyes. My first teacher was Gustave Ricaux. He had excellent technique. He didn’t try to teach me to dance beautifully, he taught me turns and jumps. He was not that interested in style. He tried to develop strength and to build up muscles. But my real studies began with the Russian teachers. The first was Alexandre Volinine. When I entered his studio for the first time I saw this beautiful photograph of him dancing in The Pharaoh’s Daughter. There was something so amazingly lyrical about the Russian ballet training! I felt truly happy every time I worked with the Russian coaches. That was the most important experience of my life. Few people talk about Alexandre Volinine, the pupil of Tikhomirov and Mordkin, whose ‘softness and refinement’ the ballet critics praised. He was a soloist of the Bolshoi Theatre, where he danced all the leading male parts in the classical repertoire and many virtuoso roles. He was dismissed in 1910, when he returned back late after a holiday, having been dancing with

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Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. After that, he partnered Anna Pavlova for more than ten years until 1925, when he opened a school in Paris. His ballet studio was at 132 avenue de Villiers. Volinine was an absolute miracle! He had an unusual style with a defined Russian accent – a style which Ricaux did not have. A class with Volinine was very different from Ricaux’s. Volinine helped discover talent and aptitude. That has always attracted me; dance carries you out of your ordinary life, carries you somewhere far away. With Volinine I truly felt my body. Ricaux gave the muscles but Volinine was relaxing them, teaching how to make every muscle play. He had amazing technique. He could do wonderful pirouettes. And he was a very cheerful person. I also worked with Boris Kniaseff, an outstanding person. A madman! A remarkable artist and at the same time an unusually capricious and egocentric character. He never said, ‘I want a drink, bring me some water.’ He would proclaim, ‘Maître wishes to drink! Pupil, bring Maître a drink.’ That was how he used to speak. ‘I’ did not exist for him. Delusions of grandeur? Extraordinary! He was a very good teacher but a completely unbearable person. I joined him during the Paris occupation, a long time before he changed to barre à terre. Even before the class started I could feel the tension, and it became so intense that I sometimes thought, ‘Hell, I’ve had enough!’ and I would stop going to him. After a little while I would meet him at the theatre and he would say, ‘Why don’t you come to the Maître? Come back to the Maître!’ So I would work with him for two weeks and then I would leave again. Kniaseff was a real dictator. He gave very difficult steps that we had to repeat endlessly. Here is an example. Igor Fosca, a Russian dancer, attended his classes for free as he didn’t have any money to pay for them. Once Boris showed us a jump, a very difficult one, and everyone was gasping for breath. When we finished, Boris looked at Fosca and said to him, ‘Try it again!’ The music started one more time and he started repeating everything from the beginning. Boris didn’t even look at him; as he smoked, he turned his head to inspect his nails while the dancer was dying of exhaustion. The music stopped. Boris looked at him and said, ‘Once again!’ ‘Maître, I can’t do anymore, I can’t.’ ‘One more time!’ ‘I can’t.’ Boris turned him to the mirror and

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stood in front of him, but as Fosca was considerably taller, that seemed inappropriate to him. He took the chair on which he had been sitting, put it in front of the dancer, climbed onto it, looked down on him and said contemptuously, ‘You boy!’ And that was Kniaseff through and through. What happened to this ‘boy’ afterwards? He became a soloist and a ballet master and he had his own company. Was Kniaseff ’s behaviour linked to the fact this ‘boy’ wasn’t paying for the classes? No, not at all. You can’t justify the humiliation. After ten days I left. I slammed the door and never went back to him. So, Volinine, Kniaseff, and then? I was unusually lucky. For me, the teacher whom I needed at that moment would always just appear. First Ricaux, a master of technique – that’s the most important thing when you start to dance, the rudiments. Then Volinine. He taught me to control my body and to achieve the almost impossible through movement. Then Kniaseff – a great teacher, but that was madness. And finally, Gsovsky – an artist to the core of his being who simply performed miracles. During the war, I had absolutely no money, often even not enough for food. Gsovsky knew about this and never asked for any money for the class. When I succeeded, he watched me with tears in his eyes and would say, ‘I love you’. I took around 100 daily classes with him at the Wacker studio. I am endlessly indebted to him; these were remarkable classes. Volinine emphasised every movement, but for Gsovsky the starting point was choreography. He did various adagios with us, always exceptionally beautiful and musical. Gsovsky could transform every movement in dance, every one of his movements was related to the music. I love music so this method suited me perfectly. Your famous jump that everyone comments on is from him? No, I think that is from my childhood. You can’t teach anyone to jump – either you can do it or you can’t. Of course technique comes

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into it, but it cannot be taught. For me dance is something that comes naturally. Was there competition between the teachers? Everything that I am speaking about happened over a period of 30 years. I was with Volinine before the war, with Kniaseff and Gsovsky during the Paris occupation, and I continued training with Gsovsky after the war. He was my coach at the Ballets des Champs-Élysées and we went on tour together. Afterwards, I went to classes with Nina Tikhonova. I read her book Ballets Russes: The Girl in Blue. I loved her very much. She was enchanting: a gentle character, a great coach. My daughter Isabelle worked with her. Besides her, in Paris I trained with Madame Rousanne, a charming lady of Armenian descent. When the war started, I left Paris in order to escape the German occupation and went to my father’s property in the South of France, not far from Avignon. And I stopped dancing. My mother was very distressed, but then she found out that there was a lady in Monte Carlo who was giving dance classes. So I met Marika Besobrasova, and she took me into her school. I attended her classes, then she created her company and I was invited to join. We used to dance at the Cannes Casino, a charming Italian theatre. Afterwards they bulldozed it and a concrete block took its place – the Festival Palace. For three years I danced the main roles there in Le Spectre de la rose, Noir et blanc, Les Sylphides and Oiseau de feu. Marika was the ballet master. Marika knew the choreography of all those ballets at that time? She had worked with Fokine in the Ballets Russes and had married the company’s director. He was called Georges Raymond; he was originally from Monaco. You probably came across Julia Sedova in the South of France. She used to give classes in Nice. As soon as I heard about her in Cannes, I got on a bus and went to Nice. I took one class with her, it was very

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traditional. I captivated everyone and then left. She said that I had surpassed her best pupil – and that was Serge Golovine. When the Italians entered the South of France I went back to Paris and was in the corps de ballet of the Paris Opera for a while, dancing Suite en blanc. Before the war, when I first joined the Opera in 1936, the people there seemed to me to come from the nineteenth century, especially the director Monsieur Jacques Rouché with his white beard and stiff collar, wearing a tie such as was worn in the last century, and his chauffeur in uniform. It was straight out of an old engraving. During the occupation, I should have been sent to work in Germany. I went to the préfecture and someone told me that if I proved that I had to take classes every day, I would pass for a student and wouldn’t have to go. I went to the director’s assistant, the well-known musician Marcel Samuel-Rousseau, and asked him for a document confirming that I was taking classes everyday. ‘Why?’ he asked. I explained that they were sending me to Germany. He said, ‘You know, working in the fresh air would be good for you.’ Then I went to Gsovsky who said, ‘You take two classes a month. I can’t write such a document for you.’ Soon I joined the Resistance. Please say something about Lifar. Lifar was the first twentieth-century person whom I met at the Opera. Before Lifar came, the dancers used to rehearse in leotards and woollen leggings, but he changed this practice and I saw him semi-nude. Beautifully built! When, as a child, I was studying at the Opera, he was like a god to us. Once I was with Ricaux going from one studio to another. The door opened and I saw something amazing: Lifar with bare legs. What legs! The most beautiful legs in the world, as if created by Praxiteles. Lifar had great style – his every gesture, even the tiniest, justified the logic of the movement and contributed to the whole image. His style carried him through more than his technique. He looked especially great when he performed in the ballet Alexandre le Grand, choreographed by himself to music by Philippe Gaubert. When we were dancing, Lifar would shout from the wings: ‘One, two, three. Merde!’ He had a beautiful voice. I liked his Russian accent. In my childhood I loved him. But after the war we didn’t get on. Having returned to Paris from the Resistance, I learned that Lifar had many troubles – he was accused of collaboration. I went to him and said, ‘Serge, how can

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I help you? I am ready to say how much you did for us.’ But he wasn’t very happy about my being in the Paris Opera. I joined the Ballets des Champs-Élysées under Roland Petit and Boris Kochno, Diaghilev’s last secretary. When I later returned to the Paris Opera, I was accepted as an étoile. I agreed on the condition that I would dance Giselle. For a long time only Lifar had danced that ballet. I began practising with him, but he did so with great reluctance. When he left on tour, the rehearsals ended. Then I heard that Dolin, who had danced Giselle for 20 years, was in Paris. I remember he telephoned me himself and invited me to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. I asked whether he could rehearse with me as I was going to be dancing it, and he gave me an appointment the next day. When I arrived I saw some reporters from the Paris newspapers on the stage – they had come to film Dolin in rehearsal. He had arranged it especially to spite Lifar. The next day a photograph appeared on the first page of Le Figaro: ‘Anton Dolin rehearsing Giselle with Jean Babilée for a performance at the Opéra.’ It was a scandal. Lifar was incredibly angry. Nevertheless, I danced Giselle. Some time later I ran into him in the corridor and tried to pass him. But he said to me, ‘Babilée, why are you walking around looking so gloomy?’ ‘Because I’m fed up!’ ‘What?’ ‘I’m fed up with everything here, I want to leave, and if I didn’t have to pay a contract termination fee, I would leave without another thought.’ He said, ‘Wait.’ He went up to the director and came back 15 minutes later, saying, ‘You can go. You don’t have to pay anything.’ He wanted to get rid of you… Perhaps the reason was my very good jump. Lifar choreographed a ballet with four soloists, I can’t remember its name now. He kept telling me, ‘Don’t jump so high! Not so high!’ But then, at the end of the 1950s, I went back for another three years to the Paris Opera. Let us go back to the Ballets des Champs-Élysées, with its main figures: Roland Petit, Boris Kochno and probably Irène Lidova. For me Kochno was the principal. Lidova was only good in organising different things. But without her the company would hardly have come together.

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She always referred to me as a difficult character, but for some reason nobody else noticed that side of my nature. You know the name Cassandre, the artist, stage designer? Yes, he was Russian, originally from Kharkov. He did the stage design for many ballets. Once we were staging Don Juan for the Florence May Festival. We were setting out the lights when suddenly Lidova came in, saw Cassandre, and went to kiss him. And Cassandre gave her two slaps! It never went that far with me, but we never had good relations either. She was a great intriguer, full of all sorts of gossip. Please say something about Kochno. Kochno was a very exciting person. Diaghilev’s era! Kochno once asked Diaghilev, ‘Do you think I am handsome?’ Diaghilev replied without a moment’s thought, ‘You will be handsome when you shave your head.’ He gradually lost his hair and was great! Kochno greatly contributed to the Ballets des Champs-Élysées. Recognising Roland Petit’s talent and ambition, Kochno tried to turn this to the advantage of the company. For 30 years Kochno was friends with Picasso, Braque and Cocteau; he knew Balthus, and Christian Dior, and was able to involve all these amazing people in the Ballets des Champs-Élysées. Once Kochno invited me along with Cocteau to the restaurant Chez Francis and Cocteau said to me, ‘Nijinsky had Le Spectre de la rose and I will give you your Spectre de la rose.’ It was Le Jeune Homme et la Mort. Who, of the Russian dancers, participated in the Ballets des ChampsÉlysées? The best was Youly Algaroff, a remarkable dancer. I knew him for a long time – we worked together in Cannes, in the Marika Besobrasova ballet. What did you do after you left the Paris Opera? I founded my own company, Les Ballets Jean Babilée (1955–9), in which Yvette Chauviré danced. We travelled the world, but after some years

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I had to disband the company because of financial difficulties. I also worked with Léonide Massine at La Scala. A new ballet almost every year. In 1956, Massine choreographed the dance sequences in Mario and the Magician (libretto by Visconti after the novella by Thomas Mann). The ballet was performed about ten times at La Scala. The performance lasted the whole evening, with 17 changes of scene. It was about a sorcerer, who, as one would say today, ‘zombified’ a whole town – of course it was about Fascism. I first saw Massine in London, when the Ballets des Champs-Élysées was performing at the Adelphi Theatre after the war. I had heard that Massine himself was dancing at Covent Garden in his ballet Le Tricorne. I was amazed. ‘Massine himself! Is he still alive? Still dancing? It’s impossible!’ I went to see the ballet. The curtain was raised, revealing Picasso’s divine décor. The music stopped and from the depths of the stage a man appeared, dressed all in black. The auditorium froze in silence of an intensity I have never since experienced. Again the music started, and he began dancing the farruca. What precision of style! It was awesome! I myself danced in his Pulcinella set to music by Stravinsky. At the rehearsals he always kept a large notebook in front of him full of old notes and drawings, which he constantly glanced at. These pages provided him with ideas. From time to time he jumped up and did some unusual pas. He choreographed for me some variations of such beauty that they became an essential part of my repertoire. Did you ever have any difficulties with him? He was a professional. Once we were rehearsing for a long time; he observed how tired I was and said, ‘One second.’ He took from his inner pocket a little bottle of something strong and handed it to me, ‘Drink!’ I gulped down the vodka and started again. Once, much later, I was at a rehearsal on the stage of La Scala. The curtain was down. Suddenly I saw that from out of the wings had appeared a figure: a long dark coat, a dark hat, dark boots, carrying a dark suitcase… Massine! ‘Maître, come in, please!’ I said. The whole ballet applauded while Massine, turning to me, said, ‘I’m on my way back to Paris from Rome. I have a stopover in Milan and I thought that I should come to the theatre to train at the barre. Will you allow me, somewhere in the corner? I will try not to get in your

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way.’ ‘Of course, here is the key to my dressing room.’ He soon returned, dressed in a white shirt and dark leggings, with a net on his hair. He was 70 years old! He trained for 45 minutes while I continued the rehearsal. At the end he turned to us, thanked us and hurried off to catch his Paris train. Did you also work with David Lichine? When Roland Petit left the Ballets des Champs-Élysées, Lichine created two ballets for us. La Création is an unusual ballet without music. At first he did it to the music of Franck’s Symphonic variations for the Colón theatre in Argentina, where it was called Evolución del Movimiento. His wife Tanya Riabouchinska was dancing in it. I danced the part of the choreographer; I advanced among the frozen people and made them move one after another, and so a rhythm evolved. The second ballet was La Rencontre, ou Oedipe et le Sphinx set to music by Henri Sauguet, with décor by Christian Berard. His productions always reflected his talent but sometimes his style let him down. I will tell you a story that sheds some light on Lichine’s character and on mine. Lichine’s wife Tatiana Riabouchinska had long fair hair and my wife Nathalie Philippart had long dark hair. They were both dancing in this ballet and Lichine was taking the rehearsal. In one of the episodes, when my wife was practically prostrate on the ground and Riabouchinska leaned over her, Lichine suggested that she should let her hair loose: their hair would intertwine to great effect. He also asked me to do something at the same time, but he didn’t demonstrate what. After a minute he suddenly started shouting, ‘Begin! Begin!’ ‘Begin what?’ He shouted, ‘You know what to begin!’ So I started doing whatever came into my head and that fragment still wasn’t finished by the time of the dress rehearsal. This was on stage, in costume, in front of an audience – friends, but an audience all the same. When we got to the fateful place I stopped and asked loudly in front of the whole auditorium, ‘So, what am I meant to do?’ Lichine shouted from his corner, ‘Dance!’ I was wearing a pale blue shirt made from the finest silk that had been specially ordered in Italy. I looked intently at him and, taking hold of the collar, I tore the shirt to the very bottom. Then I tore both pieces in half again – there were four rags. So that piece of the ballet remained un-choreographed: I just did whatever I wanted at the performances.

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Tell me, please, about the Russian dancers whom you knew. One great dancer was Igor Youskevitch. We went on a six-month tour together with Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theatre). Lucia Chase was with us. We had a month of rehearsals in New York, a month of performances at the Met and then a five-month tour around America and Canada. I saw Spessitseva in Giselle. She was dancing with Lifar; everything she did was astonishing. I danced with Alexander Kalioujny in Cannes. Then he joined me when I had my own company. He was a remarkable dancer of extraordinary vitality and unusual tact. Later, he gave classes at the Paris Opera, as a rule in adagio. I have very warm memories of that man. Such dancers are rare. Once I danced the Blue Bird and L’Après-midi d’un faune in front of Vaclav Nijinsky! It was in London, where he was in a clinic. Massine organised a benefit performance with Vladimir Skouratoff and Marie Rambert, who had once rehearsed L’Après midi with him and kept it in her company’s repertoire. She told me, ‘I am going to show you the original Nijinsky choreography.’ I came to London in advance and I rehearsed with her. The girls from her corps de ballet danced the nymphs. The ballet kept the original Bakst décor. They brought Nijinsky to the ballet from the hospital but he was completely impassive – like wood. But I was lucky to attend classes with Bronislava Nijinska. She was absolutely deaf, she couldn’t hear the music, and we didn’t understand her counting. But the results were great! Then at the Florence May Festival where I was dancing Don Juan, Ulanova came to see me after the performance (she was on an Italian tour). I didn’t know that she was present in the audience. She said it was the first time that she had seen me dancing and was enchanted, and she invited me to her performance the next day. I replied that unfortunately I couldn’t as I had another contract elsewhere. She pondered a little and then suggested, ‘If you like, come tomorrow morning and I will dance for you. Come to the theatre at 11am’. When I arrived the next day, Ulanova, the accompanist and the interpreter were already on the spot. She was wearing a long, not very beautiful dress that looked too big for her. She greeted me politely and said that she had to warm up a little. She went to the barre and began doing pliés that were not particularly elegant. After such a beginning it was difficult to imagine that anything out of the

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ordinary would emerge. After working for about ten minutes she came up to me and said, ‘I will dance The Dying Swan for you.’ ‘That dying swan!’ I  thought to myself. Do you remember it? The music has already started but the artist is still off stage for some time. And so she came on and started to dance. To say that it was beautiful is to say nothing. Never have I seen such beauty, sensuality, such dissolving into the music. But the most amazing thing was how this woman, at first glance so ordinary, completely had changed. It was the soul of dance, its very poetry.

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• Maina Gielgud Rudi said, ‘You come 5 o’clock and bring boy’ London, 2004

M

aina gielgud comes from a well-known theatrical family (her mother was the Hungarian actress Zita Gordon, her ­uncle was the actor Sir John Gielgud and she is Ellen Terry’s grand-niece). Her father’s ancestors belonged to Polish-Lithuanian nobility but fled to England after an unsuccessful uprising against Russian occupation in 1830. She trained with Karsavina and with the Paris ballet teachers, then danced with Roland Petit’s Ballet de Paris, with the Ballet de l’Étoile de Milorad Miskovitch and with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. She also danced with Rosella Hightower and Maurice Béjart (appearing in the premiere of his ballet Bhakti). She was principal artist with the London Festival Ballet, then with the Royal Ballet touring company. She has appeared all over the world as an international guest artist. From 1983–97 she was the Artistic Director of the Australian Ballet, raising it to new heights, and then of the Royal Danish Ballet (1997–9). From 2003 to 2005 she was Artistic Associate of the Houston Ballet. Well-known as a ballet master, she constantly travels around Europe, North America and Canada, reviving ballets and coaching leading dancers; she has also staged and choreographed her own original works. In 2004, she revived Anton Dolin’s version of Giselle in Strasbourg. I met her a few weeks afterwards at her house in the centre of London’s theatre district. She also spoke to me about Nureyev and about

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the various other people represented in this book, such as Karsavina and Rachel Cameron, and many others besides. Did you study with the Russian ballet teachers? Yes, but I only know my first Russian teacher’s married name, Madame de Zomm. When I was five years old we lived in Belgium, and a good friend of mine was studying with her. I desperately wanted to do the same, so my mother took me along. After my first class she said to my mother, ‘Your daughter has very strong legs – you should buy her some pointe shoes.’ So my mother bought me a pair and it gave me a wonderful start as pointe work was never a problem for me. When I was eight years old, I went to the Hampshire ballet school, which Anthony Dowell had started. From there, I can’t remember why, I was put into the Legat boarding school in Tunbridge Wells where I worked with Nadine Nikolaeva-Legat, who was very eccentric, to put it mildly. She was rumoured to stand on her head every day, which was very unusual at the beginning of the 1950s when yoga was very little known. The Legats were an extraordinary family. Serge and Nicholas Legat were the sons of the St Petersburg dancer Gustav Legat, of Swedish ancestry. At the turn of the century they were considered the most dazzling dancers of the Mariinsky Theatre and the best ballet masters as well. But Serge committed suicide early on. At the time people thought that his wife – Petipa’s daughter and a character dancer – drove him to it by forcing him to remove his signature from the Mariinsky dancers’ petition during their strike in 1905. As early as 1914, Nicholas Legat went to England, where he founded a school. Few people know that both brothers had a remarkable gift for satirical sketches: in 1903 they published the St Petersburg album Russian Ballet in Caricature. As to Nadine Nikolaeva, Nicholas Legat’s wife, prima ballerina of the Imperial theatres in Russia, she was, among other things, a follower of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky and choreographed dances based on Gurdjieff ’s exercises going back to Sufi rites. I remember another instance of Nadia Nikolaeva’s eccentricity: when I was nine years old we were all woken up at midnight to go to the big house and do fouettés en pointe.

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Perhaps, again, for her the fouettés had something to do with the whirling dances of the Sufi Dervishes. I never knew the reason, but perhaps that’s why I was never frightened of fouettés. I don’t remember anything about her classes but I do remember that in her school performances we all had to learn a very difficult repertoire. The teaching staff included Lydia Kyasht, whom I can picture very well; and we had a very good character dance teacher, Valentin Provitch. However, I didn’t stay there long because I broke my arm. They only discovered it after three days and my mother was very angry. After that, I went to other schools where there were no Russian teachers, but when I was about ten years old I took weekly classes for about a year with Tamara Karsavina at Kathleen Crofton’s studio. Crofton was born in India but studied with the Paris teachers Novikoff, Preobrajenska and Trefilova; she danced with Anna Pavlova, then in the Ballet Russes, and she worked with Nijinska. Through a connection with Anton Dolin, I was lucky enough to go to Hampstead sometimes, for Sunday tea with Karsavina. She would tell us stories about the glory days. I remember her deep, deep, wonderful voice, and how beautiful she still was. She had white hair tinted slightly mauve. I have heard a lot about this house in Hampstead and about Karsavina from Nesta Macdonald, the author of Diaghilev Observed by Critics in England and the United States 1911–29, who was close to her for some time. An opinionated lady, wasn’t she? Karsavina had a loyal English following that vied for her attention. Her devoted assistant was the Australian dancer, Rachel Cameron. She was at her side all the time Karsavina was teaching in London and after Karsavina’s death she taught the Karsavina syllabus at the Royal Academy of Dancing for maybe 20 years. I had private classes with Rachel Cameron, which were immensely useful as she took me further with Karsavina’s method and good placing as well as lovely port de bras and épaulements. I had the good fortune to take Karsavina’s mime classes and I learnt several things from her. We studied the original Lilac Fairy mime from

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Sleeping Beauty, and La Fille mal gardée. I believe that it was Karsavina who showed Ashton Lise’s famous mime scene, which he used in his new version of La Fille mal gardée. After about a year, Karsavina’s health was not so good, so she stopped teaching. My mother asked her advice on where to take me because we found the English school and style was – how shall I put it – not very inspiring. She suggested taking me to Cannes to work with Julie Sedova, from whom I had already taken classes at the age of eight on a summer holiday. Sedova was already quite elderly so after a year in Cannes I went from her to Marika Besobrasova. Sedova was what I call a rough Russian, as opposed to Karsavina who was a soft Russian and Egorova who was also very soft and lovely; but she was a really good taskmaster and I studied a lot of the classical repertoire with her. Incidentally, Karsavina had a good opinion of Sedova and of Preobrajenska, whom I also went to when I was about seven or eight years old because my father lived in Paris and my mother and I used to go at weekends to visit him. I used to go to the famous Salle Wacker and take Saturday classes with all the professionals and with Préo, who was tiny, and truly hunchbacked. She was ferocious, but very inspiring. She would get hold of you and shake you, really shake you up in every sense of the word. Salle Wacker was an extraordinary place: filthy dirty, but so exciting. When I was nearly 13, we moved to Paris, and for four years I did a daily class with Egorova. I remember her dance studio very well: Prince Trubetskoy looking through the door to see when the class would be over as he was cooking supper. There were always good cooking smells. She would reply, ‘Oui, oui, Prince, j’arrive.’ Madame was extraordinary. Her only assistant was a loyal Russian pianist called Madame Marie who looked after us younger ones. There were a lot of the up-and-coming Paris Opera dancers like Wilfride Piollet, as well as established étoiles, such as Claude Bessy and Pierre Lacotte. Madame was usually in the corner next to the piano and would demonstrate almost all the exercises with her hands, very clearly. She had some sort of skin problem so she always wore white gloves, a blue serge suit and little black character shoes with a button and rather thick stockings, and she almost always wore a shawl over her head. She would only get up from her chair for the adagio. She would say to Madame Marie, ‘Please play a beautiful adagio’, and improvise something

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special to finish, with particular attention to the position of the arms and head. After the adagio, the next enchainement was always a grande pirouette (really difficult, so Egorova’s students were always very confident with their turns). I discovered that Wilfride Piollet was taking private classes so I nagged my mother: ‘Please, please, I must go, I must.’ And I took extra private classes once a week, learning soli from Giselle and from Sleeping Beauty. I was very, very lucky. The only one of the great Russians I never got to work with was Kshessinska – she had broken her hip so I never even met her. Which other Russian dancers and choreographers did you work with? The main Russian influence in my career was probably Nureyev. When I was with the Béjart company, Rosella Hightower rang me and asked if I would be interested in dancing Sleeping Beauty with Rudolf Nureyev. Of course, I was amazed, astonished, delighted, but I thought Béjart would never let me go. But Rosella spoke to Béjart and he agreed to it. So I went to Barcelona for the performance of the Ballet de Marseilles, directed by Rosella. I was replacing Noëlla Pontois, the Paris Opera star who was Nureyev’s usual partner. I had three days; I’d never danced in Sleeping Beauty at full length before. Rudi arrived the day before the dress rehearsal. It was in the beautiful Liceu theatre, but there was only one tiny rehearsing studio downstairs from the stage. We had one rehearsal with Rudi and then the dress rehearsal and then we had five performances. Rudolf was very attentive and helped me enormously. I suppose it was pretty daunting but I tend to throw myself in at the deep end and not think too much. After the performance we would go to a restaurant and that’s where I learnt what to do when the steak comes soaked in fat, because Rudolf used to take his napkin and just mop it up. I already knew him a little because, when I was a child, the de Cuevas company used to come every year to Cannes where I lived. I often used to sit in the wings and watch, so later when we were in Paris I naturally always went to see their performances, and when Nureyev defected, I saw him dance with them and met him. Later, when I was a professional dancer, I went to Rosella Hightower’s school in Cannes, but that was after the time when he and Sonia Arova and Rosella and Erik Bruhn did their quartet.

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After having danced with Nureyev, I left the Béjart Ballet of the Twentieth Century because I wanted to do more classical ballet. I went to the Deutsche Oper Berlin for a year at the suggestion of George Balanchine, who was then Artistic Advisor there. Rosella Hightower was still in Marseilles and obviously Rudi must have approved of me in The Sleeping Beauty because he invited me to dance in his Don Quixote for the Marseilles Ballet. First I danced the Street Dancer, the Queen of the Dryads and the Bridesmaid all in the same performance, and then I danced Kitri with Nureyev. Well, I had a fantastic time. I was there for about three weeks while he was rehearsing with the company. In the morning he worked with the troupe (for instance at the beginning of Act II he decided to stage a new pas de deux in the Gypsy dance) and in the evening he would do his soli, and then he re-choreographed the Gypsy pas de deux at the beginning of Act II for me! He could achieve anything he really wanted to. Amazingly, he could find a way to approach every single person on the stage, from the principals and soloists to the last of the corps de ballet and the extras, and you could really see the characters coming to life. When I started dancing Kitri with him, he had already done, I think, five performances plus a dress rehearsal with Lucette Aldous, finishing on Saturday evening. Then he danced the Sunday matinée with me, and on Sunday evening he danced with her again. We rehearsed on the Saturday and he must have been dead tired, to be willing to change partners was really very obliging. However, during the performance he got a bit cross because the conductor played very, very slowly. Patience wasn’t his forte. He could, however, be helpful as well as very funny. As with all famous people, the times when they lose their temper or behave badly are exaggerated so that it sounds like a habit. Working with him, I was very surprised at how patient he could be, including with the people who came backstage for autographs and so on. Most of the time he was helpful, and sometimes very funny too. His language was very special and it was so dreadful: appalling obscenities! He even invented some of his own – a very Russian trait of playing with words. He would take a devilish pleasure in doing that and especially in trying to shock people he felt should be shocked.

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My last memory of Nureyev was an incredible one. At some point, he had done a production of Don Quixote for the Australian Ballet. Much later, in 1983, I became the Director of the Australian Ballet and we decided to revive it with him. So I came to Paris with a portfolio of designs and tried to meet up with him. It was Christmas Eve and there I was at the Paris Opera in his office. I brought with me one of my dancers, Andrew Murphy, who is now with the Houston ballet – a very tall, very good-looking boy, he would have been 18 then; he was on a scholarship at the Paris Opera and I wanted to introduce him to Rudi. Nureyev took one look at him, turned to me and said, ‘You give me class tomorrow.’ I said that tomorrow was Christmas Day but I would come if he wanted me to. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, ‘You come 5 o’clock and bring boy.’ Of course he was only partially interested in the class – he just wanted to see the young man again. So I traipsed off on Christmas Day in the afternoon. Andrew was very nervous so we arrived about an hour before we were supposed to meet. The Opera was deserted, apart from one very grumpy doorman, whom Rudi had instructed to open the place up. In came Rudi. We got changed, but he stayed in his normal clothes with his practise clothes underneath. First he suggested we look at the designs and he approved them. Then he brought out these pink, very pink, very new ballet slippers, but they didn’t fit. I had decided that, rather than standing in front of them as in a normal teaching class, I would do the barre with them. Rudi and Andrew were behind me but I could see them both in the mirror and I saw that Rudi was constantly looking at the boy. There was no music, of course, so I started singing and giving the exercises with Rudi chatting to me all the time, asking about Rosella Hightower and others. Anyway, we got through barre and he wanted to do centre practice to complete the class. When we got to the jumps, Rudi demanded that he and Andrew worked one after the other, probably so that he could look at Andrew. I gave entrechat six, a jump when the dancer rapidly crosses the legs before and behind but Rudi didn’t like the way Andrew executed this step and exclaimed, ‘No! No! Stop, this is not entrechat six, this is microbes fucking!’ That was an expression of Pushkin, Nureyev’s ballet teacher. I regret that I didn’t take a video of the class but it is as clear as a video in my mind. Then we all changed out of our dance clothes and left the

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Opera. There was a strike – no surprise in France – and there were no buses or taxis. Rudi’s chauffeur wasn’t there, and he asked us to accompany him to the Metro. So we went into the Metro and accompanied him to the stop where he had to change. Afterwards I thought, ‘How crazy’, one presumed that he would have friends at home, there was going to be a Christmas dinner of some kind – but maybe there wasn’t. Did you ever work with the other defectors, Makarova, Baryshnikov? No, I never did, although Misha (Baryshnikov) has always been very nice to me. I used to go every year to New York and he would let me watch rehearsals there at ABT. I remember him coaching the mother scene in Giselle and then the end of the mad scene. He could immediately switch into character. Rudi was more theatrical but Misha went into the role as a dancer first and foremost. For him it was natural – suddenly you saw the character right there in front of you. Now he is organising his own Art Centre in New York. And Natasha (Makarova) I got to know quite well because we did Checkmate by Ninette de Valois, almost at the same time. She did it with the main Royal Ballet and I did it with Sadler’s Wells. I often took classes with the main Royal Ballet at Baron’s Court and Natasha was often there. In fact, the first class I ever taught was at Baron’s Court when the ballet master was ill. There were very few people present but the people who were there were Margot Fonteyn and Natasha and they turned to me and said, ‘Maina, you teach’. That was a baptism of fire! Then, when I was working at the Australian Ballet, I asked Natasha to stage Bayadère but it was so expensive we couldn’t afford it. I admired her as a dancer – hers was one of the most beautiful Swan Lakes I’ve ever seen. It was at the ABT in Washington, and the White and the Black Swan were equally beautiful. Irina Kolpakova came to work with me in Australia – I loved her very much as a dancer, and she was the sweetest person. Alla Sizova, also a beautiful dancer, was very different as a coach, far more severe than she appeared as a dancer. There was also one English ballerina of the Russian school whom I worked with. She was Svetlana Beriozova, a disciple of Schollar and Vilzak, and a great dancer, whom I asked to coach me. During one coaching session I thought, ‘She is putting so much into this,

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surely an audience would love to see it’, and I devised a performance called Steps, Notes and Squeaks to show how the ballet tradition is transmitted. There are several ballets or episodes from ballets based on a ballet class, starting with Le Diable boîteux by Jean Coralli and Le Conservatoire by August Bournonville. The most famous is Études by Lander. Asaf Messerer put on his Leçon de dance, and afterwards his famous Class Concert; Leonid Yakobson staged Exercise XX, and the action in Béjart’s Romeo and Juliet starts with a ballet class – let alone his Gaîté parisienne, where the young man tyrannises his ballet master at the Paris Opera. There is also The Private Lesson by Flindt – a ballet version of the play by Ionesco; and close to your conception is Pavlova and Cecchetti, which Neumeier introduced into his Nutcracker and which Lopatkina dances. That is quite different. As the show was very successful, we then did several versions. We based the first on a day in the life of two dancers. In the evening they have to dance in The Sleeping Beauty, but they have never danced it before, the versions they know are different and they try to put them together. And – something that very rarely happens – a great ballerina with real knowledge of the classics coaches the dancers in front of the audience. How did I come up with this? Beriozova simply coached me and my partner in The Sleeping Beauty and I wrote down what I thought would be interesting and amusing for an audience to witness. Later, we did the same with Swan Lake and Giselle. We first performed my Steps, Notes and Squeaks in a tiny little fringe theatre for a week, then we played for a month in the West End; then we toured in Australia and New Zealand and we came back to London a couple of years later, to the Old Vic. After I stopped dancing it was never done again and many people said to me, ‘You must revive it,’ but I always said, ‘It has to be the right coach, it has to be the right dancer.’ I spoke to Natasha and Tamara Rojo and they both agreed to do it, but we never managed to fit it in. I hope one day it will be possible. While working in Australia, did you meet any of the old Russian dancers? Some of them stayed there after the Ballets Russes tour. I can only think of Kira Bousloff, who taught many of my principal dancers when they were children. She was a great lady.

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Her first husband was Sergei Bousloff – they danced together in the Ballets Russes de Colonel de Basil, when she was still Kira Abrikossova. I spoke at length about her with Rachel Cameron, who, by contrast, left Australia at the end of the 1940s to go to Europe. Kira founded the West Australian Ballet. She died in 2001. There were no longer many Russian dancers in the Australian ballet when I was director. However, we did exchanges with Russia; some of my dancers went there, including David McAllister, who danced at the Mariinsky. Dancers from Russia also came to us, but not the best ones. That is because, in Soviet times, ticking the right boxes was more important than being able to dance. I invited Irina Baronova, whom I adored, and Tamara Tchinarova, and both of them spoke to the company, and Baronova staged Les Sylphides and gave mime classes. She attached especial importance to mime. Tchinarova was also one of those who remained in Australia in 1939; she got married there, but then she returned to London with her husband. Baronova was marvellous! She was so intelligent as well as being so funny. When staging Les Sylphides, she talked extensively about Fokine. There are some old film reels of Sylphides in the New York Lincoln Centre showing Tamara Toumanova dance it – quite ravishing. There is also footage of her practising double fouettés and various other steps, which we tend to think dancers were not advanced enough technically to do at that time – incredible! These clips were filmed before she became a famous ballerina. I may be wrong but I used to think Tamara Rojo had something of Toumanova.

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•

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afterword

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•

John Neumeier, Nijinsky and the Diaghilev Tradition

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n my introduction summarising the history of the Ballets Russes, much is said about its impact on world ballet, to which the conversations with its participants testify throughout the book. I would like to finish the book with a single powerful example of how the Diaghilev tradition lives on in the works of a choreographer who is unique in many ways: John Neumeier, artistic director of the Hamburg Ballet for more than 40 years. Neumeier developed as a dancer under the influence of the celebrated Russian teacher, Vera Volkova. In his ballet work, he turned many times to Russian music and Russian motifs. Examples include his own versions of classical ballets like The Nutcracker and Illusions – like ‘Swan Lake’ (Tchaikovsky), The Seasons (Glazunov), Cinderella Story and Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev), his Peer Gynt (Schnittke), Othello (Schnittke/Pärt) and The Seagull and Tatiana (Lera Auerbach). Neumeier also has his own version of the most famous ballets of Diaghilev’s repertoire, most notably the whole constellation of Diaghilev’s ballets associated with the work and personality of Neumeier’s beloved hero Vaclav Nijinsky. He staged Daphnis et Chloé set to the music of Ravel in his youth, working in the Frankfurt Ballet Company and, at various times in Hamburg, Le Pavillon d’Armide (Tcherepnin/Fokine), where Nijinsky, who had danced the part of Armida’s Slave in Fokine’s ballet, becomes a Neumeier character. Something similar happens with another well-known Nijinsky role in Neumeier’s ballet Petrushka Variations and two others – Le Spectre de la rose (set to music by Berlioz, not, as originally, by Weber) and Le Sacre, his apocalyptic variation on Le Sacre du printemps, the ballet choreographed by Nijinsky to Stravinsky’s music

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which caused an unprecedented scandal in Paris in 1913. In the late 1990s, Neumeier made three experiments with the pas de deux from the Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Schéhérazade. Motifs from Diaghilev ballets in which Nijinsky danced are also featured in two of Neumeier’s ballets, in which Nijinsky himself is the hero. The first of them, Vaclav (1979), fulfils an intention of Nijinsky’s own: to stage a ballet set to the music of Bach. In 2000, Neumeier celebrated the 50th anniversary of the dancer’s death by creating the full-length ballet Nijinsky, based on two major musical works: Rimsky-Korsakov’s Schéhérazade, and the dramatic Eleventh Symphony by Shostakovich. In his essay, A Choreographer and Nijinsky: Facets of a Fascination published in French and in German (2000: John Neumeier in Bewegung, Hamburg: Stiftung John Neumeier/Collection Rolf Heyne, 2008, pp. 459–462) Neumeier contemplates his obsession with Nijinsky: Obviously, I have never seen Nijinsky dance – never experienced the excitement of his performance. Instead, at the age of ten, I began studying the facts of his life; his childhood, his education, his success and, with fascination, the path towards his madness. The seed of Nijinsky fascination grew, sending its roots deeper and deeper within me as it, and I, grew. I’ve never grown out of my ‘Nijinsky phase’, nor has the constantly accumulated knowledge about the dancer ever disappointed my original, naïve infatuation. Everything I’ve since learned has made the man more complete and his artistic motivation remains my constant professional and moral example… Nijinsky’s ballets broke new and original paths towards modern choreography. The truly amazing fact for me is that Nijinsky developed a choreographic vision – completely independent from the classical brilliance of his own virtuosity and the astounding projection of his performing presence. The characters of his ballets were in no sense based on either his incredible technical skills nor the roles which had already made him a legend! In Nijinsky, we have the unique phenomenon of a great dancer becoming choreographer – who did not use his own creativity to spotlight his own special performing artistry, as for example Martha Graham or, more recently, the genius dancer turned choreographer, Rudolf Nureyev. Nijinsky did not conceive choreographic texts to display his famous jumps – but searched seriously and persistently in each new work for a movement language to be danced without reference to the collective past or his own individual facility… As a choreographer, I deeply respect and admire Nijinsky’s courage. I often imagine him entering the studio to rehearse his first work… Nijinsky must have possessed incredible inner power and conviction, even

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to attempt to inspire these dancers – who, at that time, had neither knowledge nor experience of ‘modern dance’ to follow him.

Nijinsky is not only a presence in Neumeier’s choreography, but also, again in an unusual way, in his life. His collection, gathered in the course of decades, encompasses the entire history of European ballet. The walls of his house, where he usually holds a reception at the end of his summer festival, are covered with countless works of art, mostly associated with the great dancer. Among them is a pencil portrait by Amedeo Modigliani, as well as a surprisingly lyrical image by Gustav Klimt. There are many caricaturelike sketches by Jean Cocteau, depicting Nijinsky with Stravinsky and Diaghilev. A pencil portrait of the latter by Chaliapin, the singer’s son, represents the impresario as deeply human, rather than in his usual lordly guise. Here are rare posters for Diaghilev’s productions, sketches of scenery and costumes by Bakst and by French artists, Georges Barbier’s gouaches and lithographs, scenes from productions with Karsavina and Nijinsky, Valentine Hugo’s action sketches of the latter and a still photo of him dancing the part of Armida’s Slave, but also sculptures and, of course, Nijinsky’s own mysterious drawings from the time of his illness. In the same essay, Neumeier writes: I collect not to exhibit as a museum would do, but simply to live with these manifestations of a man I’ve learned truly to love – more and more deeply through the years. In my living room, my study, my studio and the long hallways of my home I am quite literally surrounded by Nijinsky. My favourite pieces are kept in the dining room where, at breakfast, one of the most intimate moments of my day, I can glance at or study intensely Georg Kolbe’s exciting nude sculpture done in 1913… My only regrets regarding the collection are for those items I failed to buy. I am haunted by the memory of objects passed by in doubt or for lack of funds… Today my collection includes hundreds of objects: Oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, lithographs, photographs, bronzes, porcelain figures, press cuttings and documents such as contracts or the menu of his wedding brunch signed by himself, his wife and all important guests, and a collection of condolence letters and cards sent to his wife after his death. The act of collecting is a labour of love. The experiences of an intimate contact with the presence radiating from the walls, the rooms of my ‘Live-in Museum’ are the ultimate motivation for my collecting. A spiritual adventure, approaching Nijinsky, encountering his images

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Behind the Scenes at the Ballets Russes each day, I discover him – discover new aspects through the facets of my fascination. The Nijinsky collection became a passion. Each new piece – each drawing, painting, porcelain or lithograph illuminated another nuance, multiplying the visual aspects of this artist – this man who obviously was so many things to so many people.

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• John Neumeier Like a tree, the art of ballet has many roots… Leningrad, 1990; Baden-Baden, 2015

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first met John Neumeier as long ago as 1990, at the end of the first Leningrad tour of the Hamburg Ballet. Our conversation took place on the empty stage of the Mariinsky Theatre after a matinée. Since then, I have tried to follow his creations everywhere: in St Petersburg and in Moscow and in Paris, where he restaged some of his work; in BadenBaden, where he brings his company every autumn; and I have also regularly attended the Ballett-Tage, a Hamburg ballet summer festival yearly presenting the maestro’s new works alongside older ones, ending up with the Nijinsky Gala, usually including some pieces connected with Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons. This has allowed me not only to widen my knowledge of Neumeier’s work but also to establish a friendly relationship with him, as well as with his dancers, many of them of Russian background. It has also given me me a chance to share with them the wonderful atmosphere which reigns on the stage, when it is still generously lit after the last curtain of a successful performance, and to exchange briefly, with the master himself, my impressions or views on the origins and meaning of one scene or another. Thanks to John Neumeier’s exceptional kindness, we had another longer talk in Baden-Baden in November 2014. He was already familiar with the present book’s project, at his request I had sent him the draft of the English translation (to my great pleasure, even at that stage he asked his helpers to

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print out and even to bind the manuscript), and he granted me an hour before morning rehearsal. John, I understand that even before you became a professional dancer, you had occasion to appear on stage with Serge Denham’s Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In my childhood, I lived in an American city where neither a local ballet company nor a professional dance school existed. However, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and Ballet Theatre (which later became American Ballet Theatre) visited the city almost every year, and I watched all their performances, which remained for me a kind of a magic dream; strangely, at the age of ten I was already fascinated by Nijinsky’s personality, having read his biography. I began studying dance in a small private school, and while I was studying theatre and dance at Marquette University, I joined a professional ballet school in Chicago. Then the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo came to Milwaukee again. At that time, the company was not in the best condition and was soon to be disbanded. They needed supers for the last scene of Schéhérazade, and I signed up as one of the guards of the Sultan who, upon returning from a hunt, without warning finds his concubines, his mistress Zobeide among them, indulging themselves in an orgy with the household slaves. We were pushed out on the stage without having rehearsed. We were simply ordered to punish the perfidious women any old how. To my amazement, I saw the corps de ballet girls giggling rather than being horror-struck, then I heard the one nearest to me whisper, ‘But kill me!’ So, it’s more of an amusing story than anything else… Could you tell me something about Vera Volkova, who was probably one of the most indemand teachers of her generation? Vera Volkova was a remarkable ballet teacher, and I am quite prepared to say that she exercised an enormous influence on me and on my creativity, on my very understanding of the meaning of being an artist. Her fate reminds me of that of Igor Shvetsov’s, the ‘Borzoi’. Both started dancing aged 16 when it was late to join a ballet school. After the Revolution Volkova studied at the Akim Volynsky Russian Ballet School with

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Maria Romanova, Galina Ulanova’s mother and first teacher, then with Agrippina Vaganova. She began by dancing at the Mariinsky Theatre (then already renamed GATOB, the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet, but not yet ‘Kirov’, the least likely name for the house of Terpsichore, that of a blood-thirsty Soviet). Surprisingly, in 1929 Volkova found herself in China, defecting in Shanghai during a tour with a small ballet ensemble. There, she taught at George Goncharov’s ballet school, where Margot Fonteyn had studied as a young girl, and danced in his company. Volkova founded her own ballet school in Hong Kong, then she married an Englishman and moved to England. She taught mainly in London and with the Royal Danish Ballet following her own system, based on the Vaganova teaching method. I could talk about her for hours. Before leaving America for Europe, I asked a dancer friend from the New York City Ballet, who, in his opinion, was the best ballet teacher in the world. She told me without the slightest hesitation that it was Vera Volkova, who was teaching at the Ballet School in Copenhagen. I began making enquires, and soon ascertained that the school was open only to Danish students and did not accept foreigners. So I went to London and started studying at the Royal Ballet School. I have to say that I didn’t feel comfortable there; although the teaching wasn’t bad, and I saw some remarkable ballets with Margot Fonteyn, the atmosphere was somehow cold. Despite all I had heard, I decided to go to Copenhagen to see Vera Volkova. I went by train. I was very shy and once I arrived it was a big challenge to find the school within the theatre, and also Volkova herself. I found the studio where she was giving a class, handed her a letter of recommendation, and as she read it, I felt that my fate was hanging in the balance. When she had finished, she looked at me and said, ‘So you are a dancer?’ The way in which she said this, with a mixture of hesitation and respect, involving something very special about being a dancer, won me over forever. Since, as a foreigner, I could not join the school, I started taking private classes with Volkova. We very quickly grew close. She would begin a class sitting solemnly, but only five minutes later she would be literally crawling on the floor, correcting my positions and movements. She followed them very attentively, and explained everything in great detail, vivaciously and expressively – you wanted to write down her every word. The class would begin at 2pm, and we would part at

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half-past-nine in the evening. While I was studying with her, there was probably not one evening when I did not go home with her. We would have dinner together, which she would cook, and she cooked very well; she had her own somewhat unusual combination of elevated thought and practicality. She even taught me how to peel the skin off tomatoes. And she told me her story, about the unimaginable hardships of her life in Russia after the Revolution, about her thoughts and feelings about dance, about ballet artists whom she had known and about her students, some of whom had become great dancers: she taught and inspired Margot Fonteyn, and taught and influenced Erik Bruhn. Later, when I already had my ballet company in Frankfurt, I was invited to stage Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Danish Ballet. I convinced Flemming Flindt, who was director there, to appoint Volkova as the girls’ coach. The last time I saw her was shortly before she died. She was very weak. I visited her in the hospital, and as I sat on her bed, she took my hand and put my palm to her forehead. And with her other hand she pulled me towards her saying: ‘Yes, you really do love me.’ This gesture is repeated in some of my ballets. How important is the Russian ballet tradition to your work? It is very difficult to answer this question briefly, because, like a tree, the art of ballet has many roots, and these roots interlace in a complicated way; at first you follow one, then another crosses over, and then they diverge again. One has to ask another difficult question: what does every little root give to each individual branch? It is impossible to measure. And all of these will lead to a unity, which cannot be divided into parts. More specially, the method of classical dance devised in the Vaganova school contributed, of course, to the way we teach; besides which, Irina Yakobson advises us and she sometimes teaches classes. And not only her – Alexandra Danilova and Victor Gsovsky, Galina Ulanova, Sulamith Messerer and Azari Plisetsky were all invited to join us as ballet masters in the early days. Ulanova came to Hamburg in 1983 when we were staging our first Giselle, and she stayed for about six weeks. She had been a very great, timeless Giselle. It was our first version, which was more faithful to the original, and I was cautious about that at the time.

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I felt it was very important to have a sense of authenticity about teaching the parts and coaching the principal dancers. I had a wonderful relationship with Ulanova until she died in 1998. I remember well my very moving last visit to her, which was shortly before her death. She gave me a teddy bear as a gift, and she said I could ask her anything I liked. I did love her, and she also had a strong feeling for me. And I will always remember her waving to me as I was leaving, from her window, in that huge building where she lived. I would like to ask you about your work with the Mariinsky stars who, starting with Nureyev, defected one after another. As to Rudolf, we know that he danced in your Don Juan and that you wanted him to take part in Mahler’s Third Symphony, also that he invited you to create Bach’s Magnificat at the Paris Opera, and even the touching detail that in Toronto you went together to Elisabeth Schwarzkopf ’s last Liederabend. But please tell me about your work with Makarova. I met Makarova first in Copenhagen when she was dancing La Sylphide. As I complimented her, I said I would love to create something for her and she said, ‘You must promise’. I answered, ‘I promise’, and she said, ‘No, not like that, you must promise!’ and she made the gestures used by Giselle’s expressing distrust of Albert’s declarations of love – both his, as if saying ‘I promise’, and hers, ‘No, we have to see what the flower will say’. Anyway, in 1975, when Erik Bruhn had stopped dancing and then decided to dance again, American Ballet Theatre commissioned me to do a piece for his comeback: a pas de deux for Natalia Makarova and him, called Epilogue, which was the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. She and Erik came to Hamburg where we had very intensive rehearsals, and we choreographed the work which was premiered at the ABT’s summer season. We became very close friends and she guested sometimes with our Ballet. And because I admired her interpretation of Giselle, I asked her, when we were doing the new version, if she would come, and she did, and spent four or five weeks with us. She was extremely generous, helping the soloists but also demonstrating and explaining aspects of physicality even for the corps de ballet. This inspired us to do her version of La Bayadère, which she came to stage two years later. You also worked with Misha Baryshnikov, didn’t you?

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Misha danced for the first time in Germany in 1975, at the first Nijinsky Gala, when Alexandra Danilova had reconstructed what she thought to be a pas de quatre (but was actually a pas de trois) from Pavillon d’Armide with Baryshnikov. It was also the first time that he danced Spectre de la rose with Lynn Seymour. At that time he was extremely interested in my work and was very keen that I should create a Hamlet for him, which I had no time to do, but his agent (who was called Sherry Gold) imposed a kind of telephonic terror regime over me to get me do my first Hamlet. I finally agreed to do it, and it had an incredibly wonderful cast. It was supposed to be Natasha Makarova as Gertrude but I think she didn’t feel right as Hamlet’s mother, so it was Marcia Haydée. Baryshnikov, of course, was Hamlet, and it also featured Gelsey Kirkland as Ophelia and Erik Bruhn as an amazing Claudius. We began rehearsing in Hamburg since I was short of time. The rehearsals went fantastically well. It was to very difficult music by Aaron Copland, and I spoke with him about placing some of his piano pieces into his orchestral Hamlet-Connotations to give Hamlet more soli, more monologues, which were working extremely well. Misha stayed with the Hamburg Ballet as we were touring Germany, and we continued working: in Stuttgart, we did a wonderful pas de deux for Marcia Haydée and Misha, and we got extremely close, I even remember travelling with him in a taxi for miles to a piano concert. About six weeks later, when I went to New York to finish the work, I found that, with Misha’s boundless appetite for new work, he wanted to do everything at the same time. He had become extremely interested in Twyla Tharp, and I felt that the climate of our relationship had changed. He was doing so many things, that there remained very little time to concentrate on his Hamlet. It was premiered in New York in January 1976. I don’t have a film of it but I think it was probably not so successful because it was rushed and hurried. Later, when Marcia Haydée became the director of the Stuttgart Ballet, the first thing she wanted to do was Hamlet, and we reworked it under the title Der Fall Hamlet, and it was a great success. I’m not sure what happened to my relationship with Misha, but after the initial enthusiasm it kind of lost momentum, which was a pity. Anyway, he is wonderful and a great dancer and I am happy to think of the work we did together. One of the reasons he defected was precisely the complete stagnation at the Mariinsky, with its repertoire almost totally limited to endless Petipa

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and a bit of Fokine and Grigorovich. This alone explains what you called his ‘boundless appetite for new work’. But he is special, he can cling to something and at one moment be very steadfast, then something changes and… Otherwise, I wanted to ask you about your work with Schnittke. Once I had a long talk with him and he confessed that his perception of time changed hugely after his stroke and that this change also had a metaphysical dimension for him. Do you think the fantastic adagio at the end of Peer Gynt is connected in some way with this special approach to time? There is no doubt about it. I can tell you more. The creation of Peer Gynt proved to be extremely emotional and dramatic. It was in those hard Soviet days. It was not easy for Alfred to leave Moscow, so I arranged an invitation for him to come to Berlin, where we met, and I also visited Moscow several times to work with him. And then came the first stroke, after which he wrote the Adagio as an epilogue. It is obviously a picture of the 30 days he spent between life and death. I think that it did change his work. We can already feel it in his Cello Concerto, which I heard at the premiere. It was the first piece he wrote after his recovery. As the ballet was still not finished I said to Alfred, ‘The finale of this concerto is so extraordinary. We can use this outstanding piece of music.’ And he said, ‘No, there will be something different, there will be an Adagio’. There is a funny story about it. When he began to work on the first act, I wrote a very detailed libretto, with precise details about the times, and actions, and characters. For the second act it became a bit looser and more general, because my version had to do with Peer Gynt, who, following his ambitions to conquer the world, becomes a performer – a musician – and ends up being a film star, living in a world of illusion, and then goes mad (not unlike Faust, who interested Schnittke so much). And when we came to the third act I only wrote a few words. At the end of Ibsen’s play, the moment for which we wait so long is when Peer comes back to Solweig, but it is so short and always slightly disappointing, because  one would like to enjoy the moment of their coming together. I simply wrote, ‘Solweig recognises Peer, although she is blind. Endless Adagio’. And Alfred asked, ‘How long is this endless Adagio?’ ‘That is for you to choose.’ So that is how this incredible piece of music was written. The great Russian conductor

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Gennady Rozhdestvensky, who had helped Alfred in finalising the ballet, came to Hamburg and played the whole score, and they also played his Piano Concerto with his wife, Victoria Postnikova. Now I really want to relook at this ballet. It will be a premiere in the sense that, I hope, I’m a better choreographer now than I was in 1989, and I would like to use my experience and rethink and re-choreograph whatever I feel could be better. When I saw it almost a quarter of a century ago, to be frank with you, at first I felt very strange because I found it a bit overloaded with symbolism, but this amazing adagio banished my doubts completely. I am very much looking forward to seeing the new version. Among your many Shakespearean works, another to which you return more than once is the Shakespeare Dances, with scenes from Hamlet, from As You Like It to Mozart’s music, and from Vivaldi or What You Will. I personally appreciate the interplay between styles and references and was very impressed by this composition, which must be seen more than once to be understood properly. This time, these were not the complete versions of the three works, but a piece for the fortieth anniversary of the Hamburg Ballet. Originally, there was the second act of Hamlet, bringing together the important aspects of this work, which evolved through many different versions, but obviously there were many characters that had to be left out in order to give a sense of each ballet’s particular style. Vivaldi or What You Will was the hardest to adapt because the style of the full ballet was quite different. It was mostly based on the music: there were many moments when we just danced to it, and between this, the story was told in a fragmentary way. It was hard to produce this impression just in one hour because, I suppose, I do always have an ambition to tell a kind of a story. That’s a dangerous sentence I’ve just spoken, because I don’t mean a story in the sense of how an author could write a story, because my ballets based on literary works are not literature. The ballet Hamlet is not Shakespeare, and the ballet Peer Gynt is not Ibsen: it is my reply to what I feel about these plays, transposed into another medium, into the ballet non-verbal language, using visual images denoted by movements and steps of human bodies. This is quite a different kind of communication. So, I am trying to create a story that would affect the subconscious of

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the audience so that everyone would recognise something of their own existence in the actions and reactions as well as in the structure of the ballet. This is immediate human communication, as the art of choreography and the art of ballet only exist in the present tense. And that is why, if I revive a ballet of mine, I do it according to what I am feeling about it today. As for the Shakespeare Dances, in its three pieces I did want to transfer something of this recognisable human experience. In order to do that, I had to leave out certain other subplots, which may be extremely interesting and amusing, and very important in Shakespeare’s plays. In this work, I was also greatly interested by the role of the corps de ballet, which is anything but illustrative; rather, it remains in some special kind of interplay with the main action. More in a physical emotional way rather than in a descriptive emotional way, presenting the situation and giving it an emotional colour. May I ask you about how you composed your immense book In Bewegung [In Movement], published a few years ago? It started out as a collection of material and my comments written for the programmes about the ballets staged in Hamburg. It was interesting to go through 33 or 34 years of my own writing and combine it, but when I started to do so, it came to be an enormous task. Firstly, I only intended to use the already published extracts that were in a sense more philosophical. Then, I understood that it was also important to give something more personal from my writing about my relationship to my work. And so I put into this book some general texts, some letters to friends, to critics, to the theatre management, some excerpts from my diaries and workbooks that had never been published before, all of which concentrated on the works themselves. The book is organised following each season and each year begins with a flashback in which I try to sum up its most important events, and then come the list of the works and the accompanying texts. All this only exists in German. The only English texts are Leonard Bernstein’s Laudatio for the ceremony where they presented me with the Dance Magazine Award in 1983, accompanied by my answer.

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To conclude, in a few words, if possible: what does the work of a choreographer mean to you? Perhaps there will come a time in my life when I become more retrospective, but for the time being I think I am not a person who makes formulas. I am basically a worker who, hoping for inspiration, works every day, and, following the experience of my life and my emotional experiences, I continue to do the job I love to do. Every creator is an instrument sharing his skill, his experience, and, if it is bestowed on him, the breath of God, with others. That is really all I can say.

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• Dramatis Personae

Babilée, Jean

Paris, 1923–Paris, 2014

Baronova, Irina Petrograd, 1919–Byron Bay, Australia, 2008 Besobrasova, Marika

Yalta, 1918–Monte Carlo, 2010

Cameron, Rachel Brisbane, 1924–Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, 2011 Danilova, Alexandra (Choura) Peterhof by St Peterburg, 1903–New York, 1997 Franklin, Frederic

Liverpool, 1914–New York, 2013

Geva, Tamara St Petersburg, 1906–New York, 1997 Gielgud, Maina

London, b. 1945

Joukowsky, Anatoly

Palo Alto, 1908–98

Karsavina, Tamara St Petersburg, 1885–Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, 1978 Kirillova (de Fredericks), Maria Paris 1925–Paris 2008 (Dates uncertain) Leskova, Tatiana

Paris, b. 1922

Miskovitch, Milorad

Voljevo, 1928–Nice, 2013

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Neumeier, John

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, b. 1942

Novak, Nina

Warsaw, b. 1927

Oukhtomsky, Vladimir

Nice, 1926–Perpignan, 2009

Pagava, Ethery

Paris, b. 1932

Polajenko, Nicholas

New York, 1932–Palm Beach, 2015

Riabouchinska, Tatiana

Moscow, 1917–Los Angeles, 2000

Sadowska, Hélène

Paris, 1929–Nice, 2014

Skouratoff, Vladimir Paris, 1925–Léognan, 2013 Stepanova, Alexandra

Dates unknown

Stepanova, Tatiana Marseilles, 1924–Palm Beach, Florida, 2009 Tallchief, Marjorie

Denver, Colorado, b. 1927

Tchinarova, Tamara (Finch) Cetatea-Albă, Romania, 1919–31 August 2017 Terekhov, Miguel Montevideo, 1928–Richardson, Texas, 2012 Theilade, Nini Poerwokerto, Banjoemas, Dutch East Indies (Jawa, Indonesia), b. 1915 Toumanova, Tamara Tyumen, Russia, 1919–Santa Monica, ­California, 1996 Traïline, Boris

Lemnos, 1921–Paris, 2012

Traïline, Hélène

Bombas, France, b. 1928

Volkova, Anna

Moscow, 1917–Sydney, 2013

Zoritch, George Moscow, 1917–Tucson, Arizona, 2009

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•

Illustrations

Front cover: Alexandra Danilova in The Firebird by Mikhail Fokine, 1940. Alexandra Danilova archives, presently at the Library of Congress, USA 1. Sergei Diaghilev and Léonide Massine, n.d. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, USA. https://www.loc.gov/item/ ihas.200156302 2. Sergei Diaghilev and Vaclav Nijinsky. Drawing by Jean Cocteau, n.d. Bearing an inscription by Cocteau in French: ‘Before the curtain rising for Sheherazade’. The John Neumeier Foundation – Dance Collection 3. Jean Cocteau. Poster for the 1911 season of the Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev: Vaclav Nijinsky in Le Spectre de la rose by Mikhail Fokine. The St Petersburg State Museum of Theatrical and Musical Arts 4. Sergei Diaghilev. Inscribed lower right in Russian: ‘Drawing by Feodor Chaliapin. Paris, 1910 L.B. (i.e. Léon Bakst).’ The John Neumeier Foundation – Dance Collection 5. Sergei Diaghilev. Drawing by Pablo Picasso. Rome, 1917. Bronislava/Irina Nijinska Collection 6. Bronislava Nijinska as the Street Dancer in Petrushka by Mikhail Fokine, 1911. Photo by Berthe. Bronislava/Irina Nijinska Collection 7. Serge Lifar and Bronislava Nijinska at the grave of Sergei Diaghilev. Venice, December 1970. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, USA. https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200181814 8. Léonide Massine (?). Portrait by Savely Sorin, oil on canvas, 1922. Donetsk Regional Art Museum

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9. George Balanchine at the Theatre Museum. Leningrad, 1972. Photo by Anatoly Pronin 10. Lubov Egorova at the Mariinsky Theatre, n.d. Alexander Vassiliev Collection 11. A performance by pupils at Lubov Egorova’s (Princess Nikita Troubetskoy) school. Paris, late 1930s. Germain Douaze Studio, Paris. Andrei Korlyakov Collection 12. Mathilde Kshessinska as Aspiccia in The Pharaoh’s Daughter by M. Petipa. Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, 1899. The author’s collection 13. Mathilde Kshessinska with her pupils. Paris, 1930s. Andrei Korlyakov Collection 14. Mathilde Kshessinska with her husband, the Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich of Russia, at the reburial of Vaclav Nijinsky, cemetery of Montmartre. Paris, 1953. Photo by S. Lido. The St Petersburg State Museum of Theatrical and Musical Arts 15. Left to right: Serge Lifar, Natalia Makarova, Mathilde Kshessinska, unknown. Paris, 1971. The St Petersburg State Museum of Theatrical and Musical Arts 16. Olga Preobrajenska giving a class at the Salle Wacker. Paris, 1930s. The St Petersburg State Museum of Theatrical and Musical Arts 17. Christian Bérard. Cover of the Ballets Russes programme, 1930s. The author’s collection 18. The Ballets Russes company. Monte Carlo, 1932. Sitting (from left to right): René Blum, Joan Miró, Colonel de Basil. Standing: Serge Grigoriev, David Lichine, Tatiana Riabouchinska and others. Vera Krasovskaya archives 19. Alexandra Danilova (centre), Tatiana Riabouchinska (left) performing Massine’s ‘pyramidal lifts’ in the finale of Choreartium. After 1933. Lara Obydennaya archives, gift of the Klimenkov family, 2016. Theatre and Music Museum, St Petersburg 20. The Ballets Russes company on stage after the performance of Choreartium. After 1933. Including L. Massine, V. Psota,

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A. Danilova, P. Petroff, T. Toumanova, Colonel de Basil, D. Lichine, T. Riabouchinska, M. Ladré, E. Borovansky. Andrei Korlyakov Collection 21. Tamara Karsavina in Les Sylphides. Painting by Savely Sorin, oil on canvas, 1910. The Theatre Museum, Moscow 22. Tamara Karsavina. Portrait by Jacques-Emile Blanche, oil on canvas, 1928. Photo courtesy Studio Sébert, Paris 23. Alexandra Danilova rehearsing with Léonide Massine, 1930. Alexandra Danilova archives, presently at the Library of Congress, USA 24. Alexandra Danilova and John Clifford rehearsing Coppélia with Alexander Mintz as Coppelius (in the mirror) at the Ballet of Los Angeles, 1980. Courtesy Nina Alovert 25. Irina Baronova in Swan Lake, late 1930s (?). Vera Krasovskaya archives 26. Irina Baronova in Les Cent baisers. Ballets Russes. New York, 1935–9. Photo by A. Brodovitch 27. Barbara Karinska trying Tatiana Riabouchinska’s costume, designed by Cecil Beaton (right) for Le Pavillon by David Lichine. London, Covent Garden, 1936. Vera Krasovskaya archives 28. Tamara Toumanova in Cotillon. New York, 1935–8. Photo by A. Brodovitch 29. Tamara Toumanova in her dressing room at the Paris Opera, 1947. Photo by Serge Lido. Tamara Toumanova archives 30. Tamara Toumanova dancing with the London Festival Ballet, 1954. L. Weinstein collection 31. Tatiana Riabouchinska in Sylphides, 1935–40. Lara Obydennaya archives, gift of the Klimenkov family, 2016. The St Petersburg State Museum of Theatrical and Musical Arts 32. Tatiana Riabouchinska, Vera Nelidova, Tamara Toumanova, Irina Baronova and Lubov Tchernicheva in Les Cent baisers, New York, 1935–9. Photo by A. Brodovitch 33. Tatiana Riabouchinska. Portrait by Natalia Goncharova, oil on canvas, n.d. Private collection

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34. Tatiana Leskova, 1930s (?). Andrei Korlyakov Collection 35. Les Présages by Léonide Massine, 1933. Sets and costumes by André Masson. Vera Krasovskaya archives 36. Léonide Massine rehearsing Symphonie fantastique on the roof of the Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, 1936. Vera Krasovskaya archives 37. Léonide Massine in Symphonie fantastique. Ballets Russes, New York, 1935–8. Photo by A. Brodovitch 38. After the performance of Aurora’s Wedding: T. Toumanova, C. Chaplin, T. Riabouchinska, W. de Basil; I. Baronova, B. Kochno, L. Massine, S. Grigoriev, D. Lichine. Auditorium Theatre, Los Angeles, 1936 39. Original Ballet Russe company on board the British ship Orcades sailing from Tilbury, England to Sydney, Australia. November–December 1939. Lara Obydennaya archives, gift of the Klimenkov family, 2016. The St Petersburg State Museum of Theatrical and Musical Arts 40. Tamara Tchinarova in Thamar by Mikhail Fokine. Melbourne, 1937. Tamara Tchinarova archives 41. Tatiana Stepanova as Black Swan, with Oleg Tupine, n.d. Tatiana Stepanova archives 42. Anna Volkova in Aurora’s Wedding, n.d. Photo by M. Seymour. Anna Volkova archives 43. Dima Rostov with pictures of his most famous roles: King Dodon (Golden Cockerel), Duke Malatesta (Francesca da Rimini) and Paganini (Paganini). Portrait by unknown artist. After 1939. Lara Obydennaya archives, gift of the Klimenkov family, 2016. The St Petersburg State Museum of Theatrical and Musical Arts 44. Henri Matisse. Cover of the Ballets Russes London Season programme, 1939–40. The author’s collection 45. Original Ballet Russe dancers in their dressing room. On the right, Serge Grigoriev standing, Marian Ladré sitting. 1940s. Lara Obydennaya’s archives, gift of the Klimenkov family, 2016. The St Petersburg State Museum of Theatrical and Musical Arts

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317

46. Miguel Terekhov and Yvonne Chouteau, 1954. Miguel Terekhov archives 47. Erik Bruhn and Marjorie Tallchief in Don Quixote, n.d. Vera Krasovskaya archives 48. The Ballets Russes company. Left to right: L. Massine, A. Markova, I. Baronova, M. Slavenska, T. Orlova, A. Danilova, 1940. Vera Krasovskaya archives 49. Les Sylphides. Ballets Russes, New York, 1935–8. Photo by A. Brodovitch 50. Rachel Cameron rehearsing with Edouard Borovansky, mid-1940s. Tamara Tchinarova archives 51. Alexandra Danilova and Frederic Franklin in Gaîté parisienne by Léonide Massine, 1940. L. Weinstein collection 52. Anton Dolin, n.d. Photo by Serge Lido. Vera Krasovskaya archives 53. Nini Theilade in Bacchanale by Léonide Massine, sets by Salvador Dalí, 1939. Photo by M. Seymour. Nini Theilade archives 54. Hélène Traïline. Grand pas classique by Victor Gsovsky, 1947. Boris Traïline archives 55. Tamara Toumanovа and Léon Woizikowsky in Petrushka by Mikhail Fokine. New York, 1933. Photo by Maurice Goldberg. Andrei Korlyakov Collection 56. Poster of the last performance of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, 14 April 1962. Richard Holden archives 57. Poster of the International Ballet of the Marquis de Cuevas season at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Paris, n.d. 58. The Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in Deauville, n.d. Maria de Fredericks archives 59. Duel between Marquis de Cuevas and Serge Lifar, 1958. The Marquis’s second, Jean-Marie Le Pen, on the left. Maria de Fredericks archives 60. George Zoritch, Olga Adabache, George Skibine in Antinous by Victor Gsovsky, Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, 1953. Photo by S. Lido. George Zoritch archives

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61. Ethéry Pagava in The Night Shadow (later La sonnambula) by George Balanchine, 1950s. The author’s collection 62. Boris Kniazeff and Yvette Chauviré in Swan Lake. Paris, n.d. Photo by Parkour. Richard Holden archives 63. Alicia Markova and Milorad Miskovitch in L’Apres-midi d’un faune by Serge Lifar after Vaclav Nijinsky, 1954. Photo by C. Van Vechten. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, USA. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004663278/ 64. Mad Tristan by Léonide Massine, sets by Salvador Dalí. Ballet international, New York, 1944. Richard Holden archives 65. Janine Charrat and Vladimir Oukhtomsky in Héraklès by Janine Charrat. Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris, 1953. Photo by S. Lido. Vladimir Oukhtomsky archives 66. Vladimir Skouratoff, 1950s. Andrei Korlyakov Collection 67. Ludmila Schollar as Veronica and Anatole Vilzak as Amun in the Egyptian Nights by Lev Ivanov and Mikhail Fokine at the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, 1908. The author’s collection 68. Svetlana Beriozova, Nicholas Polajenko, 1950s. Richard Holden archives 69. Victor Gsovsky giving a class to Jean Babilée, 1940s. Jean Babilée archives 70. Jean Cocteau rehearsing with Jean Babilée and Nathalie Philippart his and Roland Petit’s ballet Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, premiered on 25 June 1946. Jean Babilée archives 71. Rosella Hightower, Serge Golovine, late 1940s (?). L. Weinstein collection 72. Maina Gielgud, Rudolf Nureyev. Don Quixote. Marseille, 1972. Maina Gielgud archives 73. John Neumeier rehearsing his ballet Sounds of Empty Pages (music by Alfred Schnittke) with Diana Vishneva. Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, 2001. Photo by Natalya Razina 74. Vaclav Nijinsky in Danse siamoise (from Orientalia by Mikhail Fokine). Pencil drawing by Amedeo Modigliani. Early 1910s. The John Neumeier Foundation – Dance Collection

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75. Vaclav Nijinsky. Le Spectre de la rose. Drawing by Jean Cocteau, 1912. The John Neumeier Foundation – Dance Collection 76. Poster of the Danse Gala for benefit of Vaclav Nijinsky, organised by Serge Lifar at the Museum of Decorative Arts. Paris, 28 June 1939. The John Neumeier Foundation – Dance Collection 77. Lloyd Riggins as Nijinsky performing Petrushka in John Neumeier’s ballet Nijinsky, n.d. Photo by Kiran West, courtesy The Hamburg Ballet 78. Sergei Diaghilev. Portrait by Tatiana Necheukhina. Oil on canvas, 2014. Yuri and Yana Torokhov Collection.

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•

INDEX OF NAMES

Bold page numbers refer to

Abrikossova, Kira 156, 158, 163 Adabache, Olga 195, 317, ill. 60 Adjemova, Sirène 257 Aga Khan III, Sir Sultan Muhammed Shah, 77 Agnelli, Giovanni 215 Albéniz, Isaac 23 Aldous, Lucette 289 Aleksinsky, Dr. 72 d’Alessandri-Valdine, Blanche 265, 241 Alexander Karageorgievich, King of Yougoslavia 135 Algaroff, Youly 77, 85, 138, 224, 229, 241, 260, 262, 279 Alfonso XIII, ex–King of Spain 50 Alonso, Alberto 117 Alonso, Alicia 8, 117, 135, 200, 234 Alovert, Nina 315 d’Amboise, Jacques 70 Antonioni, Michelangelo xviii Antonova, Helena 204 Arova, Sonia 160, 266, 287 Ashton, Freddy 66, 287 Astafieva, Serafima 161 Atanassoff, Cyril 234 Auerbach, Lera 297 Auric, Georges 64, 163 Babilée, Jean 12, 76, 77, 197, 227, 229, 239, 258, 259, 272–283, 273, 278, 279, 311, 318, ill. 69, 70 Bach, Johann Sébastian 79, 195, 197, 261, 298, 305 Bakst, Léon 17, 84, 87, 236, 273, 282, 299

Index of Names.indd 321

Balanchine, Georges 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 19, 20–23, 25–36, 38–40, 45, 48, 51, 53, 57, 60–64, 66, 68–70, 87, 89, 90, 95, 98, 104–109, 113, 114, 124, 127–129, 138–140, 153, 169, 172, 173, 175–177, 179, 180, 182–184, 198, 205, 206, 229, 234, 238, 243, 245, 253, 260, 264, 289, 314, 318, ill. 9 Balieff, Nikita 22, 23, 68 Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski de Rola) 279 Baronov, Mikhail 42–44 Baronova, Irina 4, 41, 42–56, 49, 68, 69, 87, 94, 99, 100, 104, 105, 107, 109, 112, 114, 115, 139, 140, 146, 147, 150, 176, 179, 187, 293, 311, 315–317 ill. 25, 26, 32, 38, 48 Baranović, Krešimir 135 Baryshnikov, Misha (Mikhail) 141, 197, 237, 291, 305–306 de Basil, Colonel (Voskressenski, Wassily Grigorievitch) 6, 7, 8, 9, 10–13, 26, 31, 33–35, 41, 45– 47, 49, 51, 52, 61, 62, 75, 84, 86–90, 94–97, 105–107, 113, 114, 116–118, 120, 122–124, 126, 128, 129, 130, 137, 138, 140, 146–148, 152, 154, 156, 158, 162, 167, 170, 171, 174, 175, 190, 204, 205, 209, 232, 233, 236, 238, 253, 293, 314–316, ill. 10, 18, 20, 38 Batianov, Mikhail Ivanovich, General 25 Beaton, Cecil 315, ill. 27 Béjart, Maurice 198, 224, 234, 235, 240, 242, 284, 288, 289, 292 Bekefi, Alfred 54

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322

Index of Names Bekefi, Elena 54 Bekefi, Julia 54 Bekefi, Maria 54 Belle, Florentine 86, 186 Belsky, Igor 32 Benois, Alexander 11, 30, 38, 84, 151 Benois, Nicola (Koka) 38, 267 Bérard, Christian 51, 62, 106, 179, 229, 281, 314, ill. 17 Beriozova, Svetlana 266, 271, 291, 292, 318, ill. 68 Beriozoff, Nicholas 5, 11, 266, 267 Berlioz, Hector 32, 62, 124, 139, 297 Berners, Gerald 28 Bernhardt, Sarah 3, 229 Besobrasov, Vladimir Mikhailovich, General 73f Besobrasov, Vladimir Vladimirovich 72ff Besobrasov, Nikolai Mikhailovich 77 Besobrasova, Marika (Vladimirovna) 71–82, 197, 232, 257, 258, 276, 279, 287, 312 Besobrasova, Vera (b. Countess Stenbock– Fermor) 72ff Bessy, Claude 287 Bizet, Georges 38, 69 Blacher, Boris 240 Blanche, Jacques-Emile 17, 315 Blinova, Valentina 69, 232 Blum, Léon 34 Blum, René 6, 7, 9, 34, 41, 45–47, 49, 51, 62, 75, 77, 122, 154, 158, 174, 232, 257, 272, 314, ill. 10, 18 Boccherini, Luigi 49 Bolger, Ray 23 Borodin, Alexander 87 Borovansky, Edouard 96, 119, 156, 158, 159, 163–165, 315, 317 ill. 20, 50 Boshkovich, Natasha 232 Botticelli, Sandro 188 Bourgat, Alice 61 Bournonville, August 292 Bousloff, Kira 292 Bousloff, Serge 156–158, 163, 164, 293 Bozzoni, Max 195, 196, 244 Brahms, Johannes 32, 61, 83, 108, 139 Braque, Georges 87, 279 Braunsweg, Julian 11, 261, 262 Briansky, Oleg 267 Brodovitch, A 315–317 Bruhn, Erik 81, 160, 266, 288, 302, 303, 317, ill. 47 Bryusova, Nadya 186, 190 Burlakov, Misha 156

Index of Names.indd 322

Cameron, Rachel 4, 13–18, 155–161, 163, 285, 286, 293, 311, 317, ill. 50 Carol II, King of Romania 50 Cassandre 195, 261, 279 Cassidy, Claudia 205 Cecchetti, Enrico 5, 13, 15, 32, 193, 194, 204, 224, 292 Celada, Raoul 96 Chaboukiani, Vakhtang 11, 62, 225 Chabrier, Emmanuel 61 Chagall, Marc 71 Chaliapin, Fedor 104, 299, 313 Chamié, Tatiana 87, 204 Chaplin, Charlie 107, 269, 316, ill. 38 Charrat, Janine 194, 197, 318, ill. 65 Chase, Lucia 52, 282, 130, 176 Chauviré, Yvette 8, 77, 85, 95, 128, 140, 194, 205, 224, 226, 234, 236, 237, 239, 248, 253, 254, 260–263, 279, ill. 62 Chavchavadze, George 219 Chiriaeff, Ludmila 5, 11 Chopin, Frederic 74, 258 Chouteau, Yvonne 120, 127, 128, 205, 317, ill. 46 Christian X, King of Denmark 158 Clifford, John 315, ill. 24 Clustine, Ivan 241, 258 Cobos, Antonia 124, 125 Cochran, C. B. 28, 178 Cocteau, Jean 64, 124, 219, 263, 279, 299, 311, 313, 318, ill. 3, 70 Copland, Aaron 304 Coralli, Jean 292 Craig, Yvonne 125 Crofton, Kathleen 14, 286 de Cuevas, Marquis (George de Cuevas, Jorge Cuevas Bartholín) 10, 37, 64, 78, 79, 85, 89, 96, 129, 130, 150, 179, 196, 209, 211–213, 215, 218, 219, 222, 223, 225, 227–230, 233, 235–238, 242, 243–245, 249, 253, 259, 261–263, 269–271, 284, 288, 317, ill. 59 de Cuevas, Marquise (b. Margaret Rockefeller Strong) 211, 213, 221, 242, 253 Dalí, Salvador 38, 39, 51, 63, 174, 188, 228, 242, 243, 317, 318, ill. 53, 64 Damase, Jean-Michel 243, 253 Dandré, Victor 63, 95, 114, 160

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Index of Names Daniel, Marie 191 Danielian, Leon 125, 205 Danilova, Alexandra (Choura) 3, 4, 7, 12, 19, 21, 22, 25–40, 26, 45, 48, 49, 70, 89, 97, 107, 124, 127, 128, 135, 138, 150, 164, 166, 167, 171, 172, 175, 177, 179, 180, 183, 184, 186, 188, 189, 199, 205, 236, 257, 267, 304, 306, 311, 313, 314–317, ill. 19, 20, 23, 24, 48, 51 Darsonval, Lycette 195, 196, 225 Daydé, Liane 218, 263 De Chirico, Giorgio 28, 38 Delarova, Eugenia 173 Denham, Serge (Dokuchaev, Sergei) 6, 7, 8, 9, 34, 35, 37, 63, 69, 95, 96, 110, 118, 120, 124, 126, 129, 137, 148, 154, 174, 175, 182, 183, 187, 199, 200, 204, 209, 258–260, 302 Denisova, Alexandra 149 Derain, André 51, 62, 273 Deslys, Gaby Desormière, Roger 61 Devillier, Catherine 68 Diaghilev, Pavel Pavlovich 134 Diaghilev, Sergei Pavlovich (Serge) 20–31, 33–35, 39, 45–48, 50, 54, 55, 57, 61, 73, 75, 77, 78, 84–87, 93, 98, 102, 104, 109, 116, 122, 128, 134, 135, 137, 139, 140, 148, 151, 154, 158, 160, 167, 168, 171, 175, 177–179, 182–184, 194, 196, 197, 200, 204, 205, 219, 225, 226, 231, 235, 236, 242, 259, 265, 266, 268, 274, 278, 279, 286, 298, 299, 301, 313, 319, ill. 1, 2, 4, 5, 78 Didelot, Charles xix Dietrich, Marlene 107, 182 Dior, Christian 279 Dmitriev, Vladimir 21, 22, 23 Dobouzhinsky, Mstislav 17 Dokoudovsky, Vladimir (‘Duke’) 4, 123, 124, 137, 138, 148, 150, 252, 266 Dolgushin, Nikita 160 Dolin, Anton 7, 21, 28, 29, 37, 48, 52, 130, 150, 161, 166–170, 172, 176, 177, 179, 181, 184, 186, 197, 236, 243, 262, 267, 269, 278, 284, 286, 317, ill. 52 Dollar, Bill 89, 176, 216, 233, 234, 263, 269, 270 Domingo, Placido 141 Doráti, Antal 116 Dostoevsky, Fiodor 240 Doubrovska, Felia 45, 105, 168, 184 Dowager Empress 73 Drummond, John 3

Index of Names.indd 323

323

Dubost, Jeanne 61 Dudinskaya, Natalia 181 Duncan, Isadora 33, 185 Dunham, Katherine 212 Dupond, Patrick 201 Dürer, Albrecht 18 van Dyk, Peter 240 Eduardova, Eugenia 6 Efimov, Nicholas 21, 22 Eglevsky, André 41, 175, 196, 228, 229, 233, 257, 261, 263, 273 Egorova, Lubov (marr. Princess Trubetskoy) 6, 11, 20, 35, 36, 45, 59, 77, 78, 84–86, 88, 103, 112, 113, 149, 155, 158, 160, 168, 186, 190, 192, 193, 204, 224–226, 228, 233, 236, 241, 287, 288, 314, ill. 10, 11 Elchaninov, Alexander (Father) 247 Elena, Grand Princess, Queen of the Hellenes 133 Elisabeth, Queen of Belgium 147 Elizabeth, Queen of England 50, 69, 111, 114 d’Erlanger, Frederick 49, 113 Eugenia, Empress 217 Farouk, King of Egypt 217 Fedorova, Alexandra 11, 63, 168 Feodorovna, dowager Empress Maria, b. Dagmar, Danish Princess 73 Feodorovna, dowager Empress of Russia Maria (née Grand Princess Dagmar of Danmark) 73, 74 Finch, Peter 156 Flindt, Flemming 292, 304 Fokina, Vera Petrovna 115 Fokine, Mikhail 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 16, 26, 30, 32–36, 40, 47, 48, 50–53, 63, 66, 69, 74, 75, 85–87, 89, 94–96, 98, 108, 114, 115, 135, 149, 154, 156, 158, 163, 168, 169, 176, 177, 183, 194, 201, 206, 245, 253, 254, 259, 266, 269, 272, 273, 276, 293, 297, 307, 313, 316–318, ill. 3, 6, 40, 55, 67, 74 Fonteyn, Margot 16, 53, 141, 157, 158, 169, 230, 232, 234, 237, 291, 303, 304 Fosca, Igor 274, 275 Fracci, Carla 237, 252 Franck, César 178, 187, 281

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Index of Names Franck, Yvonne 61 Franklin, Frederic 8, 37, 38, 99, 124, 125, 166–184, 170, 198, 199, 204, 205, 206, 267, 311, 317, ill. 51 Fredericks (de), Baron 212 de Fredericks, Maria see Kirillova, Maria Froman, Margarita 11, 135, 136, 182, 232 Garbo, Greta 182 Gardner, George Peabody 93, 142 Gardner, Isabella Stewart 152 Gaskell, Sonia 5, 11 Gaubert, Philippe 277 Gautier, Théophile 85 George VI, King of England 50 Gerdt, Elisaveta 25 Gerdt, Pavel 17 Geva, Tamara (b. Zheverzheieva) 3, 4, 19–24, 25–27, 54, 172, 311 Gielgud, John (Sir) 284 Gielgud, Maina 155, 157, 169, 284–293, 311, 318, ill. 72 Giraud, Claude 213, 216, 217, 218, 219, 244 Glazunov, Alexandre 23, 235, 297 Glück, Christoph Willibald 75 Godunov, Alexander 70, 104 Gold, Sherry 306 Goldberg, Maurice 317 Gollner, Nana 123 Golovin, Alexander 26, 76 Golovine, Serge 76, 96, 228, 229, 243, 259, 271, 277, 318, ill. 71 Goncharova, Natalia 26, 151, 315 Gorchakov, 218 Gouri see Kulikovsky–Romanov, Gouri Nikolayevich de Goya, Francisco 34 Grantseva, Tatiana 267 Gregory, John 14 Grétry, André 197 Grigoriev, Sergei Leonidovich (Serge) 4, 7, 10, 11, 28, 46, 47, 51, 57, 86, 88, 109, 113, 116, 117, 123, 137, 152, 314, 316, ill. 10, 18, 38, 45 Grigoriev, Vladimir (Vova) 116 Grigorieva, Tamara (née Sidorenko) 11, 88, 90, 116, 124, 148

Index of Names.indd 324

Grigorovich, Yuri 92, 98, 180, 307 Gris, Juan 38 Gritsova, Nina 134 Grünberg, Eugene 195, 229, 260–262 Gsovskaya, Tatiana 6 Gsovsky, Victor 6, 77, 226, 227, 235, 239, 240, 263, 266, 275–277, 304, 317, 318, ill. 69 Guerrico, Horacio 215 Gurdjieff, Georgy Ivanovich (George) 285 Hartwig, Brigitta 272, 273 Haskell, Arnold 46, 60, 147, 152, 162, 248 Haydée, Marcia 221, 306 Helpmann, Robert (Sir) 155, 157, 221, 245 Hightower, Rosella 80, 127, 129, 196, 227–229, 233, 234, 269, 284, 288–290, 318, ill. 71 Hindemith, Paul 139, 171, 188 Hirsch see Kouznetsova, Raissa Hirsch, George 156, 218 Hitchcock, Alfred 65 Holden, Richard 317, 318 Horovitz, Vladimir 36 Hugo, Valentine 299 Hurok, Sol 36, 49, 60, 62–65, 69, 97, 107, 117, 118, 123, 124, 180, 187, 243 Ibert, Jacques 61 Iliazd, see Zdanevich, Ilia Ionesco, Eugene 292 Issatchenko, Boris 239 Issatchenko, Tatiana 239 Ivanov, Lev 318 Ivanova, Lydia 21 James, Edward 105 Jasiński, Roman 37, 123, 124, 127, 130, 232, 233, 273 Jeanmaire, Zizi 85, 194, 215, 226, 229, 241, 253, 260, 262 Jooss, Kurt 263

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Index of Names Jordania, Inna (b. Koroleva) 223 Jordania, Noé 223, 224 Joukowsky, Anatoly 132–141, 231, 311 Juliana, Queen of the Netherland 65 Kachurovsky, Leonid 11 Kaledin, Alexeï Maximovitch, General 72 Kalioujny, Alexander (Sasha) 5, 282 Kargalsky, Georgy Dmitrievich, General 144, 145 Karinska, Barbara 50, 51, 315, ill. 27 Karlin, Benjamin 214, 216, 217 Karpova, Lydia 74 Karsavin, Lev 17 Karsavina, Tamara 4, 6, 10, 13–18, 20, 44, 48, 54, 96, 102, 134, 155, 160, 161, 167, 284–287, 299, 311, 315 ill. 21, 22 Katcharov, Michel 47, 175 Kaye, Nora 200 Kelly, Gene 65 Kelly, Marjorie 167 Kirkland, Gelsey 306 Ketonov 81 Keyton, Edward 81 Khachaturian, Aram 244 Khassidovitch, Vladimir 58, 59, 62 Khomyakov, Alexey 17 Kirillova, Maria (de Fredericks, née Tatishcheva) 211–222, 311 Kirsanova, Nina 134, 138, 232 Kirsova, Elena 10, 156–160, 163–165 Kirsta, Natasha (Princess) 5 Kirstein, Lincoln 176 Kiss, Nora 226 Klimt, Gustav 299 Kniaseff, Boris 6, 23, 85, 226, 227, 232, 237, 240, 274–276, 318, ill. 62 Kochno, Boris 23, 27, 29, 49, 105, 149, 179, 197, 235, 241, 242, 266, 267, 278, 279, 316, ill. 38 Kolbe, Georg 299 Kolpakova, Irina 110, 291 Koribut-Kubitovich, Pavel 28 Korlyakov, Andrei 314–318 Kornilov, Lavr Georgiyevich, 133 Kouznetsova, Raissa (b. Hirsch) 156, 159, 163, 164 Kouznetsova, Valya 159 Kozloff, Feodor 175 Krassovska, Nathalie (Natasha, Tata, b. Natasha Leslie) 75, 94, 183, 189, 199, 234, 262, 268, 270

Index of Names.indd 325

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Krassovskaya, Vera Mikhailovna 19 Kremneff, Nicolas 84 Krips, Henry 163 Krüger, Xenia Nikolaevna (née Smirnoff) 156, 160, 163, 165 Krzyszkowska, Maria 206 Kshessinska, Mathilda 6, 14, 35, 45, 57, 67, 68, 74, 78, 103, 112, 145, 193, 241, 288, 314, ill. 12, 13, 14, 15 Kulikovsky-Romanov, Gouri Nikolayevich 73 Kulikovsky-Romanov, Tikhon Nikolayevich 73 Kyasht, Lydia (b. Kyakshto) 6, 167, 168, 286 Kylián, Jiří 200 Laban, Rudolf von 263 Labrousse, Yvette 262 Lacotte, Pierre 80, 177, 224, 243, 287 Ladré, Marian (‘Mariasha’, ‘Maga’) 47, 55, 205, 315, 316, ill. 20, 45 Lake, Molly 13 Lander, Harald 89, 292 Laneau, George 219 Larionov, Michel 151, 259 Larkin, Moscelyne (Moussia) 38, 127, 130, 233 Larraín (de), Raymundo 211, 212, 219, 221, 222, 270 Lazowsky, Yurek 205 Le Pen, Jean–Marie 244, 317, ill. 59 Legat, Gustav 285 Legat, Nicholas 6, 166–168, 285 Legat, Serge 285 Leonidov, Léonide 263 Leonidova, Nina 8 Leskova, Tatiana 5, 10, 41, 69, 83–91, 84, 97, 108, 119, 148, 190, 311, 316, ill. 34 Levantovsky, General 247 Lichine, David 11, 45, 64, 66, 67, 69, 87, 88, 94, 99, 105, 107, 115, 117, 130, 135, 137, 149, 154, 157, 171, 229, 236, 281, 314–316, ill. 18, 20, 27, 38 Lido, Serge 229, 314–318 Lidova, Irène 5, 12, 219, 229, 234–236, 278, 279 Lifar, Sergei 3, 5, 10, 39, 55, 64, 78, 85–87, 98, 105, 109, 130, 131, 140, 147–149, 154, 167, 179, 186, 189, 192, 194–197, 209, 219, 220, 224–226, 229, 231,

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Index of Names 233–236, 241, 242, 244, 248, 249, 253, 257, 258, 260–263, 277, 278, 282, 313, 314, 317–319, ill. 7, 15, 59 Lloyd George, David 84 Lopatkina, Uliana 292 Lopukhov, Feodor 25–27, 28, 32, 40 Losch, Tilly 105 Macdonald, Nesta 286 MacKenzie, Kenneth 123, 124, 150 MacMillan 200 Mahler, Gustav 305 Makarova, Natalia (Natasha), 23, 98, 141, 181, 237, 291, 305, 306, 314 ill. 15 Markova, Alicia, 3, 7, 10, 36, 37, 65, 94, 130, 135, 161, 166, 167, 169–171, 177, 179, 184, 188, 189, 234, 236, 243, 254, 262, 267, 317, 318, ill. 48, 63 Massine, Léonide 4–9, 12, 25, 26, 31, 32, 34–40, 47–50, 61–63, 66, 69, 79, 83, 86, 89, 90, 95–98, 107, 108, 114, 118, 124, 125, 127, 138, 139, 146, 148–150, 154, 157, 158, 163, 166, 167, 170–174, 177, 178–180, 184, 186–190, 195, 199, 200, 201, 205, 206, 215, 220, 228, 229, 236, 243, 253, 254, 257, 260, 264, 269, 280, 282, 313–318, ill. 1, 8, 20, 23, 36, 37, 38, 48 Massine, Lorca 12, 80, 97, 98, 178 Masson, André, 316 Matisse, Henri 51, 84, 151, 170, 171, 316, ill. 44 Maxwell, Elsa 215 McAllister, David 293 McBride, Patricia 264 Medem, Baroness 84 Medici, family 253 Mélisse, Gerard 260 Messerer, Asaf 292 Messerer, Sulamith 304 Meyerhold, Vsevolod 33 Milhaud, Darius 60, 62, 200 de Mille, Agnes 16, 175, 178 Mintz, Alexander 315, ill. 24 Miró, Joan 38, 71, 84, 87, 314, ill. 10, 18 Miskovitch, Milorad 12, 198, 228, 230, 231–237, 238, 284, 312, 318, ill. 63 Modigliani, Amedeo 299, 318 Moiseyev, Igor 135, 140, 141 Mojaiskaya, Madame 44

Index of Names.indd 326

Mollerup, Asta, 186 Mordkin, Mikhail 6, 10, 11, 52, 205, 227, 232, 273 Morozova, Olga (de Basil) 137 Motte, Claire 234 Moulin, Geneviève 86, 137 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 28, 61, 105, 273, 308 Munnings, Hilda see Sokolova, Lydia Mussorgsky, Modest 196 Necheukina, Tatiana 315 Nelidova, Vera, 315 ill. 32 Nemchinova, Lydia 22 Nemchinova (Nemtchinova), Vera 11, 22, 28, 116, 135, 168, 170 , 184, 266, 273 Neumeier, John 240, 292, 297–300, 301–309, 312, 318, ill. 73 Newman, Paul 65 Nijinska, Bronislava 6, 7, 10, 12, 38, 29, 30, 32, 49, 52, 66, 78, 87, 95–97, 108, 114, 127, 129, 130, 135, 149, 170, 177, 178, 182, 186, 196, 202, 203, 207, 214–216, 220, 221, 229, 245, 249, 250, 253, 260, 282, 286, 313 ill. 6, 7 Nijinska, Irina 200, 250, 313 Nijinska, Kira 178 Nijinsky, Vaclav (Vaslav) 13, 28, 47, 87, 178, 259, 279, 282, 297–299, 302, 313, 314, 318, 319, ill. 2, 3, 74, 75 Nikolaeva, Alexandra 160 Nikolaeva-Legat, Nadine 285 Nono, Luigi 240 Novak, Edmund 204 Novak, Nina 11, 37, 95, 124–126, 137, 183, 199, 202–207, 312 Novikoff, Laurent (Lavrenti) 54, 286 Nureyev, Rudolf (Rudik) 58, 79, 80, 134, 141, 194, 197, 201, 221, 222, 228, 230, 237, 270, 271, 284, 288–290, 298, 305, 318, ill. 72 Obidenna (Obydennaya), Lara 55, 314–316 Oboukhoff, Anatoly 11, 107, 116, 127, 168, 184, 266, 273 Offenbach, Jacques 52, 63, 104, 254 Olga Alexandrovna, Grand Princess 73

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Index of Names Ohana, Maurice 198, 235 Olivier, Laurence 169 Orlova, Tatiana 317, ill. 48 Oukhtomsky, Vladimir (b. Protopopoff) 195, 196, 198, 246–250, 249, 251, 310, 318, ill. 65 Ouroussova, Princess 193, 256 Ouspensky, 285 Pagava, Ethéry 223–230, 233, 241, 311, 312, 318, ill. 61 Page, Ruth 178 Panaeva, Alexandra 134 Panaieff, Michel (Mikhail, Misha) 134, 248, 257 Panaïev, Ivan 134 Parkour 316 Pärt, Arvo 297 Pastoukhov, Nikolai 111 Pastoukhova, Anna 111 Pavlova, Anna 10, 13, 34, 54, 55, 59, 60, 63, 65, 66, 68, 77, 81, 95, 134, 147, 156, 160, 167, 178, 231, 232, 234, 258, 268, 274, 286, 292 Peck, Gregory 63 Peretti, Serge 252 Petipa, Marius 16, 17, 26, 54, 59, 87, 135, 193, 226, 266, 285, 306, 314 Petit, Roland 89, 197, 205, 224, 227, 229, 230, 234, 235, 236, 238, 240, 241, 253, 254, 259, 266, 267, 278, 279, 281, 284, 318 Petroff, Paul, 314, ill. 20 Philippart, Nathalie 197, 281, 3 18, ill. 70 Picasso, Pablo 39, 71, 87, 200, 204, 231, 279, 280, 313 Piollet, Wilfride 287, 288 Pitoyeff, Sasha 254 Platoff (Platt), Marc 99, 123, 171, 175 Plisetskaya, Maya 135, 180 Plisetsky, Azari 302 Polajenko, Nicholas 240, 265–271, 310, 318, ill. 68 Polyakova, Elena (Poliakova, Jelena, Yelena) 11, 134, 231, 232 Pontois, Noëlla 288 Postnikova, Victoria 308 Poulenc, Francis 60

Index of Names.indd 327

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Preobrajenska, Olga Ossipovna 6, 25, 35, 44, 45, 54, 57, 59, 60, 61, 65, 78, 88, 92, 93, 96, 103, 104, 106, 112, 113, 114, 145–147, 151, 153, 155, 160, 228, 232, 235, 236, 239, 241–243, 252, 286, 287, 314, ill. 16 Presley, Elvis 125 Prokofiev, 25, 235, 254, 297 Prokovsky, 80 Protopopoff family 246 Proust, Marcel 3, 9 Provitch, Valentin 286 Pugni, Cesare 267 Pruna, Pedro 38 Psota, Vanya (Ivo) 89, 314 ill. 20 Pourmel, Ada 198 Pourmel, Sophie 198, 199 Pronin, Anatoly 313 Pushkin, Alexandr Ivanovich 224, 244 Rachmaninov, Sergei (Serge) 29, 86, 139, 149, 235 Ragosin, Ragozsin, Alexeï Alexandrovich (‘General Ra’) 168 Raievska, Nina 109, 203, 206, 232 Rambert, Marie 10, 282 Rameau, Jean-Philippe 89 Ravel, Maurice 61, 297  Razina, Natalya 318 Razoumova, Galina (Galya) 104 Reinhardt, Max 186, 187 Rekemchuk, Alexander 102 Rekemchuk, Evsey 100 Renault, Michel 194 Renouf, Renée 93 Resnikov, Micha 227 Riabouchinska, Tatiana 41, 45, 46, 50, 51, 54, 67–70, 86, 94, 99, 103, 107, 115, 138, 146–148, 150, 236, 281, 312, 314–316, ill. 10, 18, 19, 20, 31, 32, 33, 38 Riabouchinsky, Mikhail Pavlovich, 67, 68 Ricardo, Ana 64 Ricaux, Gustave 194, 273, 274, 277 Rieti, Vittorio 28, 38 Riggins, Lloyd 319, ill. 77 Rimsky-Korsakov, 63, 135, 298 Robbins, Jerome 38, 53, 200 Rockefeller, John 213, 221, 242, 253 Rodzyanko, Mikhail Vladimirovich 72

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Index of Names Roerich, Nikolai 87 Rojo, Tamara 292, 293 Romanov, Boris 6, 10, 43, 138, 262 Romanova, Maria Feodorovna (marr. Ulanova) 303 Rosen, Heinz 124, 206, 263 Rostopchin, family 3 Rostov, Dimitri (Dima) 267, 316, ill. 43 Rostova, Lubov 105, 123 Rostova, Natalia 268 Rouché, Jacques 277 Rousanne, Madame (née Sarkissian, Rosa) 226–228, 276 Rozhdestvensky, Gennady 141, 308 Rubinstein, Arthur 37 Rubinstein, Ida 34, 95, 96, 103, 149, 158, 204 Sablon, Marcel 76, 258, 259 Sadlers Wells 37, 291 Sadowska, Hélène  218, 238–245, 312 Samuel-Rousseau, Marcel 277 Sarabelle, Suzanne 258 Sargent, 17 Saronova, Lucie 156 Sauguet, Henri 197, 241, 281 Scarlatti, 236 Schiaparelli, Elsa 68 Schmitt, Florent 60 Schnittke, Alfred 297, 307, 318 Schollar, Ludmilla 11, 184, 204, 265, 291, 318, ill. 67 Schubert, Franz 63, 106, 124, 174 Schumann, Robert 87, 190, 254 Schwarz, Solange 140 Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth 305 Scriabin, Alexandr 9 Sedova, Julia 74, 192, 193, 247, 248, 256–259, 276, 287 de Ségur, Countess 3 Serebryakova,  Zinaïda 17 Sereda, Kira 90 Sergeyev, Nicholas 6, 38, 232, 233 Serov, Valentin 17, 34 Sert, Misia 27 Sevastianov, Jerry 87 Seymour, Lynn, 306 Seymour, Maurice 152, 316, 317, Shabelevsky, Yurek 11, 205 Shabelska, Galya 122 Shaievsky, Valery 156, 163, 164 Shapman, Margarita 199 Shavrov, Boris 26

Index of Names.indd 328

Shostakovich, Dmitri 32, 170, 298 Shvetsov, Igor 10, 87, 89, 181, 187, 188, 302 Sibelius, Jean 266 Sidorenko see Grigorieva, Tamara Silverheel, Marie 128 Singaevsky, Nicholas 12, 177, 178, 215 Sizova, Alla 291 Skibine, Boris 85 Skibine, George 85, 89, 98, 129, 130, 140, 196, 197, 224, 229, 233, 236, 243, 253, 261, 263, 271, 317, ill. 60 Skorik, Irène 77, 85, 235 Skouratoff, Vladimir (Volodya) 194, 243, 251–254, 260, 262, 282, 312, 318, ill. 66 Slavenska, Mia 41, 127, 179, 182, 183, 188, 189, 199, 234, 236, 257, 317, ill. 48 Slonimsky, Yuri 19 Smetana, Bedrich 160 Smirnova see Krüger, Xenia Nikolaevna Smirnova, Elena 10, 43 Sobichevsky, Edward (Sobik) 156, 164 Sobichevsky, 163 Sokolova, Evgenia 20, 239 Sokolova, Lydia (b. Munnings, Hilda) 13, 14, 22, 160 Solzhenitsyn, Alexandr 246 Sorin, Savely 312, 315 Sparemblek, Milko 198 Spessivtseva, Olga 20, 61, 141, 156, 161, 227, 232 Staats, Leo 11, 158 Stalin, Iossif 46, 141 Stanislavsky, Konstantin Sergeevich 87 Stefan, Jack 218 Stenbock-Fermor, Countess Maria Alexanrovna 73 Stepanova, Alexandra 143–146, 312 Stepanova, Tatiana 41, 54, 59, 93, 123–125, 142, 145, 147–153, 312, 316, ill. 41 Stern, Isaac 65 Strauss, Johann 31, 65, 136, 267 Stravinsky, Igor 39, 62–64, 114, 243, 280, 297, 299 Stroganova Nina, 138, 148, 150 Struve, Nikita 246 Subbotin, Michael 199 Sudeikin, Sergei (Serge) 17 Sukhotin, Vladimir 207 Sulima, Vadim 11, 134

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Index of Names Taglioni, Maria 158, 234 Tallchief, Maria 8, 129 Tallchief, Marjorie 4, 70, 85, 127, 128, 129–131, 196, 205, 233, 243, 263, 271, 312, 317, ill. 47 Taras, John 5, 124, 198, 233, 235, 238, 243, 245, 253, 254, 266 Tasso, Torquato 234 Tatishchev, Vasily 211 Tatischeva see Kirillova, Maria Tchaikovsky, Piotr 11, 49, 83, 105, 128, 135, 137, 187, 190, 234, 266, 297 Tchelitchew, Pavel 38, 63, 171 Tchemerzin, Avenir 241 Tcherina, Ludmila 12, 76, 241, 242, 260 Tcherkas, Constantin 85, 161 Tchernicheva, Lubov 7, 46, 47, 54, 86, 116, 123, 137, 315, ill. 32 Tchinarova, Tamara 4, 41, 100–110, 102, 104, 156, 162–165, 293, 312, 316, 317, ill. 40 Terekhov-Tarnovsky [?]120 Terekhov, Miguel 120–128, 202, 205, 316, ill. 46 Terry, Ellen 284 Theilade, Nini 185–191, 257, 312, 317, ill. 53 Thesmar, Ghislaine 221 Tikhon see Kulikovsky–Romanov, Tikhon Nikolayevich Tikhonova, Nina 276 Tornikovsky, 231 Torokhov, Yana 319 Torokhov, Yuri 319 Toumanova, Evgeniya Dmitrievna (b. Chkheidze) 5, 46, 58, 105, 189, 268 Toumanova, Tamara (Toumanoff, b. Khassidovitch) 7, 41, 45, 54, 57–66, 60, 61, 89, 93–95, 102, 105, 107, 109, 112, 138, 146–148, 150, 151, 175, 179, 187, 189, 234, 249, 254, 261, 263, 267, 268, 293, 314, 315, 316, 317, ill. 20, 28, 29, 30, 32, 38, 55 Toye, Wendy 169, 172, 176 Traïline, Boris 255–264, 258, 312, 317, ill. 54 Traïline, Hélène 192–201, 202, 255, 312, 317, ill. 54 Trefilova, Vera 286 Trubetskoy, Nikita (Prince) 193, 287

Index of Names.indd 329

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Tsereteli, Vassily (Prince) 8, 33, 137 Tumkovsky, Antonina 269 Tupine, Oleg 85, 124, 148 130, 316, ill. 41 Tupine, Vassily (Vasya) 85 Ulanova, Galina 59, 110, 141, 181, 282, 303–305 Vaganova, Agrippina 12, 25, 303, 304 de Valois, Ninette 10, 160, 167, 291 van Beethoven, Ludwig 7, 26, 32, 170, 188 van Vechten, C. 318 Varèse, Edgard 240 Vasiliev, Vladimir 237 Vassiliev Alexander 314 Vassilieva, Yania 134, 135 Vaudoyer, Jean-Louis 85 Venus 188 Verchinina, Nina 10, 90, 138 Verdy, Violette 268 Vernon, Barbara 14 Vilzak, Anatole 11, 54, 184, 204, 265, 266, 270, 291, 318, ill. 67 Vishneva, Diana 318, ill. 73 Vishniakova (mar. Baronov) 42ff Vivaldi, Antonio 308 Vladimirov, Peter 31, 55, 74, 127, 168, 169, 204 Volinine, Alexander 6, 68, 273–276 Volkonsky, family 212 Volkov, Boris 11 Volkov, Vladimir 111 Volkova, Anna 88, 104, 111–119, 312, 316, ill. 42 Volkova, Vera 155, 157, 297, 302–304 Voronov, Serge, Dr 31 Voskressenski, Vassili Grigorievitch see de Basil, Colonel Voskressensky, Valery 7, 137 Vyroubova, Nina 8, 120, 140, 198, 225, 229, 236, 237, 241 Wagner, Richard 38, 39, 188, 228 Wakhévitch, Georges 197, 254 Wallmann, Margarethe 65 Webb, Clifton 23 Weber (von), Carl Maria 85, 297 Weill, Kurt 106 Weinstein L 315, 317, 318

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Index of Names West, Kiran 319 Wilde, Oscar 64 Wilder, Billy 65 Wilkinson, Raven 126 Williams, Tennessee 182 Windermere, Lord 77 Woizikowsky, Léon 34, 47, 107, 109, 154, 167, 177, 202, 203, 204, 206, 207, 257, 317, ill. 55 Woizikowsky, Sonia 204 Wrangel, Piotr Nikolaïevitch, General 58, 72 Yakobson, Irina 304 Yakobson, Leonid 292 Youskevitch, Igor 7, 66, 134, 171, 199, 205, 231, 233, 243, 257, 266, 282

Index of Names.indd 330

Zdanevich, Hélène 71 Zdanevich, Ilia 71 Zelensky, Igor 39 Zharoff, Sergei (Serge) 76 Zheglovsky, Valentin 163 Zheverzheiev, Levky Ivanovich 19 Zide, Rochelle 125 Ziegfeld, Florenz 23 Zimina, Tatiana 160 Zinger (Singer) 79 Zomm (de), Madame 285 Zon, Ignaty 8, 33 Zoritch, George 12, 92–99, 170, 199, 205, 236, 251, 312, 317, ill. 60 Zumbo, Francesca 221 Zvereff, Nicholas 11, 28, 107, 184, 194, 259, 266 Zweig, Stefan 190

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•

INDEX OF BALLETS

Ballet names in italics are followed by those of the composers, choreographers, the important set and costume designers.

Achille, mus. La Rochefoucauld, ch. Skibine 253 African Dances, traditional African music, ch. Lichine 88 L’Aigrette, mus. Chavchavadze, ch. Bartolini 219 Aleko, mus. Tchaikovsky, ch. Massine 174 Alexandre le Grand, mus. Gaubert, ch. Lifar 277 Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, ch. Joukowsky 136 Antinous, mus. Nicolaou, ch. V. Gsovsky 317, ill. 60 Apollon musagète, mus. Stravinsky, ch. Balanchine 29, 32, 39 L’Après-midi d’un faune, mus. Debussy, ch. Nijinski 194, 282 idem, ch. Lifar after Nijinski 318, ill. 63 Aurora’s Wedding, mus. Tchaikovsky, ch. Petipa 29, 38, 52, 151, 167, 216, 316, ill. 38 Bacchanale, mus. Wagner, ch. Massine 38, 188, 317, ill. 53 Le Baiser de la fée, mus. Stravinsky, ch. Nijinskia 28, 64, 175 Le Bal, mus. Rieti, ch. Balanchine, set De Chirico 28, 38 Balkan Dances, traditional Balkan music, ch. Joukowsky 138 Ballet Impérial, mus. Tchaikovsky, ch. Balanchine 33, 95, 175, 206

Index of Ballets.indd 331

Balustrade, mus. Stravinsky, ch. Balanchine, set Tchelitchew 63, 87 La Bayadère, mus. Minkus, ch. Petipa 82, 201, 291, 305 Le Beau Danube, mus. J. Strauss II, ch. Massine 36, 79, 83, 138, 164, 171, 182, 229, 254, 267, 269 Bhakti, traditional Indian music, ch. Béjart 284 Les Biches, mus. Poulenc, ch. Nijinska 114, 170, 177, 196, 250 La Bien-aimée, mus. Milhaud after Schubert, Liszt, ch. Nijinska, set Benois 170 Bluebeard, mus. Offenbach, ch. Fokine 52, 176 Blue Bird, mus. Tchaikovsky, ch. Petipa-Cechetti, Balanchine 29, 134, 151, 163, 167, 254, 282 Bolero, mus. Ravel, ch. Joukowsky after Romanov 138 Boutique fantasque, mus. Respighi after Rossini, ch. Massine, set Dérain 201, 174, 201 Camille, mus. Schubert, ch. Taras 124 Carnaval, mus. Schumann, ch. Fokine, set Bakst 16, 48, 108, 164, 169, 188, 259

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332

Index of Ballets Danse siamoise see Orientalia Danses concertantes, mus. Stravinsky, ch. Balanchine 26, 175 Daphnis et Chloé, mus. Ravel, ch. Neumeier 297 Del Amor y de la muerte, mus. Granados, ch. Ricarda 64 Le Diable boîteux, mus. Gide, ch. Coralli 292 Don Juan, mus. Glück, ch. Fokine 75, 279, 282, 305 Don Quixote, mus. Minkus, ch. Petipa 95, 317, ill. 47, 318, ill. 72 idem, ch. Lopukov 27 idem, ch. Nureyev after Petipa 289, 290 Dramma per musica, mus. Bach, ch. Lifar 195, 261 La Dryade, mus. Aubert, ch. V. Gsovsky 235 The Duel see Le Combat The Dying Swan, mus. Saint-Saëns, chor. Fokine 65, 283

Les Cent baisers, mus. d’Erlanger, ch. Nijinska 49, 315, ill. 26, 32 Checkmate, mus. Bliss, ch. Ninette de Valois 291 Chopiniana see Les Sylphides Choreartium, mus. Brahms, ch. Massine 61, 83, 89, 90, 108, 117, 139, 150, 151, 314, ill. 19, 20 Chout, mus. Prokofiev, ch. Slavinsky, Larionov, set Larionov 254 Cinderella, mus. d’Erlanger, ch. Fokine 50 idem, mus. Prokofiev, ch. Orlikovsky 114, 237 Cinderella Story, mus. Prokofiev, ch. Neumeier 297 Class Concert, mus. Shostakovich et al., ch. Messerer 292 Cleopatra, mus. Moussorgsky, RimskyKorsakov et al., ch. Fokine, set Bakst 34 Le Combat (The Duel), mus. de Banfield, ch. Dollar 234 Concerto Barocco, mus. Bach, ch. Balanchine 90, 233, 243 La Concurrence, mus. Auric, ch. Balanchine 48 Le Conservatoire, mus. Weber, Chopin et al., ch. Bournonville 292 Constantia, mus. Chopin, ch. Dollar 233 Coppélia, mus. Delibes, ch. Saint-Léon 38, 64, 128, 183, 194, 205, 206, 315, ill. 24 Le Coq d’or, mus. Rimsky-Korsakov, ch. Fokine, set Goncharova 50, 94, 114, 164, 253, 316, ill. 43 Cordoba, mus. I. Albéniz, ch. Balanchine 23 Cotillon, mus. Chabrier, ch. Balanchine 48, 61, 114, 315, ill. 28 La Création (orig. Evolución del movimiento) mus. Franck, ch. Lichine 149, 281

Egyptian Nights, mus. A. Arensky, ch. Ivanov, Fokine, cost. Bakst 318, ill. 67 L’Errante, mus. Schubert, ch. Balanchine, set Tchelitschew 62, 106 Esmeralda, mus. Pugni, Drigo, ch. Perrot, Petipa 54 idem, mus. Pugni, Corbett, ch. Beriozoff 267 L’Etrange farandole (orig. Le Rouge et le noir), mus. Shostakovich, ch. Massine, set Matisse 170, 188 Études, mus. Czerny, ch. Lander 89, 292 L’Eventail de Jeanne, mus. Ravel et al., ch. Y. Franck, Bourgat 60, 61 Evolución del movimiento see La Création Exercise XX, mus. Bach, Swingle Singers, ch. Yakobson 292

La Dame à la licorne, mus. Chailley, ch. Rosen 124, 206, 263 Dance School, mus. J. Strauss, ch. Joukowsky 136 Dans l’Élysée, mus. Offenbach, ch. Balanchine 106

Les Femmes de bonne humeur, mus. Scarlatti, ch. Massine, set Bakst 215, 236 La Fille mal gardée, mus. combined, ch. Mordkin-Nijinska 52, 233 idem, mus. Hérold, Ashton 287

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Index of Ballets The Firebird see L’Oiseau de feu Les Forains, mus. Sauguet, ch. Petit 197, 224, 229, 241 The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, mus. Asafiev, ch. Zakharov 180 The Four Temperaments, mus. Hindemith, ch. Balanchine 33 Francesca da Rimini, mus. Tchaikovsky, ch. Lichine 70, 115, 135, 137, 316, ill. 43 Gaîté parisienne, mus. Offenbach, chor. Massine 7, 36, 63, 138, 171, 173, 182, 183, 205, 220, 292, 317, ill. 51 idem, mus. Offenbach, Rosenthal, chor. Béjart 292 Gayaneh, mus. Khachaturian 244 Gingerbread Heart, mus. K. Baranović, ch. Froman 135, 136 Giselle, mus. Adam, ch. Coralli, Perrot, Petipa xvii, xx, 15, 64, 95, 148, 179, 180, 183, 189, 195, 203, 222, 224, 233, 234, 237, 242, 243, 248, 253, 254, 268, 269, 278, 282, 284, 288, 291, 292, 305 idem, ch. Shvetsov 181 idem, ch. Neumeier 304 Glass Pieces, mus. Glass, ch. Robbins 200 The Golden Cockerel see Le Coq d’or Graduation Ball, mus. J. Strauss, ch. Lichine, set Benois 70, 94, 1 15, 130 Grandeur of the Universe, mus. Beethoven, ch. Lopukhov 25 Grand Pas Classique, mus. Auber, ch. V. Gsovsky 239, 253, 317, ill. 54 Hamlet (Der Fall Hamlet) see Shakespeare Dances Harlequinade, mus. Drigo, chor. Balanchine after Petipa 124 Harold in Italy, mus. Berlioz, ch. Massine 124, 125 Haut-voltage, mus. Constant, Henri, ch. Béjart 198 Helen of Troy, mus. Offenbach, ch. Fokine 52 Héraklès, mus. Thiriet, ch. Charrat 318, ill. 65

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333

Icare, mus. Lifar (rythmes), ch. Lifar 109, 179 Ice Heart, ch. Lichine 64, 229 The Idiot, mus. Henze, ch. T. Gsovsky 240 Illusions – like ‘Swan Lake’, mus. Tchaikovsky, ch. Neumeier 297 In the Night, mus. Chopin, ch. Robbins 200 Les Indes galantes, mus. Rameau, ch. Lander 89 Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, mus. Bach, ch. Petit 197, 254, 259, 279, 318, ill. 70 Jeux d’enfants, mus. Bizet, ch. Massine, set Miró 38, 69 Labyrinth, mus. Schubert, ch. Massine, set Dali 63, 174 Leçon de dance see Class Concert La Légende de Joseph, mus. R. Strauss, ch. Wallmann 65 idem, mus. R. Strauss, ch. Fokine 254 Leningrad Symphony, mus. Shostakovitch, ch. Belsky 32 The Little Humpbacked Horse, mus. Pugni, ch. Saint-Léon, Petipa 193, 257 La Lutte éternelle, mus. Schumann, ch. Shvetsov 87 Mad Tristan, mus. Wagner, ch. Massine, set Dali 228, 243, 318, ill. 64 Madroños, mus. Moszkowski, Yradler et al., ch. Cobos 125 Les Matelots, mus. Auric, ch. Massine 38, 163 Mikado, mus. Sullivan, arr. Rieti, ch. Cobos 124, 125 Mirages, mus. Sauguet, ch. Lifar 197 Mozartiana, mus. Tchaikovsky, ch. Balanchine 28, 62, 105, 106, 175, 183 Nautéos, mus. Leleu, ch. Lifar 55 Night on the Bare Mountain, mus. Moussorgsky, ch. Lifar 194

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334

Index of Ballets

Ode, mus. Nabokov, ch. Massine, set Tchelitchew 38 L’Oiseau de feu, mus. Stravinsky, ch. Fokine, set Golovine, Goncharova (1926) 16, 27, 48, 177, 276, 313, ill. 77 Orbits, mus. Tchaikovsky, ch.Theilade 187, 190 idem, ch. Lopukhov 26, 27 idem, ch. Lifar 130, 276 Orientalia (Danse siamoise), mus. Glazunov, ch. Fokine 318, ill. 74 Orpheus and Eurydice, mus. Glück, ch. Fokine 33 Orpheus in the Underworld, mus. Offenbach, ch. Balanchine 104 Othello, mus. Schnittke, Pärt, ch. Neumeier 297

Persephone, mus. Stravinsky, ch. Nijinska 254 Petrushka, mus. Stravinsky, ch. Fokine, set Benois 38, 48, 50, 62, 102, 114, 117, 176, 177, 184, 194, 204, 216, 219, 253, 254, 257, 259, 313, ill. 6, 317, ill. 55 Petrushka Variations, mus. Stravinsky, ch. Neumeier 297, 319, ill. 77 Pharaoh’s Daughter, mus. Pugni, ch. Petipa 314, ill. 12 Phèdre, mus. Auric, ch. Lifar 64 Pictures from an Exhibition, mus. Moussorgsky, ch. Nijinska 196 Piège de lumière, mus. Damase, ch. Taras 243, 253 Polovtsian Dances, mus. Borodine, ch. Fokine, set Roerich 138, 176, 177, 194, 203, 253, 263 Les Présages, mus. Tchaikovsky, ch. Massine 5, 32, 49, 69, 83, 90, 97, 108, 138, 148, 315, ill. 35 The Prisoner of the Caucasus, mus. Khachaturian, ch. Skibine 244 The Private Lesson (Enetime), mus. Delerue 292 Prodigal Son (Le fils prodigue), mus. Prokofiev, ch. Balanchine 139, 149, 232, 253 idem, ch. Lichine 99 Protée, mus. Débussy, ch. Lichine 115 Pulcinella, mus. Stravinsky, ch. Massine, set Picasso 280 Puss in Boots, mus. Tchaikovsky, ch. Petipa 134

Paganini, mus. Rachmaninov, ch. Fokine 50, 86, 87, 149, 253, 316, ill. 43 Le Palais de cristal (Symphony in C), mus. Bizet, ch. Balanchine 64 Parade, mus. Satie, ch. Massine, set Picasso 39 Le Pavillon, mus. Borodin, ch. Lichine 87, 315, ill. 27 Le Pavillon d’Armide, mus. Tcherepnin, ch. Neumeier, Danilova after Fokine, set Benois 297, 306 Peer Gynt, mus. Schnittke, ch. Neumeier 297, 307, 308

Raymonda, mus. Glazunov, ch. Petipa 84 Red Poppy, mus. Gliere, ch. Shvetsov 87, 174, 181 La Rencontre, ou Oedipe et le Sphinx, mus. Sauguet, ch. Lichine 281 Revolution of the Umbrellas, mus. Krips, ch. Kirsova 158 Rodeo, mus. Copland, ch. Agnes de Mille 175 Romeo and Juliet (Tragedy in Verona), mus. Tchaikovsky, ch. Skibine 228, 229 idem, ch. Lifar 233, 234

Night Shadow (La Sonnambula; La Somnambule), mus. Rieti after Bellini, ch. Balanchine 26, 175, 183, 205, 229, 233, 243, 253, 317, ill. 61 Nijinsky, mus. Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovitch et al., ch. Neumeier 298, 319, ill. 77 Nobilissima visione, mus. Hindemith, ch. Massine 139, 171, 188, 257 Les Noces, mus. Stravinsky, ch. Nijinska 114, 243 Noir et blanc see Suite en blanc The Nutcracker, mus. Tchaikovsky, ch. Petipa 11, 95, 170, 177, 266 idem, ch. Lichine, set Benois 11, 157, 165 idem, ch. Neumeier 292, 297

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Index of Ballets idem, mus. Berlioz, ch. Béjart 292 idem, mus. Prokofiev, ch. Neumeier 297, 304 Le Rouge et le noir see L’Etrange farandole Le Sacre, mus. Stravinsky, ch. Neumeier 297 Le Sacre du printemps, mus. Stravinsky, ch. Nijinsky 297 Saratoga, mus. Weinberger, ch. Massine 174 Sarcasm, mus. Prokofiev, ch. Balanchine 23 Scotch Symphony, mus. Mendelssohn, ch. Balanchine 32, 33, 106 Scuola di ballo, mus. Boccherini, ch. Massine 49 The Seagull, mus. Auerbach, ch. Neumeier 297 Seasons, mus. Glazunov, ch. Neumeier 297 Serenade, mus. Tchaikovsky, ch. Balanchine 32, 33, 175 The Seven Deadly Sins, mus. Weill, ch. Balanchine 106 Shakespeare Dances, ch. Neumeier 308, 309 Hamlet (Der Fall Hamlet), mus. Tippett 306, 308 VIVALDI or What You Will, mus. Vivaldi 308 Sheherazade (also Schéhérazade), mus. Rimsky-Korsakov, ch. Fokine, set Bakst 75, 108, 122, 164, 176, 177, 182, 183, 194, 253, 259, 273, 298, 312, ill. 2 Shota Rustaveli, mus. Honegger, ch. Lifar 195, 196, 248 Sleeping Beauty, mus. Tchaikovsky, var. ch. after Petipa 22, 64, 84, 134, 136, 140, 151, 157, 165, 194, 221, 233, 237, 245, 248, 287, 288, 289, 292 Les Songes, mus. Milhaud, ch. Balanchine 62 La Sonnambula, La Somnambule see Night Shadow Sounds of Empty Pages, mus. Schnittke, ch. Neumeier 318, ill. 73 The Spanish Fiesta, mus. RimskyKorsakov, ch. Massine 63

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335

Le Spectre de la rose, mus. Weber, ch. Fokine, set Bakst 16, 55, 85, 96, 178, 188, 194, 259, 261, 262, 263, 276, 279, 297, 306, 313, ill. 3, 318, ill. 75 idem, mus. Berlioz, ch. Neumeier 297 Steps, Notes and Squeaks, mus. Tchaikovsky, Adam, ch. Gielgud 292 A Streetcar Named Desire, mus. A. North, ch. Bettis 182 Suite en blanc (Noir et blanc), mus. Lalo, ch. Lifar 78, 130, 197, 220, 224, 225, 226, 244, 260, 276, 277 Swan Lake, mus. Tchaikovsky, var. ch. after Petipa, Ivanov, Gorsky 17, 26, 36, 38, 48, 50, 55, 62, 63, 64, 105, 109, 136, 138, 140, 151, 157, 160, 163, 165, 168, 173, 179, 180, 182, 184, 214, 233, 243, 248, 263, 291, 292, 297, 315, ill. 25, 316, ill. 41, 318, ill. 62 La Sylphide, mus. Schneitzhoeffer, ch. Gsovsky after Taglioni 239 idem, mus. Løvenskiold, ch. Bournonville 234, 305 Les Sylphides (orig. Chopiniana), mus. Chopin, ch. Fokine, set Benois, Braque (1926) 32, 36, 48, 55, 62, 69, 70, 74, 75, 85, 86, 94, 102, 115, 148, 149, 151, 158, 163, 167, 168, 176, 188, 232, 258, 261, 259, 272, 276, 293, 315, ill. 21, 31, 317, ill. 49 Symphonie concertante, mus. Mozart, ch. Balanchine 28 Symphonie fantastique, mus. Berlioz, Massine 62, 139, 150, 157, 253, 316, ill. 36, 37 Symphony in C see Le Palais de cristal The Tale of Tsar Saltan (in the opera), mus. Rimsky-Korsakov, ch. Nijinska 33, 135 Thamar, mus. Balakirev, ch. Fokine, set Bakst 108, 316, ill. 40 Tanit, mus. Ohana, ch. Béjart 198 Tatiana, mus. Auerbach, ch. Neumeier 297 Le Teck, mus. Mulligan, ch. Béjart 198 Tentations de la bergère, mus. de Montéclair, ch. Nijinska, Gris 29, 38 Terra Australis, traditional Australian music, ch. Borovansky 160 Theme and Variations, mus. Tchaikovsky, ch. Balanchine 33, 106

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336

Index of Ballets Tonight We Sing see The Dying Swan Le Train bleu, mus. Milhaud, ch. Nijinska, set Picasso 200 Tribute, mus. Franck, ch. Franklin 178 Le Tricorne, mus. de Falla, ch. Massine, set Picasso 16, 164, 167, 177, 180, 254, 280 Triumph of Neptune, mus. Berners, ch. Balanchine 28

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Vaclav, mus. Bach, ch. Neumeier 297 Vienna Waltzes, mus. J. Strauss II, Lehár, R. Strauss, ch. Balanchine 51 VIVALDI or What You Will see Shakespeare Dances Vltava, mus. Smetana, ch. Borovansky 160 Yara, traditional Brazilian music, ch. Psota 89

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1.  Sergei Diaghilev and Léonide Massine, n.d.

2.  Sergei Diaghilev and Vaclav Nijinsky. Drawing by Jean Cocteau, n.d. Bearing an inscription by Cocteau in French: ‘Before the curtain risen for Sheherazade.’

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3.  Jean Cocteau. Poster for the 1911 season of the Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev: Vaclav Nijinsky in Le Spectre de la rose by Mikhail Fokine.

4.  Sergei Diaghilev. Inscribed lower right in Russian: ‘Drawing by Feodor Chaliapin. Paris, 1910. Léon Bakst.’

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5.  Sergei Diaghilev. Drawing by Pablo Picasso. Rome, 1917.

6.  Bronislava Nijinska as the Street Dancer in Petrushka by Mikhail Fokine, 1911.

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7.  Serge Lifar and Bronislava Nijinska at the grave of Sergei Diaghilev. Venice, December 1970.

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8.  Léonide Massine (?). Portrait by Savely Sorin, oil on canvas, 1922.

9.  George Balanchine at the Theatre Museum. Leningrad, 1972.

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10.  Lubov Egorova at the Mariinsky Theatre, n.d.

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11.  A performance by pupils at Lubov Egorova’s (Princess Nikita Troubetskoy) school. Paris, late 1930s.

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12.  Mathilde Kshessinska as Aspiccia in The Pharaoh’s Daughter by M. Petipa. Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, 1899.

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13. Mathilde Kshessinska with her pupils. Paris, 1930s.

14. Mathilde Kshessinska with her husband, the Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich of Russia, at the reburial of Vaclav Nijinsky, cemetery of Montmartre. Paris, 1953.

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15.  Left to right: Serge Lifar, Natasha Makarova, Mathilde Kshessinska, unknown. Paris, 1971.

16.  Olga Preobrajenska giving a class at the Salle Wacker. Paris, 1930s.

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17.  Christian Bérard. Cover of the Ballets Russes programme, 1930s.

18.  The Ballets Russes company. Monte Carlo, 1932. Sitting (from left to right): Réné Blum, Joan Miró, Colonel de Basil. Standing: Serge Grigoriev, David Lichine, Tatiana Riabouchinska and others.

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19.  Alexandra Danilova (centre), Tatiana Riabouchinska (left) performing Massine’s ‘pyramidal lifts’ in the finale of Choreartium. After 1933.

20.  The Ballets Russes company on stage after the performance of Choreartium. After 1933. Including L. Massine, V. Psota, A. Danilova, P. Petroff, T. Toumanova, Colonel de Basil, D. Lichine, T. Riabouchinska, M. Ladré, E. Borovansky.

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21.  Tamara Karsavina in Les Sylphides. Painting by Savely Sorin, oil on canvas, 1910.

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22.  Tamara Karsavina. Portrait by Jacques-Emile Blanche, oil on canvas, 1928.

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23.  Alexandra Danilova rehearsing with Léonide Massine, 1930.

24. Alexandra Danilova and John Clifford rehearsing Coppélia with Alexander Mintz as Coppelius (in the mirror) at the Ballet of Los Angeles, 1980.

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25.  Irina Baronova in Swan Lake, late 1930s (?)

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26.  Irina Baronova in Les Cent baisers. Ballets Russes. New York, 1935–9.

27.  Barbara Karinska trying Tatiana Riabouchinska’s costume, designed by Cecil Beaton (right) for the Pavillon by David Lichine. London, Covent Garden, 1936.

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28.  Tamara Toumanova in Cotillon. New York, 1935–8.

29.  Tamara Toumanova in her dressing room at the Paris Opera, 1947.

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30.  Tamara Toumanova dancing with the London Festival Ballet, 1954.

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31.  Tatiana Riabouchinska in Sylphides, 1935–40.

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32.  Tatiana Riabouchinska, Vera Nelidova, Tamara Toumanova, Irina Baronova and Lubov Tchernicheva in Les Cent baisers, New York, 1935–9.

33.  Tatiana Riabouchinska. Portrait by Natalia Goncharova, oil on canvas, n.d.

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34.  Tatiana Leskova, 1930s (?).

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35.  Les Présages by Léonide Massine, 1933. Sets and costumes by André Masson.

36.  Léonide Massine rehearsing Symphonie fantastique on the roof of the Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, 1936.

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37.  Léonide Massine in Symphonie fantastique. Ballets Russes, New York, 1935–8.

38.  After the performance of Aurora’s Wedding: T. Toumanova, C. Chaplin, T. Riaboushinska, W. de Basil, I. Baronova, B. Kochno, L. Massine, S. Grigoriev, D. Lichine.

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39.  Original Ballet Russe company on board the British ship Orcades sailing from Tilbury, England to Sydney, Australia. November–December 1939.

40.  Tamara Tchinarova in Thamar by Mikhail Fokine. Melbourne, 1937.

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41.  Tatiana Stepanova as Black Swan, with Oleg Tupine, n.d.

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42.  Anna Volkova in Aurora’s Wedding, n.d.

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43.  Dmitry Rostov with pictures of his most famous roles: King Dodon (Golden Cockerel), Duke Malatesta (Francesca da Rimini) and Paganini (Paganini). Portrait by unknown artist. After 1939.

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44.  Henri Matisse. Cover of the Ballets Russes London Season programme, 1939–40.

45.  Original Ballet Russe dancers in their dressing room. On the right, Serge Grigoriev standing, Marian Ladré sitting, 1940s.

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46.  Miguel Terekhov and Yvonne Chouteau. 1954.

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47.  Erik Bruhn and Marjorie Tallchief in Don Quixote, n.d.

48.  The Ballets Russes company. Left to right: L. Massine, A. Markova, I. Baronova, M. Slavenska, T. Orlova, A. Danilova, 1940.

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49.  Les Sylphides. Ballets Russes, New York, 1935–8.

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50.  Rachel Cameron rehearsing with Edouard Borovansky, mid-1940s.

51.  Alexandra Danilova and Frederic Franklin in Gaîté parisienne by Léonide Massine, 1940.

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52.  Anton Dolin, n.d.

53.  Nini Theilade in Bacchanale by Léonide Massine, sets by Salvador Dali, 1939.

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54.  Hélène Traïline. Grand pas classique by Victor Gsovsky, 1947.

55.  Tamara Toumanovа and Léon Woizikowsky in Petrushka by Mikhail Fokine. New York, 1933.

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56.  Poster of the last performance of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, 14 April 1962.

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57.  Poster of the International Ballet of the Marquis de Cuevas season at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Paris, n.d.

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58.  The Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in Deauville, n.d.

59.  Duel between Marquis de Cuevas and Serge Lifar, 1958. The Marquis’s second, JeanMarie Le Pen, on the left.

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60.  George Zoritch, Olga Adabache, George Skibine in Antinous by Victor Gsovsky, Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, 1953.

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61.  Ethéry Pagava in The Night Shadow (later La sonnambula) by George Balanchine, 1950s.

62.  Boris Kniazeff and Yvette Chauviré in Swan Lake. Paris, n.d.

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63.  Alicia Markova and Milorad Miskovitch in L’Apres-midi d’un faune by Serge Lifar after Vaslav Nijinsky, 1954.

64.  Mad Tristan by Léonide Massine, sets by Salvador Dali. Ballet international, New York, 1944.

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65.  Janine Charrat and Vladimir Oukhtomsky in Héraklès by Janine Charrat. Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris, 1953.

66.  Vladimir Skouratoff, 1950s.

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67.  Ludmila Schollar as Veronica and Anatole Vilzak as Amun in the Egyptian Nights by Lev Ivanov and Mikhail Fokine at the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, 1908.

68.  Svetlana Beriozova, Nicholas Polajenko, 1950s.

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69.  Viktor Gsovsky giving a class to Jean Babilée, 1940s.

70.  Jean Cocteau rehearsing with Jean Babilée and Nathalie Philippart his and Roland Petit’s ballet Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, premiered on 25 June 1946.

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71.  Rosella Hightower, Serge Golovine, late 1940s (?).

72.  Maina Gielgud, Rudolf Nureyev. Don Quixote. Marseille, 1972.

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73.  John Neumeier rehearsing his ballet Sounds of Empty Pages (music by Alfred Schnittke) with Diana Vishneva. Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, 2001.

74.  Vaclav Nijinsky in Danse siamoise (from Orientalia by Mikhail Fokine). Pencil drawing by Amedeo Modigliani. Early 1910s.

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75.  Vaclav Nijinsky. Le Spectre de la rose. Drawing by Jean Cocteau, 1912.

76.  Poster of the Danse Gala for benefit of Vaclav Nijinsky, organised by Serge Lifar at the Museum of Decorative Arts. Paris, 28 June 1939.

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77.  Lloyd Riggins as Nijinsky performing Petrushka in John Neumeier’s ballet Nijinsky, n.d.

78.  Sergei Diaghilev. Portrait by Tatiana Necheukhina. Oil on canvas, 2014. Yuri and Yana Torokhov Collection.

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