Olga Spessivtseva and Serge Lifar, failed expectations
by Sergey Belenky
In last week of October 1929 Serge Lifar and George Balanchine signed two and a half months contract with Paris Opéra to create a new ballet for Olga Spessivtseva. This invitation came from director Jacques Rouché as a response to recent media criticism, accusing him of not providing Spessivtseva with roles worthy of her talent. The critics were pointing out, that the directorate has in its employ, without really knowing what to do with her, this unique ballerina who belonged to "almost extinct breed of high elevation dancers, who combine a predestined physique with precious possession of a technique of pointe dancing and a ravishing grace." The contract was short-termed because both Lifar and Balanchine were already committed to the upcoming season with Cochran Review in London. Before extending the invitation, Rouché consulted with Spessivtseva, and it is even possible that the whole idea may have originated from her. She had first worked with Lifar and Balanchine throughout the first quarter of 1927, which ended with creation of "La Chatte" - the first ballet to exhibit elements that would later be defined as neo-classical. Spessivtseva did not particularly enjoy it because of its modern choreographic style influenced by Balanchine's early experiments in Petrograd - leaning towards the gymnastics and human "pyramids", essential component of every Soviet parade of the time. She also disliked the way female role was reduced to strictly subservient, in contrast to the imposing character of male protagonist. This trend, expanded by Balanchine per Diaghilev's specifications, would later become even more pronounced in Lifar's early creations. Despite her reservations, Spessivtseva was comfortable working with this duo of young friends, whom she just parted in July of 1929 in London, where she danced with Lifar in Balanchine's version of "The Swan Lake". She looked forward for their boisterous camaraderie to lighten up her friendless tedium at the Opéra. Due to Balanchine's falling suddenly ill, ballet "Créatures de Prométhée" that was produced as a result of this invitation was finished by Lifar. Spessivtseva liked this ballet even less than "La Chatte," for some part of her role in it was described by one critic as that of "a jerking automaton, being dragged around the stage like a sack of flour." However, the audience, enchanted by the ballet's refreshing novelty and Lifar's personal charisma, seemed to enjoy it. Even though dissatisfied with her role, Spessivtseva remained optimistic about the future of cooperating with Serge Lifar. From her interview to the newspaper, we can see that she eagerly anticipated returning to perform in "Giselle," a role she hadn't danced in three years. After demonstrating to us series of jumps, Mlle Spessivtzeva slowly "pulls out" one foot, extends her leg, turns her body into an arabesque - the pose that best vibrates and sings the silent melody of her elongated lines. Then, our friendly hostess quickly does pirouettes and temps sautés to finish her routine and finally be able to answer our questions, taking only the time to put on a robe. She speaks in still halting French, but with simplicity and spontaneity that enchants us: not the slightest trace of affectation, no desire to show off. — Will we, after "Prométhée", have the chance to see you in another work? — Of course, because we're going to take over Théophile Gautier’s "Giselle". — Yes and no. The choreography is wonderful; it is staged in accordance to the best traditions. But I'm only mildly interested in pantomime and much prefer pure dancing: variations, the pas de deux, etc. — Yet the scene of Giselle's madness was a triumph for you. From that day on, you have been declared a great mime! — I was proud and touched by this. What followed turned out to be a major disappointment for Olga. In August 1930, Jacques Rouché hired Serge Lifar along with three other former members of Ballets Russes. However, George Balanchine, who had five short ballets staged for Cochran Review, was not among them. Appointed ballet troupe director, Serge Lifar had a lot to learn, and his overconfidence took certain toll on the troupe while he was on a learning curve and experimenting. In February 1931, Lifar presented at the Opéra "Prélude dominical” – bizarre ballet to even more peculiar music about instruments of the orchestra coming alive at night. The role given to Spessivtseva, company’s prima, was so menial, that she flatly refused to take part in which “she does not exist as a dancer.” In May of the same year premiered "Bacchus et Ariane". Appended with acrobatic tricks, grotesque, and pretentious, ballet received puzzled reviews, with critics agreed on the fact that Olga’s abilities as classical dancer were grossly misused. It also, once again, highlighted Serge Lifar's inclination to dominate over his female partner on stage. After only few performances "Bacchus” was dropped from the repertoire. The following year, 1932, seemed promising with the revival of "Spectre de la rose" and long-awaited "Giselle." There, however, she faced an unpleasant surprise. As a dancer, Serge Lifar, who never danced this ballet before, privately trained for his role of Loys/Albrecht with Pierre Vladimirov with some help from Spessivtseva. As choreographer, Lifar took a liberty to rearrange the old classic to his liking. As a result, described by Alicia Markova, well versed in production of “Giselle” staged by Nikolai Sergeyev in Paris and then in London, “some beautiful sequences were cut to concentrate the audience's attention on Albrecht's reactions to the drama, even during the mad scene.” Though Spessivtseva's exact reaction to these modifications is not known, one thing we can be sure of – she was not happy with the changes. This dissatisfaction undoubtedly contributed to the slowly building anguish. Finally, her frustration reached a boiling point, and few short months later, after rehearsals in another self-centered flop, she stormed out of the Opéra. In May, 1932 Spessivtseva wrote to Rouché, outlining conditions on which she can return to Opéra, but director took Lifar’s side, sensing that new ambitious leader of ballet troupe, while not yet quite successful, definitely brings a lot of attention to stagnating company. It will take Lifar couple more years and two failed tours – 1932 to South America and 1933 to the Unites States, to start learning from his mistakes, but for Spessivtseva it will be too late.
The Marius Petipa Society
Olga Spessivtzeva
by Amy Growcott
Ballet / 19th - beginning of 20th century. · · On this day, the 18th of July 1895, Olga Spessivtzeva was born. Hailed as one of the greatest ballerinas in history, Spessivtzeva graced the stage for twenty years, enchanting anyone who saw her with her technical abilities and her grace and elegance that many compared to the great ballerinas of the Romantic era. Dame Marie Rambert wrote this foreward for Spessivtseva’s biography, which was written by Sir Anton Dolin: “I first set eyes on Olga Spessivtzeva in Maestro Cecchetti's class when the company assembled in London for rehearsals. One was dazzled and moved by her extraordinary beauty. The perfection of her form and features, her proportion, the shape of her limbs, the oval of her face, the enormous eyes, exquisite nose and mouth all this was the ideal appearance of a ballerina. But all that would have been of no avail had she not had a wonderful quality of movement. And even that would not be enough without her astonishing capacity for work in her search for perfection. And she achieved it: the suppleness of her body, the lightness and height of her jump, the lightning speed of her batterie, the steel points of her highly arched feet she had all that. Her Aurora was unique, not only because of the beauty of her dancing, but also because of the subtle transformation of mood from one act to the next. One will never forget the gasp of horror when she pricked herself with that cruel spindle. We felt indeed it was the doom of beauty itself. This was 1921. Her next appearance in London was in 1929 in the last Diaghilev season. She danced "Swan Lake", but unfortunately only the second act- one longed to see her in the whole ballet. She appeared again in 1931, in a short ballet by Nijinska, but it was in a music-hall, the Coliseum, in a variety programme utterly unsuitable for her. And the last time we saw her was in 1932 during the Camargo season at the Savoy Theatre. It was then she danced her incomparable Giselle, of which a small film has been made and which testifies to the indisputable greatness of her dancing and interpretation.” Among Spessivtseva’s most celebrated roles were of Aurora in Sergei Diaghilev’s production “The Sleeping Princess” and Esmeralda, but her greatest role was Giselle. She débuted in the role on the 30th of March 1919 in Petrograd with Pierre Vladimirov as Albrecht. On the 26th of November 1924, she danced the role in the west for the first time in Paris to great success. The dance writer and historian, Andre Levinson wrote: "From her first entrance, Spessivtzeva astonishes and charms. She is unique and singular in that she belongs to the type of beauty created by Taglioni for the ballet. The elongated and vibrant outline, the human form idealized even to the point of exaggeration, has the contours of an angelic Sylphide. The delicacy, the touching fragility of this new Giselle seems even a little unhealthy. But for this elegiac poem, such morbidezza is an additional allure. The shape of the leg, the turn of the ankle are wonderful. With such legs a simple preparation à la quatrième becomes something of rare beauty. Genius would find a worthy habitation in the body of Spessivtzeva. In her there dwells a spirit which is strange, mournful, exhausted, resigned, sometimes even withdrawn. There is nothing of that turbulence of soul which whirls through Pavlova, who is like a lily sparkling in her candor. Spessivtzeva - dreaming and wounded, her head bent, her shoulders drooping a little - is she not rather the melancholy weeping willow dear to Musset? Moreover, this gentle convalescent is a dancer of the widest range, of the rarest virtuosity. The extension of her long legs in développé has a magnificent breadth. She springs to a great height. Her exquisite points bear the weight of her body effortlessly in relevés which arouse storms of applause. And the sustained arabesque penchée of this star seems to vibrate like the strings of an Amati violin. Her pantomime is an exact imitation of Pavlova. This must be a thankless task for Spessivtzeva, to whom it is more natural to dream and suffer gently than to act with violence. This woman if I may be permitted to change a celebrated phrase is a dancing reed ..." Source The Sleeping Ballerina: The Story of Olga Spessivtseva by Anton Dolin: 1966, Frederick Muller Ltd, London
La Péri
On this day, 180 years ago, La Péri made its world première. La Péri was created by Théophile Gautier, Friedrich Burgmüller and Jean Coralli. After the success of Giselle in 1841, Gautier’s imagination soared and he was more than hyped to create new works for Jules Perrot and Carlotta Grisi, with whom he had developed a close friendship. It was on a grey, rainy day when Gautier sat daydreaming of the romanticised East and began to write some verses that his newest idea began to take shape. Gautier was deeply fascinated by the Oriental and even imagined the East to be his spiritual home. In a letter to a friend, who was visiting Cairo, dated the 25th July 1843, Gautier wrote: In this preoccupation with the Orient, on a day of grey rain and biting wind, I had begun, doubtless as a reaction, a kind of little Turkish or Persian poem. I had already written twenty verses of it when this brilliant idea fell on me from the ceiling, that, if I wrote any more of them, no one in the world would under any pretext read them. Verse is the language of the gods, and it is only gods who read it, to the great despair of publishers. Then I threw my stanzas into the waste-paper basket, and, seizing a fresh sheet of paper, took as my subject the pretty little feet which turned four lines of Heinrich Heine into the last act of Giselle. Such, more or less, was the substance of my thoughts, to which, however, I attach no importance; each puff of opium, each spoonful of hashish added to their beauty and wonder. The verses Gautier wrote took the form of a love story set in a distant exotic locale in which a world-weary sultan and a peri, who epitomises his deepest desires, fall in love, the most typical Romantic-era trope. He would finish the scenario in December 1842 and the ballet would be called La Péri. The first mention of La Péri was published in the newspaper Coureur des spectacles on the 7th December 1842. Gautier’s scenario went through several revisions before finally reaching the final edition on which rehearsals could begin. Of course, Gautier had only one person in mind for the role of the eponymous peri – his beloved Carlotta Grisi and his hopes were not dashed as she was cast as the beautiful angelic spirit opposite Lucien Petipa as the Sultan-Achmet, who falls in love with her. However, Gautier’s hopes for Perrot to be the choreographer were in vain as the latter was busy with his engagements in London at the time, so instead, the role of choreographer went to Jean Coralli, while Friedrich Burgmüller was commissioned as the composer. The plot is of the Sultan-Achmet, who finds in joy in nothing and yearns for celestial desires and love rather than earthly love. Under the influence of opium, his dreams bring him to a heavenly oasis inhabited by peris and he falls in love with their queen. To test his love, the Peri disguises herself as a runaway slave named Leila, who Achmet takes in and warms to, much to the jealousy of his favourite concubine Noumahal. When the Pasha, who owned Leila, demands her return, Achmet refuses and is imprisoned. He is subsequently put to death, but the Peri returns for him and brings him with her to Paradise. When the decision was made to give La Péri the green light, Grisi was going through a difficult time because she was on the receiving end of some unfavourable notices from critics who stated that her dancing was declining. But whatever some of the critics thought, the Opéra was very enthusiastic about Grisi to the point that they engaged her for a further three years from 1st January 1844. The negotiations for the renewal of her contract were not without difficulties and may have had an impact on the rehearsals of La Péri. However, once her new contract was signed in May 1843, everything went smoothly from there on and on the 17th July 1843, the bills announced that the new ballet would première that very evening. La Péri premièred on the 17th July 1843 at the Salle Le Peletier, with Grisi in the dual role of the Peri/Lelia, Lucien Petipa as Achmet and the ballerina Delphine Marquet as Nourmahal. The ballet was a wonderful success and whether Grisi’s dancing was in decline, this was what she needed to prove that she was still very much in her prime. Gautier, Coralli and Burgmüller had created a perfect role for her as her performance was widely praised. Two striking numbers were created for her – the Pas du songe and the Pas d’abeille – the former was especially impressive, but also dangerous because it featured Grisi making a very daring leap from a six-foot platform into Petipa’s arms. Gautier described the pas du songe as: … a real triumph; when she [Grisi] appeared in that luminous halo, with a child-like smile, her eyes betokening astonishment and delight, her poses like those of a bird who seeks to alight but whose wings carry her away in spite of herself, unanimous applause burst from every corner of the house. What a marvellous dance! I should very much like to see real peris and fairies! How she glides over the ground without touching it, just like a rose-leaf wafted by the breeze; and, moreover, what nerves of steel reside in that frail leg, what strength in that foot, small enough to excite the jealousy of the most daintily shod lady of Seville; how she alights on the tip of that slender toe, like an arrow falling on its barb! At once precise and intrepid, Carlotta Grisi’s dancing has a quite special style; it does not resemble the dancing of either Taglioni or Elssler; each one of her poses, each one of her movements, is stamped with the seal of originality. How wonderful to be new in an art so limited! This pas includes a certain fall which will soon be as famous as the Niagara Falls. The audience wait for it in awed curiosity. At the moment when the vision is about to end, the Peri falls from the top of a cloud into her lover’s arms. If it were only a tour de force, we should not mention it; but this perilous leap forms a group so full of grace and charm that it suggests a dove’s feather drifting downwards, rather than a human being leaping from a platform; and here, as on many other occasions, tribute must be paid to Petipa. How devoted he is to his dancer! How he looks after her! How he supports her! The critic Hippolyte Prévost gave a more precise description of the pas: Carlotta [Grisi] attempted some novel poses and some novel pirouettes sur les pointes, balancings, jétés, enlacements, and groups that were most wonderfully effective. But the unexpected , astonishing, extraordinary thing that crowns this pas, which is so striking from every point of view, is when Carlotta hurls herself from a six-feet-high platform, on which are seated the celestial court of the Queen of the Peris, and pirouetting on herself, falls into [Lucien] Petipa’s arms without allowing this tour de force… in any way to disturb the calculated resolution and the purity of line of the few bars of dancing that complete this… dangerous jump. Sources The Romantic Ballet in Paris by Ivor Guest, Dance Books Ltd (2008 ed.) The Romantic Ballet as seen by Théophile Gautier by Théophile Gautier, translated by Cyril Beaumont (1947 ed.)