Leonide Massine and the 20th Century Ballet

381 Pages·2004·3.507 MB·English

by  Leslie Norton

Léonide Massine and
the 20th Century Ballet
To the memory of my mother
and to all the artists of the Ballet Russe
Léonide Massine and
the 20th Century Ballet
LESLIE NORTON
2
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
Photographs provided by Jerome Robbins Dance Division,The
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts,Astor,Lenox,
and Tilden Foundations.
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Norton,Leslie,¡952–
Léonide Massine and the 20th century ballet / Leslie Norton.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7864-¡752-8 (softcover :50# alkaline paper)
¡. Massine,Léonide,¡895–¡979. 2. Choreographers—
Russia (Federation)—Biography. 3. Ballet—History—20th
century. I. Title.
GV¡785.M283N67 2004
792.8'2'092—dc22
200400272¡
British Library cataloguing data are available
©2004 Leslie Norton.All rights reserved
No part ofthis book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means,electronic or mechanical,including photocopying
or recording,or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover photograph:Studio portrait of Massine,1938
(Maurice Seymour)
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company,Inc.,Publishers
Box 6¡¡,Je›erson,North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments 1
1 July ¡895–May ¡9¡7 5
2 June ¡9¡7–June ¡920 47
3 July ¡920–April ¡926 79
4 June ¡927–January ¡932 107
5 May ¡932–July ¡936 135
6 August ¡936–May ¡939 191
7 June ¡939–February ¡943 231
8 March ¡943–October ¡954 273
9 July ¡955–July ¡960 305
10 The Final Years 327
Epilogue 333
Notes 339
Bibliography 359
Index 365
v

Preface and
Acknowledgments
Léonide Massine, consummate choreographer and performer, cre-
ated hundreds of ballets for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes,the Ballet Russe
de Monte Carlo,the American Ballet Theatre,and numerous major com-
panies around the world. Throughout the ¡930s, he was unquestionably
the most important figure in the ballet world. While not a virtuoso, he
remained a truly unique dancer and a peerless creator of character roles.
Moreover, his versatility and scope made his choreography perhaps the
most representative of the century.For an artist whose range was vast,his
treatment was nearly always profound.Whatever period he portrayed,his
style flowed freely and unselfconsciously.His character ballets dealt not
with stereotypes but individuals,using the body alone to attain an actor’s
range of expression.His symphonic ballets proved how great music could
be employed choreographically without being demeaned.They also rev-
olutionized choreography with the first resolutely abstract ballet,as well
as the first true fusions of ballet and modern dance.
With the outbreak of World War II, Massine, like many European
artists,was confined to the U.S.But since the ¡930s,American high cul-
ture,particularly the dance community,had been flush with a nationalis-
tic renaissance. War brought this movement to its apogee with the
dominance of homegrown American ballet and modern dance,its trend-
setters such figures as Lincoln Kirstein,Agnes de Mille,Eugene Loring,
1
2 Preface and Acknowledgments
and Martha Graham.In such an atmosphere,Massine’s wide-ranging style
could hardly be in vogue.Indeed,beyond the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo
itself, there was little room for any Russian ballet. Before long, Massine
slipped from icon to critical scapegoat, his Americana works being
particularly ill-received. Following his departure from American Ballet
Theatre in ¡943,Massine nonetheless continued to create fine ballets for
major international companies.But he never regained the towering status
of his years with Diaghilev and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
Throughout the subsequent half-century of neglect,Massine’s con-
temporary relevance has remained controversial.More recently,however,
his symphonic ballets have enjoyed revivals by a number of major com-
panies,earning raves from respected critics.It seems clear that a genuine
renascence of Massine’s great art has at long last begun.
Dancers reaching the American stage in the ¡970s and ¡980s were
often shaped by teachers and mentors who themselves were former mem-
bers of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Like many of my generation,
learning our craft in regional ballet companies across the United States,
I absorbed not only their training but their philosophy and aesthetic ide-
ology.From my earliest experience with Ilse Reese and the Rocky Moun-
tain Ballet, to my days as a company member with George Verdak’s
Indianapolis Ballet Theatre, I was nourished by veteran Ballet Russe
dancers.Performing in a few Massine ballets kindled my passion to learn
more of this era and its master choreographer. The more I learned, the
deeper my fascination,and the greater my artistic enrichment.
While o›ering a succinct biography of Massine,this book includes
detailed analysis of the major ballets, subsectioned under “Synopsis,”
“Scenery and Costumes,”“Music,”“Choreography,”“Critical Survey,”and
“In Retrospect.” The study thus integrates discussion of Massine’s life
with multifaceted perspectives on his work.Following his mentor Sergei
Diaghilev,Massine adopted the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk as a model
of inclusive artistic unity and strove to bring music,painting and litera-
ture of the highest caliber to the service of his ballets.In this spirit,the
book touches upon the art of those composers with whom Massine col-
laborated,or where he found inspiration,from Scarlatti to Hindemith.It
speaks as well to the history of opera,from opera seria and opera bu›a to
the “reform operas”of Gluck,the codified new forms of Rossini and the
radically new music dramas of Wagner.
Massine was also notably influenced by his era’s visual art move-
ments—Cubism, Futurism, Neo-Primitivism, Constructivism, Neo-
Romanticism, and Surrealism—and he collaborated with such seminal
figures as Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Miró, Chagall, and Dalí. He called
Preface and Acknowledgments 3
as well upon the literary and theatrical works of Boccaccio,Goldoni,Poe,
Baudelaire, Cocteau, Valéry, and Thomas Mann. I hope readers will be
pleased to encounter details of these rich symbioses.
But this book is more than a reassessment of one of history’s great
choreographers,now on the cusp of revival.For both novice and experi-
enced choreographers,studying Massine’s ballets yields much to ponder
on the “do’s” and “don’ts” of e›ective dance composition. For anyone
intrigued by the era’s dynamism, this study forms a lens through which
the prodigious energies of many arts are brought sharply into focus.
While Massine’s vast oeuvre contains many single-performance pièces
d’occasion,these are necessarily excluded in my study,as are those ballets
of which little record remains. At an original length of well over 500
pages, the first “finished” draft of this book required many subsequent
omissions.Yet I have managed to retain a number of anecdotes,not merely
to amuse,but to provide glimpses of what it was like to be a ballet dancer
and a balletgoer in this fascinating era.
Writing this work has been a labor of love,albeit long and arduous.
While hundreds of Massine collections, private and public, exist in the
U.S., Europe, and South America, much is scattered. Comprehensive
research has required two journeys abroad,as well as the usual delays for
travel funds and interlibrary loan requests.At present,the most extensive
and complete Massine resources are concentrated in the Jerome Robbins
Dance Division, Library of Performing Arts, New York Public Library
at Lincoln Center,and at London’s Theatre Museum,Covent Garden.
To the many archivists and librarians who assisted me, I owe an
unpayable debt. Special thanks are reserved for the sta›s of the Dance
Collection, Lincoln Center; the Theatre Museum, Covent Garden; the
British Library,Bloomsbury;the Newspaper Library,Colindale,England;
the Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum,South Kensington;and
the Central Reference Library,St.Martin’s Street,London.My deep grat-
itude as well to Tatiana Massine Weinbaum,who secured permission for
me to view her father’s films,now housed in the Jerome Robbins Dance
Division of the New York Public Library; the late George Verdak, who
allowed use of his private dance history archives in Indianapolis; Prof.
Bonnie Krueger and Nathaniel Ver Gow,who translated my French and
Italian material.Without the assistance of Hamilton College’s Informa-
tion Technology Services, and support specialist Gretchen Schultes in
particular, the technical di‡culties in translating draft software would
have been nearly insurmountable. Her expertise, kindness, and patience
have been extraordinary. Lastly, I thank my colleague, Prof. George
O’Connell,for his close critical reading and invaluable suggestions.