Fokine

[FLOSS]

Melody. The point that I was trying to make was that I don't think that  Diaghilev's audience had such a fixed idea of what ballet was, or was not, supposed to encompass. Having experienced the first two seasons they were probably  happy to trust Diaghilev and as happy to watch Petrushka as they had been to watch the ballets shown in the first two seasons. The audience had already seen the Polovtsian Dances which had liberated the corps de ballet from being wall paper and made them characters representing the various ethnic groups in the  Polovtsian camp. They probably thought that the way that the crowd moved in Petrushka  was very effective and admired the way in which various groups emerged from the crowd and disappeared back into it. At the end of the day I expect that what they were talking about as they left the theatre was  the performance of the main characters and above all they talked about Nijinsky's performance of Petrushka. I don't expect that they engaged in discussions about whether or not it was really ballet.

Edited April 21, 2016 by FLOSS

[FLOSS]

At the insight evening last week a question was asked about the possibility of reviving the Diaghilev repertory. Without saying that much member of the panel gave the impression that neither Isabell Fokine nor Lorca Massine were that easy to work with.While Lorca Massine's abilities as a stager are of significance to the future of the Massine repertory the skills of Isabelle Fokine's are not as significant to the future of Fokine's ballets. As we know ballets are protected by copyright which. I understand it,lasts for seventy years from the later of the work entering the public domain or the date of the choreographer's death.As Fokine died in 1942 this means that his works are out of copyright and can be staged by any company who wishes to perform them. Isabelle Fokine need play no part in their revival and staging as long as the company concerned has access to details of the choreographic text. The position as far as Massine's works are concerned are far less clear as while works such as Petrushka and Tricorne were first performed in the early years of the last century few companies are likely to have access to the choreographic material necessary to stage them.

 

It looks as if history may well decide that Isabelle Fokine and Lorca Massine have done more damage to the works of which they are custodians than any inept staging of the works could have done. After all, the reality is that seeing a lively revival of a less than an authentic account of a ballet is likely to generate more public interest than an accurate inert one that looks and feels like an exhumation.

 

Anyone interested in Fokine's ballets should try to get hold of a copy of Cyril Beaumont's Michel Fokine and his Ballets.If you want to see them in performance you are more likely to see them in recordings, than on a stage.Here are details of some recordings which may give you an understanding of the choreographer and his works.

 

1)ICA Classics ICAD 5030 on which Les Sylphides is danced by Alicia Markova, Svetlana Beriosova Violetta Elvin and John Field and is introduced by Tamara Karsavina. The ballet looks so simple and straight forward it makes you wonder how any company could get a revival of it so terribly wrong.

 

2)"An Evening with the Royal Balllet"which includes a recording of Les Sylphides with Fonteyn and Nureyev in the cast.

 

3)"The Royal Ballet" which includes a recording of a cut version of the Firebird danced by Fonteyn and Somes.

 

4)The Opus Arte DVD of the BBC recording of the Firebird danced by Benjamin, Cope,Rosato and Drew.

 

5) A French recording called "Markova la Legende" which was recorded shortly before her death and includes a section in which she coaches dancers of the POB in sections of Les Sylphides.

 

Of course we can all hope that ENB will revive Markova's production of Les Sylphides which is certainly one of the best that I have seen, but that does not seem likely. As far as the RB is concerned the Firebird is due for a revival. I wonder whether Kevin would think that reviving it takes priority over providing stage time for more new works?

Edited May 16, 2016 by FLOSS

[Irmgard]

Having recently seen a recording of Alonso in Giselle I have been struck by how much the National Ballet of Cuba's style of dancing at the time the recording was made reflects the performance style required in Les Sylphides. I know that Fokine made his ballet as an evocation of the early nineteenth century French school and that in doing so he was criticising the over reliance on Italian bravura in Petipa's later ballets, but the link is not so obvious in more modern performances of Giselle. The current performance style seems to favour a crisper, cleaner account of Giselle's choreography than was true in the past.

 

It's not simply the style of dance that creates the link but a number of the corps' groupings in the recording and some of the poses look as if they are straight out of Les Sylphides. I saw some of the Royal Ballet's earlier productions of Giselle but I remember nothing about them as Peter Wright's production has dominated the Covent Garden stage for so long. The Giselle recording suggested that it was the quarry from which Fokine took his source material. Now it is probably true that Giselle was the source for most of his choreographic ideas but as far as this production is concerned so many of the groupings and poses in act 2 seem to find echoes in Fokine's ballet. It leaves me wondering whether the Cuban staging and groupings were influenced by Les Sylphides rather than the other way round.

 

The recording is fascinating because it contains some of the mime sequence we know from act 1, with some additions. Berthe's mime sequence is similar to the Royal Ballet's text until it is overtaken on the recording by unnecessary special effects. The recording also includes the scene of the huntsmen gambling by Giselle's grave. I think that the Cuban's are the only company that retain that element in their production.

I have only just seen this post but I thought I would point out that the Skeaping version of "Giselle" includes the scene of the huntsmen (or Gamekeepers) gambling near Giselle's grave.  In fact, Skeaping staged "Giselle" in 1954 for Ballet Alicia Alonso before it became the National Ballet of Cuba and Alonso kept many of Skeaping's touches in her later productions, something I noticed when the company brought their potted version of Act II to the Coliseum a few years ago.  Incidentally, Skeaping staged a complete "Swan Lake" for Alonso in 1953 and is still esteemed in Cuba for this.  As this is actually a discussion about Fokine, I should point out that Skeaping worked with Fokine in the 1930s and staged his "Carnaval", "Les Sylphides" and "Le Spectre de la Rose" for the Royal Swedish Ballet in the 1950s when she was Artistic Director of the company.  She also worked with Massine (who was one of her teachers) and persuaded him to stage a triple bill for the Swedes of "Gaite Parisienne", "La Boutique Fantasque" and "Sacre du Printemps" in 1956 which I believe was possibly the last time his 'Sacre' was performed. 

 

Irmgard Berry, Adviser to the Skeaping Estate