Read Online Nijinsky by Lucy Moore - Free Book Online Page B

Although the seats had all been sold, at double the normal price, Diaghilev, seeking support for his radical programme, had given these artists, critics and poets free standing passes, so that inside the theatre they were mingling on foot amidst the boxes occupied by the
gratin
.
    Stravinsky had given an interview (which he later disowned) which came out that morning, explaining the inspirations behind
Sacre
and what he, Nijinsky and Roerich hoped to achieve with it. He concluded, ‘I am happy to have found in Monsieur Nijinsky the ideal collaborator, and in Monsieur Roerich, the creator of the decorative atmosphere for this work of faith.’ This public show of confidence does not tally with descriptions of the final orchestral rehearsals (during which Nijinsky tried to throw a chair at a workman who interrupted them) and the dress rehearsal the previous day, which Rambert described as pandemonium, and during which the dancers heard the orchestra play the score for the first time.
    â€˜Whatever happens ,’ Diaghilev told Pierre Monteux and the dancers, ‘the ballet must be performed to the end.’ To calm everyone’s nerves, the first piece was
Les Sylphides
: graceful, poised and beautiful. Then, after an interval, Monteux gave the signal for the orchestra to begin playing
Le Sacre du printemps
. Stravinsky said later that his conductor hadbeen ‘impervious and nerveless as a crocodile’ but Monteux remembered keeping his eyes glued to the score in front of him, not daring even to glance at the stage. ‘You may think this strange,
cherie
,’ he told his wife, ‘but I have never seen the ballet.’
    Like Monteux, the dancers waiting on stage were nervous, sweating heavily in their thick costumes. * This is the Sotheby’s description, from a 1968 sale, of a costume for one of the Maidens: ‘Exceptionally long-sleeved robe [of cream-coloured flannel] stencilled all over in barbaric patterns of oxblood, scarlet, lemon-yellow, turquoise-blue, peacock-blue, ochre and bottle-green, the predominant effect being tawny; and an attached vermillion petticoat stencilled with an oxblood and white stripe and dashes of white and yellow.’ The glowing, gem-like colours Roerich used recalled traditional Russian ikons. On their legs both men and women wore loose white leggings over which the ribbons of their soft shoes criss-crossed. The men wore false beards and strange, pointed, fur-trimmed caps, the women headbands and long false plaits. Behind them the set portrayed a lush green landscape dotted with the mystical symbols or ‘memory signs’ so important to Roerich: animal skulls, sacred rivers, hills and trees, magical stones and ominously gathering storm clouds.
    The first strains of
Sacre
, a technically intimidating bassoon solo in an unusually high register, are hauntingly delicate, but the body of the score is wild, violent, powerful and provocative: complex rhythms layered over one another, pounding away in a remorseless, dissonant frenzy of primitive abandon. For an audience of 1913, even an audience as sophisticated as this one, hearing this kind of noise for the first time was overwhelmingly disconcerting, ‘as irritating to the nervous system,’ said one early listener, ‘as the continuous thudding of a savage’stom-tom’. Hisses, whistles, boos and disbelieving laughter broke out: was this some kind of joke? The composer Camille Saint-Saëns leapt out of his seat to leave, hissing to his neighbour, ‘If that’s a bassoon , I’m a baboon!’ Debussy, who had so longed to hear an orchestra playing
Sacre
, was sitting in Misia Sert’s box. After a few moments he turned to her ‘with a sad, anxious face’ and whispered, ‘It’s terrifying – I don’t understand it’.
    Onstage, as the audience reaction grew less inhibited, the frightened dancers struggled to hear the music over the noise of the crowd