Vaslav Nijinsky’s costume for Le Dieu bleu. Part two

Jane Pritchard’s record of the itinerary of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes from 1909 to 1929, published in two parts in Dance Research 27, issues 1 and 2 (2009), is an absolutely indispensable resource and it was remiss of me not to have recalled its publication in my previous post and comments. From her listing I have extracted the Diaghilev performance history of Le Dieu bleu.

Paris: Théâtre du Châtelet, 6 performances 1912 (13, 15, 17, 18 May, 5, 7 June)
London: Royal Opera House, 3 performances 1913 (27 February, 1, 6 March)
Monte Carlo: Opera House, 3 performances 1913 (22, 26 April, 2 May)
Buenos Aires: Teatro Colón, 3 performances 1913 (20, 24, 28 September)
Rio de Janeiro: Teatro Municipal, 1 performance 1913 (29 October)
Berlin: Teater am Nollendorfplatz, 2 performances 1914 (11, 13 March)

18 performances in total according to the current state of knowledge.

Further information is in Jane’s comments originally posted on part one of this discussion but now also reproduced below as part one has become a little unwieldy to read. In addition, the illustrations from the The Sphere, mentioned in Jane’s comments, are also reproduced below (again with thanks to Jane).

From Jane Pritchard, 31 December 2010:

Oh dear thousands of comments to make and not much time at present. Let’s not get into the changing evolution of Schéhérazade and Zobéïde’s costumes yet – Bakst must have redesigned this to flatter each of his dancers.

1. The original costume for Ida Rubinstein 1910;
2. The Karsavina/Astafieva version for autumn 1911 (I don’t know what Roshanara who also dance the role this season at the ROH wore) This is the Karsavina version currently on display at the V&A;
3. The Karsavina version for 1912;
4. The Vera Fokina version originally for performances for Royal Swedish Ballet in 1913 and then worn with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1914;
5. Schéhérazade was redesigned in 1915 (see credit in programme). This is when the Flora Revalles version comes in;
6. This is modified for Lubov Tchernicheva (and since she continues to dance the role it settles down as the costume);

What this alerts us to is that there is often not a fixed version of one characters costume in a successful ballet—and do critics ever alert audiences to changes?

And on the subject of Fokine & Fokina photos in The Ballets Russes and the Art of Design many were actually taken in Stockholm when Fokine mounted Cléopâtre, Les Sylphides, Le Spectre de la rose, Le Carnaval and Schéhérazade there when spurned by Diaghilev, 1913–14.

But to the challenges of Le Dieu bleu, a ballet full of questions and one for which a contemporary viewer (A. E. Johnson) commented that the published programme synopsis was not the action realised on stage. I recall once having an argument with a significant choreographer when his synopsis was clearly not what happened in performance but he insisted it was published none the less—what a disservice to his audience and posterity.

Whatever one thinks about Herbert Ross’ film Nijinsky it contains a wonderful scene in which we see a dress parade of the costumes for Le Dieu bleu followed by a petulant Fokine (played by a young Jeremy Irons) complain to Léon Bakst that Bakst is trying to ruin the ballet by over-designing it. This may not be an historically accurate meeting but there is a real truth to it. Le Dieu bleu to me appears to be such an old fashioned production drowning in display. I find it fascinating that when the French start contributing to the Ballets Russes productions it takes them a while from them to break away from their balletic past. Much of Le Dieu bleu was procession and mime Beaumont described the one performance he saw as having ‘dull’ music, ‘uninspired’ choreography and containing ‘too much miming and posing, too many processions’. The demons and reptiles were ‘reminiscent of a Christmas pantomime’ and comic. Gosh aren’t I excited that I’ll be able to see Wayne Eagling’s new version of this ballet at the London Coliseum in April!

But to sort out some facts. Le Dieu bleu did not receive a large number of performances but it was presented in Paris (1912), London, Monte Carlo, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janiero (all 1913) and all these performances featured Nijinsky in the title role. It was also given two performances in Berlin in 1914 when Nijinsky was no longer in the company thus the title role was performed by Fokine and his wife, Vera was the Goddess (a role created by Nelidova).

I found it extremely valuable when told I was mounting a Ballets Russes to compile a day-to-day itinerary for the Company so that I understood which productions were performed where and how often. And on the subject of itineraries, just as we say in Britain you wait ages for a bus and then three come along—the same happened with the Ballets Russes performances. Sarah Woodcock published her version in The Dancing Times; the Paris Opéra’s exhibition book Les ballets russes included a version by Boris Courrège and team and my own (the most complete for which I happily acknowledge assistance from Roland John Wiley, Andrew Foster and others) was in Dance Research Volume 27 (2009) which is available through JSTOR on line.

There appear to be two sets of photographs for Le Dieu bleu—those taken in a Parisian studio by Walery at the time of the 1912 premiere in Paris. These were initially reproduced in the souvenir programme (produced by Comœdia Illustré) and serve to document the creators of the ballet in their costumes—I feel certain many of these photos were taken to show Bakst’s magnificent costumes rather than the dancers.

Then there are the Berlin photographs taken in 1914 which were reproduced as postcards and reproduced as a full page spread in The Sphere, London 23 May 1914. I think these are taken posed on stage and what we are seeing is the Lotus pool and the golden staircase of the set. I think our god and goddess are on their plinths on which they rose from the pool (Fokine’s lower right leg is hidden) to make their first appearance. The review in the Observer, 2 March 1913, p.8 refers to ‘the Lotus flower that dreams in a large basin. From its petals the Goddess arises; at her side the blue god who proceeds to charm the denizens of the den to tameness. The tunes of his pipe and his elaborate dance play the part of Orpheus with considerable effect.’ At the end of the ballet the ‘Goddess returns to the heart of the Lotus and the blue god goes in another direction to the Indian Walhalla, with the assistance of a golden staircase that conveniently appears behind the opened rocks’. I would actually suggest that the best published description of the ballet appears in A.E. Johnson’s book The Russian Ballet (with illustrations by René Bull) London: Constable, 1913. pp. 163-177

But to return to the costume as seen in the photos . Nijinsky and Fokine are not wearing identical head dresses—once again, as with the shoes it is Fokine whose head dress is closest to the Bakst design note the drop ‘pearl’ decorations like ear-rings hanging from it.

I agree that of the two known extant versions of costumes for the Blue God—the Canberra version matches the tunic in both sets of photographs. Please note it was never in the V&A’s collection we did not de-accession it. The Canberra costume appeared on the cover of the catalogue for first major Ballets Russes Sale 13 June 1967 when according to the published list of Prices and Buyers’ Names it sold for £900 to a Mrs Gibson—incidently the costume can be glimpsed in the background of the photo of Marie Rambert in Lubov Tchernicheva’s Pas d’acier jackets at a preview of the sale on p.167 of our exhibition book. The Canberra version was on display in the amphitheatre foyer at the Royal Opera House for years so I am amazed that it is still in such good condition.

The British version is extremely fragile and was one of the two last costumes worked on, the other being one of Matisse’s costumes for Le Chant du Rossignol. Both demanded very long hours of work and were not ready to be photographed for our book (not catalogue) to accompany the exhibition. The old photo of it as reproduced in Shead is horrid. I’ll get together more specific material on our version of the Blue God costume and get back to you on this. We also have a lot of other costumes for this production.

Adrian’s suggestion about new costumes for the USA tour is an interesting speculation— I just wish I knew how many of their costumes the Ballets Russes had access to when they re-formed in 1915–all the productions that year are described as being ‘redesigned’. I would love it if that also made sense of the mystery concerning the two versions of Le Festin costumes but it does not. So over New Year I’ll have to do some more thinking about the costumes.

I’ll finish these ramblings by including the copy on the labels for our four Dieu bleu objects in the exhibition; the painting of the set, a costume design (in the Bakst section) and two costumes (in the Nijinsky case).

Le Dieu bleu 1912

Diaghilev never let concerns over authenticity override artistic impact. Le Dieu bleu (‘The Blue God’ or Krishna) was designed by a Russian in a vaguely Indian setting, with a score by a Venezuelan composer for a French audience. Bakst’s designs mixed elements from various south Asian cultures. The faces on the stone cliff resemble those on the Bayon Temple of Angkor Thom in Cambodia.

Oil on canvas, Léon Bakst (1866–1924). Private collection

Costume design for a young Rajah in Le Dieu bleu 1912

Bakst’s designs for Le Dieu bleu were among his most elaborate, but the ballet was old-fashioned in its emphasis on design at the expense of dancing. His costume for a young Rajah, a character not individually named in the programmes, shows fantastic detail in the feathered turban, pearl decoration and stylised shoes.
Pencil, watercolour and gouache, Léon Bakst (1866–1924). V&A: S.338-1981

Costume worn for Le Dieu bleu 1912–14

The Blue God (1912), a ballet based on Krishna, was created for Nijinsky. His solo included poses inspired by Hindu sculpture, and his costume featured a closed lotus flower among sunrays on the appliquéd torso. Nijinsky and Fokine, who took over the role, were each photographed wearing different versions of the costume. The example here is more richly decorated.
Watered silk, inset with satin and embroidered with mother-of-pearl

Costume for a Little God in Le Dieu bleu 1912

Léon Bakst’s lavish costumes emphasised design over choreography in The Blue God. A child performer wore this costume, whose tall headdress reveals the influence of Cambodia in its pyramid shape and sculptural forms.
Gold knit, satin and gold-painted decorations

Vaslav Nijinsky’s costume for Le Dieu bleu. Some comments

In the very glamorous exhibition, Ballets Russes: the art of costume, currently showing until late March 2011 at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, one of the most discussed items is the tunic from the costume for the Blue God from the ballet of the same name—in its French form Le Dieu bleu.

Léon Baskt, Tunic from costume for the Blue God, c 1912, from *Le Dieu Bleu* National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1987

Its popular appeal rests largely on the fact that the tunic was worn by Vaslav Nijinsky, creator of the role of the Blue God and dancer and choreographer with Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Not only was the costume worn by Nijinsky and as far as we know by no-one else, but traces of the make-up Nijinsky wore as the Blue God can still be found as marks on the inside the costume.

But we also know that the ballet was not a major success and was given very few performances after its 1912 premiere and quickly disappeared from the repertoire. That there were only a few performances of the ballet is both a blessing and a curse.

From a positive point of view it means that the costume, designed by Léon Bakst one of Diaghilev’s best known designers, is in excellent condition. While this situation reflects in part the exemplary conservation that has been carried out by the National Gallery’s conservation staff, it also reflects the fact that despite that the fact that the tunic is almost 100 years old it has not suffered from the wear and tear that constant use has on the fabric, decoration and stitching of dance costumes. Its excellent condition may also relate to the fact that it was made by two of the top Parisian costumiers of the time, M. Landoff and Marie Muelle. Madame Muelle in particular is known to have insisted that only the best quality fabrics be used and that decorative elements be appliquéd or embroidered rather than stencilled onto the fabric. She was also said to have had a secret metal thread that never tarnished.

A close-up look at the costume reveals that it encapsulates many of the principles that Bakst used throughout his design career, in particular a use of different textures in the one costume and daringly juxtaposed patterns and colours. He always made his interests, which included his understanding that dance was about movement, very clear in his designs on paper.

Léon Baskt, Design for tunic for the Blue God, c 1912, from *Le Dieu Bleu* National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1987

The costume is largely made from silk, satin, velvet ribbon, braid and embroidery thread, although set against the luxury silken fabrics are panels made from a simpler cotton or rayon material patterned with a floral, lotus-inspired design. The tunic’s dominant colours are pink, blue, gold and green and black and triangular and diamond patterns sit beside curves and half circles. Emerald green jewel-like sequins spill down strips of olive green braid.

Some parts of the tunic have been machine stitched. Others have been sewn by hand. The faux mother of pearl decorations along the hem of the tunic, for example, were hand sewn onto the fabric and the tacking stitches joining them together in a row can be seen where some of the decorations, now extremely fragile, have fallen off. The tunic has a row of metal fasteners, hooks and eyes, running right down the back—no zips, no Velcro in those days. Nijinsky would have simply held out his arms as the tunic was slipped on by his dresser, who would then have hooked him into the costume.

The Gallery’s collection also includes the gold headdress for the costume. It is equally as fascinating to study close up. Its double row of decorative points attached to a tight fitting skull cap is made of metallic gauze stitched by hand onto a wire frame with metallic thread—perhaps even with Mme Muelle’s untarnishable secret thread?

But in a more negative vein, because the work was performed on such a small number of occasions, what do we know about the choreography? Probably very little really. However, a number of historians have noted that Bakst and Michel Fokine, Le Dieu bleu‘s choreographer, had been deeply impressed by performances given in St Petersburg in 1900 by the dancers of the Royal Siamese Court and had incorporated choreographic and visual ideas from these performances into several Ballets Russes productions on which they worked, including Le Dieu bleu. Still photographs of Nijinsky show that static poses rather than a fluid and expressionistic form of movement may have been dominant, recalling the dance style of the Siamese dancers.

But another dance troupe from the other side of the world probably had just as much influence on the creation of Le Dieu bleu as did the dancers of the Royal Siamese Court. In 1906 the Royal Cambodian Ballet came to France for the Colonial Exhibition staged in Marseille, Cambodia being at that stage a protectorate of France. The Cambodians gave several performances in Paris in July of that year, just as Diaghilev was in Paris preparing for his major exhibition of Russian paintings, which was presented a little later that year at the Salon d’automne. It is hard to imagine that Diaghilev and his team would have been unaware of the Cambodians. They caused a sensation in Paris and had a major influence on a number of French artists, including the sculptor Auguste Rodin who followed the company to Marseille and executed a major series of drawings of the dancers. Many newspapers, including the Parisian daily Le Petit Journal and the influential Le Petit Parisien, carried news of and advertisements for the Cambodians and most carried drawings and posters of the dancers against a background of Cambodian temples.

Cover of *Le Petit Journa*l, 24 June 1906

Bakst appears to have drawn on these printed sources for his backcloth, which features a huge rock face carved with faces of gods. It clearly recalls the posters in Parisian newspapers, which in turn recall the huge faces carved into the rock at the gateways to the Angkor Thom temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Costumes for subsidiary characters in the ballet as held by the Victoria and Albert Museum and on display in their London exhibition, Diaghilev and the golden age of the Ballets Russes 1909–1929, confirm that Bakst was indeed influenced by the interest in Cambodia that was generated in 1906. In particular the costume for a Little God, illustrated on p. 79 of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s catalogue, shows a towering headdress with four god-like faces smiling beatifically out to the potential auditorium. The headdress looks totally unlike anything a Cambodian dancer would have worn (or currently wears). The faces look a little more like Western-style putti than anything else and one can’t help but wonder whether Bakst only ever saw the cover of French magazines of the time and never the dancers themselves. However, the Cambodian influence is clearly there.

But the tunic for the Blue God will always evoke the man who created the role and who caused so many scandals for the Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev, that is Vaslav Nijinsky. The power of his name, like that of Anna Pavlova, will always make anything associated with him appealing to a wide spectrum of the population. One of Nijinsky’s colleagues, the ballerina Lydia Sokolova, has described in her memoirs the first sight the audience would have had of Nijinsky as the Blue God. She writes that he was seen ‘at the top of a flight of wide steps at the back of the stage, seated on a throne with legs crossed, holding a flower’. He was wearing the tunic now on display in Ballets Russes: the art of costume.

Unknown photographer, M Waslaw Nijinski (Le Dieu), p 36 in *Comœdia Illustré*, special edition, no 16, 15 May 1912. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

© Michelle Potter, 27 December 2010

This post is an amplified and enhanced version of my article ‘Homage to the Blue God’ first published by The Canberra Times on 18 December 2010.

The website for the National Gallery’s exhibition is at this link.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bell, Robert (ed.). Ballets Russes: the art of costume (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia 2010)
Buckle, Richard (ed). Dancing for Diaghilev. The memoirs of Lydia Sokolova. Paperback edition (San Francisco: Mercury House, 1989)
Misler, Nicoletta. ‘Siamese dancing and the Ballets Russes’ in Nancy van Norman Baer (ed.), The art of enchantment: the Ballets Russes 1909–1929 (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1988), pp. 78–83
Musée Rodin. Rodin and the Cambodian dancers: his final passion (Paris: Editions du Musée Rodin, 2006)
Pritchard, Jane (ed.). Diaghilev and the golden age of the Ballets Russes 1909–1929 (V & A Publishing, 2010)

Comments on this post are now closed. The discussion continues on part two .

Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet. The Balinese interlude

I have been curious for some time about an alleged visit to Bali by the dancers of the Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet following their departure from Surabaya on 28 September 1934 bound for Brisbane. Anton Dolin in The Sleeping Ballerina records that in Bali ‘there was time for Olga [Spessivtseva] to visit the many temples and see the dances of Bali, which interested her profoundly’. But hard evidence of this visit has seemed non-existent, until now.

English dancer Anna Northcote had been part of this touring company from its beginnings early in 1934 when the dancers assembled in Paris to rehearse parts of their repertoire with Alexandra Fedorova and Mikhail Fokine. She records her experiences in Paris in an article written in the magazine MOVE in 1970. But it is her photograph album that is of particular interest in the Balinese context. It shows quite clearly that the dancers did indeed visit Bali—Northcote gives the date as 29 September 1934—and were present at one or more performances of Balinese dance. Her album contains several pages of photographs from Bali, most of which record an outdoor performance under the shade of a large banyan tree. In some Spessivtseva can be seen in the background, dressed in white with her dark hair parted in the middle and pulled back in its signature style, absorbed in taking photographs herself.

Olga Spessivtseva taking photographs of a Balinese dance performance for the Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet, 1934. Personal Archive, Anna Northcote (Severskaya), Private Collection

The exact location of these photographs is hard to pinpoint. The London Illustrated News for 21 March 1931 contains images taken in what appears to be the same location and notes that the performance recorded in the magazine’s photographs took place ‘in the village of Kedaton’. This is more than likely an error as kedaton is a variant spelling of kraton meaning ‘palace’ and both the performance in The London Illustrated News and that photographed by Northcote probably took place in the temple courtyard of a royal palace somewhere on the northern coastline of Bali, probably Singaraja.

At the time the dancers visited Bali, the town of Singaraja was the Dutch colonial administrative centre for Bali and the Lesser Sunda Islands. It was the port of arrival for most visitors who, if they visited the southern region, usually did so by road. Moreover, the Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet travelled to Brisbane on the Nieuw Holland a ship of the Dutch KPM line. It was the KPM line that initiated the first tourist passages to Bali initially on its cargo ships, which regularly visited Singaraja anchoring at its port of Buleleng.*

Northcote’s album also contains an image of three Legong dancers taken in what seems to be a different location suggesting that the dancers may well have seen more than one performance.

Legong dancers. Personal Archive, Anna Northcote (Severskaya), Private Collection

The Balinese interlude continues to invite questions and needs further research. But now it is certain that the dancers called at Bali after boarding the Nieuw Holland in Surabaya.

© Michelle Potter, 9–10 December 2010

Featured image: Balinese dance performance. Personal Archive, Anna Northcote (Severskaya), Private Collection

*Colin McPhee in his book A House in Bali (1947) mentions a village called Kedaton in the Den Pasar region. But it does not seem likely that the dancers would have had time to take the then arduous road trip from Singaraja to Den Pasar and back, given Bali was a stopover rather than a final destination for the ship (and assuming that the Nieuw Holland was following its usual route and anchored in Buleleng harbour).

The dancers did, however, visit part of Bali beyond the coastline as Northcote’s album again indicates. Her photograph entitled ‘Valleys and volcanoes’, with its steeply terraced rice fields, is typical of the countryside immediately to the south of the northern Balinese coastline.

‘Valleys and volcanoes’, 1934. Personal Archive, Anna Northcote (Severskaya), Private Collection

Information on the company’s touring activities in Java immediately prior to their Balinese visit is in a previous post: Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet: Indonesia, September 1934

Valentin Zeglovsky. Further Australian notes

During August I spent some time investigating the spelling of Valentin Zeglovsky’s name and posted some results under the title ‘Valentin Zeglovsky: some Australian notes’. It was a somewhat esoteric exercise but it did yield other information about Zeglovsky, of which I was not previously aware. So for me it was a worthwhile excursion, although it did envelop Zeglovsky in further mystery.

Place of birth

I mentioned in the previous post that Zeglovsky completed the various procedures to become a permanent resident in Australia and to acquire the status of a British subject. One document that was part of that process contains a short but closely packed, typewritten section entitled ‘General Remarks’. The document, dated 11 December 1945, was typed not by Zeglovsky but by a public servant from information provided by Zeglovsky. Under ‘General Remarks’ the document states, in part: ‘Applicant states that his birthplace is Riga Latvia not Kharkov as per Declaration. Passport verified this statement’. This is interesting because in his autobiography, Ballet Crusade, Zeglovsky records that he was born on 26 July 1908 in Kharkov.

Ballet Crusade

Zeglovsky’s account of his life from birth to the early 1940s was published by Reed & Harris as Valentin Zeglovsky’s Ballet Crusade in December 1943 with a reprint in 1944. Ballet Crusade‘s title page (at least for the 1944 reprint) says ‘translated from the Russian’, although no acknowledgement of the translator is given. However, letters from Valrene Tweedie written in the 1940s from Cuba to her friend in Sydney, Marnie Martin, indicate that Martin had been working with Zeglovsky on a book, which Tweedie confirmed before her death in 2008 was Ballet Crusade. Martin had been an extra during the Ballets Russes visits to Australia and remained a lifelong friend of Tweedie. From the letters it appears she was quite close to Zeglovsky — Tweedie frequently ends her letters to Martin with a greeting to ‘Valentin’ as well. It was also Martin’s GPO box address that Zeglovsky used on most of his applications to the patent’s office mentioned in my earlier post. I have no evidence that Martin was a Russian speaker but I suspect that ‘translated from the Russian’ may have been a euphemistic way of indicating that the book owed much to Martin. Tweedie maintained in fact that it was ghost written, at least in part, by Martin.

Work life in Australia

Tamara Finch in her autobiography, Dancing into the unknown, records the initial efforts by those Ballets Russes artists who remained in Australia in 1939 at the conclusion of the Covent Garden Russian Ballet tour to find work for themselves in Australia. Her account explains that a small company, which included Zeglovsky, formed to give recitals but disbanded in 1940 after the venture proved unsuccessful. It was probably around this time that Zeglovsky settled in Sydney and began teaching and dancing with various companies. The ‘General Remarks’ on his naturalisation application state: ‘At the outbreak of war applicant under engagement to J. C. Williamson and travel led all over the Commonwealth’.

Briefly, Zeglovsky danced and travelled with the Kirsova Ballet and danced some seasons with the Borovansky Ballet. In 1942–1943 he also performed in the J. C. Williamson revival of the popular musical White Horse Inn, which opened in Sydney in December 1942. This aspect of Zeglovsky’s Australian career will be the subject of another post.

However his naturalisation papers reveal that he also worked in decidely non-dancing jobs. The same ‘General Remarks’ mentioned above record: ‘Late in 1943 commenced work as a cement worker at the Captain Cook Graving Dock, Sydney’. And a little further on: ‘Applicant states that he is a fully qualified diamond tool setter’.

Marriage

On immigration documents relating to Zeglovky’s arrival in Australia with the Covent Garden Russian Ballet in 1938, he lists his status as married and his wife’s name is given as Mia. Later documents completed by Zeglovsky and held in the National Archives of Australia indicate that Mia was born in 1910 in Riga and that she was living in Tel Aviv, Palestine, when Zeglovsky applied for naturalisation. Mia Arbatova is mentioned on several occasions in Ballet Crusade and, although in the 1940s Zeglovsky continues to state that he is married, sources such as the Jewish Women’s Archive indicate that Arbatova and Zeglovsky, who were dance partners and who are said to have married in 1933, divorced in 1937.

Zeglovsky married dancer Pamela Nell Bromley-Smith in Sydney in 1949 according to the New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Bromley-Smith appeared as the Daughter in La Concurrence with the Covent Garden Russian Ballet in its Sydney season in December 1938. Her name appears on a program dated 17 December 1938 and a photograph (not in costume for La Concurrence but in an exotic two piece fringed and beaded costume) appeared in the Evening Post from Wellington, New Zealand, on 6 February 1939 with the caption ‘Pamela Bromley-Smith, aged 10 years, who was engaged in Sydney to dance the child role in “La Convenience” [sic], a performance by the Russian Ballet. Pamela is from the Dolee Brooks School of Dancing and holds her intermediate dancer’s diploma for operatic dancing in Australia …’. The performing arts gateway AusStage records that she appeared in a number of productions at the Minerva and Independent Theatres in Sydney in the 1940s.

Ziggy, as he was apparently known in the Ballets Russes, continues to fascinate!

© Michelle Potter, 4 September 2010

Featured image: Zeglovsky in Cimarosiana reproduced from the Geoffrey Ingram Archive of Australia Ballet with permission of the National Library of Australia.

Maurice Seymour: Valentin Zeglovsky in ‘Cimarosiana’, ca. 1936

Olga Spessivtseva in Australia

Olga Spessivtseva, graduate of the St Petersburg Theatre School, famed interpreter of Giselle, star of Serge Diaghilev’s ill-fated 1921 London production of The Sleeping Princess, and legendary ballerina of the Paris Opera in the 1920s, was contracted to come to Australia in 1934 as principal dancer with the Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet. Spessivtseva, or Spessiva as she was officially known on the tour, joined the company in Singapore, along with her companion (the retired American businessman Leonard G. Braun), her dancing partner Anatole Vilzak, and others who were to join the company. Following the Singapore season, in which she did not perform, she travelled with the company through Java, where she did dance, and on to Australia where the company was to fulfil engagements in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and eventually Perth.

The Australian component of the tour has generated a good deal of interest as a result of the fact that Spessivtseva left the tour in an apparent state of mental distress following the Sydney season, which ran from 27 October to 28 November 1934. Exactly what happened to Spessivtseva is unclear and although her performances were, on most occasions, reviewed more than favourably by the press, most other accounts present a story of wildly eccentric and delusional offstage behaviour on her part. Anton Dolin, for example, in his biography of Spessivtseva, The Sleeping Ballerina, records that she complained she was being spied upon and that she was in terrible danger from unknown forces, that on one occasion she was found wandering on a deserted highway miles from town and so on.

spessivtseva-swan-lake — Olga Spessivtseva in costume for *Swan Lake*, Sydney 1934. Sydney Fox Studio. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. Reproduced with permission

The official story as given to Australian newspapers was that Spessivtseva sprained her ankle. Melbourne’s Argus newspaper reported on 1 December 1934, the day the Melbourne season was to begin:

‘A week before the end of the Sydney season the company suffered a severe loss when the first ballerina, Olga Spessiva, sprained her ankle. Mme Spessiva is resting in Sydney and may not be able to appear again for several weeks.’

However, Harcourt Algeranoff, who also danced with the company on this tour and whose letters to his mother provide a wealth of information about the company, has a slightly different version of events. Writing from Melbourne on 2 December 1934 his inside information is that Spessivtseva had already left for Europe:

We’ve had rather a blow as Spessiva is ill and although it is no known publicly, she’s sailed for Europe. She has promised to rejoin us some months hence when she is better.’

Dolin, however, gives a quite different account of Spessivtseva’s movements. He maintains that Spessivtseva was sent to recuperate in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney for some weeks after her last performance in Sydney. Although no evidence for the Blue Mountains story, other than Dolin’s account, has yet come to light it does have a certain plausible aspect to it. In his unpublished work ‘For Olga Spessivtzeva. A memoir of loving’ Dale Fern suggests that what has not been fully recognised is that Spessivtseva was physically frail during her dancing career. He writes:

‘What was consistently overlooked, by managers and dancers alike, in 1916 [her appearances with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in the United States], in 1921 [her performances in Diaghilev’s Sleeping Princess], and in 1934 [her tour with the Dandré-Levitoff company], was Olga’s frail constitution, her delicate physical condition. She was not well. Tuberculosis visited her regularly.’

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the crisp mountain air found in the Blue Mountains was promoted to Sydneysiders as a kind of health tonic for many ailments including, according to Blue Mountains Park historical information, tuberculosis, asthma, bronchitis, malaria, stress, anaemia, and heart troubles. In the early part of the twentieth century, the small town of Wentworth Falls in the heart of the Blue Mountains was the site of two very well known institutions — the Queen Victoria Home and Bodington Sanatorium — both of which cared for patients with tuberculosis. In addition, the Hydro-Majestic Hotel, located higher into the mountains at the village of Medlow Bath, was built by Mark Foy of the wealthy Australian retail family as a ‘hydropathic sanatorium’. Unlike the Wentworth Falls institutions, where conditions appear to have been spartan and somewhat unpleasant according to the patients who have reported on life there, the Hydro-Majestic and its surrounds were a prestigious and socially desirable health retreat and its guests often included those prominent in the arts. The kinds of treatments available were listed in one promotional booklet. They included electric water and massage, electric light bath, vibration massage, general vibration massage, local hot air, local general massage, and various medicated baths.

It is conceivable that Spessivtseva, if indeed she did go to the Blue Mountains, may have gone to the Hydro-Majestic. But if Algeranoff was correct, Spessivtseva had no time to recuperate in the Blue Mountains or anywhere else before boarding a ship. However, ships’ passenger lists from Sydney that include her name, or that of her companion Leonard G. Braun, that might confirm such a departure remain to be located.

With regard to the official account of a sprained ankle, it was more than likely simply a story concocted by company management to explain to Melbourne audiences the fact that Spessivtseva was not performing there as previously advertised. Her name appeared as star attraction in Melbourne advertisements up until 28 November. By 29 November all reference to stars had been removed and by 30 November it was Natasha Bojkovich whose name was being promoted in Melbourne.

Nevertheless, just exactly what happened remains a mystery at this point. Spessivtseva’s name continued to be listed in newspaper advertisements for the last Sydney shows but there is a curious absence of reviews of the last program in the Sydney season and the last mention of her name in a performance seems to have occurred in The Sydney Morning Herald on 19 November when her performance in Raymonda was thought to be ‘cold’. In a review of the new program that opened on 24 November, the weekly newspaper Truth reported:

‘Owing to a slight indisposition, Spessiva did not dance. Her place was taken by Natasha Bojkovich, second ballerina of the company … The management announced that Spessiva will appear as usual tomorrow.’

Whether she appeared at all during the last week is questionable. Edward Pask in his Enter the colonies, dancing writes that she danced on the last night of the Sydney season but he quotes as his source ‘an [unidentified] observer at that performance’. Dolin also maintains that she performed on the last evening in Sydney. But neither gives any sound documentary reference to support his claim and it has to be assumed that neither attended performances in that last week to see for himself since Dolin was not in Australia at the time and Pask had not been born. As a counter report to Pask’s and Dolin’s comments, Valerie Lawson notes in an article in Brolga in December 2000 an unidentified, undated press clipping in a privately-held scrapbook that states:

‘[Spessiva] strained her ankle during the third week of the Sydney season and was ordered a brief rest by her doctor. She struggled on bravely for a few performances but was obliged to retire from the cast during the final week of the season.’

This report does, however, sound a little like an elaboration of the explanatory story given to Melbourne audiences. But as 1935 began, a further reference to Spessivtseva appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald as part of a summary of the previous year’s theatrical highlights. It supports Algeranoff’s account that Spessivtseva returned to Europe and alludes to her ill health:

‘Spessiva, who had been billed as the leader of the company, danced at every performance at first; but made only brief appearances, and, as time passed it became apparent that she was ill at ease. Still she danced brilliantly in “Carnival” and dropped out of the cast only when she strained an ankle. Since then, it has been revealed that she was in ill-health during the whole of the Sydney season; and now she has had to return to Europe leaving Natasha Bojkovich as a highly-efficient substitute leader in Melbourne.’

The story of Spessivtseva in Australia continues to remain something of an unsolved mystery. Until further evidence emerges, her activities during and immediately after the Sydney season continue to raise questions.

© Michelle Potter, 25 August 2010

Featured image: Olga Spessivtseva at Central Station, Sydney, 1934. Photo: Sam Hood. Image in the public domain

Note: My substantial article on the Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet tour to South Africa, Singapore, Java, Australia, Ceylon, India and Egypt during 1934 and 1935 is currently being considered for publication by Dance Research (Edinburgh University Press).

Update 5 December 2013: The article mentioned above was published in Dance Research, 29:1, Summer 2011. See also the tag Olga Spessivtseva for further posts and ongoing comments.

Valentin Zeglovsky. Some Australian notes

Some recent correspondence with a friend of the family of the Ballets Russes dancer Valentin Zeglovsky sent me in search of further information. I was curious in the first instance about Zeglovsky’s name as it seems to have had a number of variant spellings. While this is not surprising in the context of the Ballets Russes, where names were changed for stage purposes and often Russianised for maximum theatrical effect, the Zeglovsky situation was a little different. There is no doubt that his stage name was Valentin Zeglovsky as this name appears on programs for the Covent Garden Russian Ballet season in Australia as well as in programs for seasons by the Borovansky Ballet and the Kirsova Ballet, in which Zeglovsky danced after he elected to remain in Australian at the end of the season by the Covent Garden Russian Ballet in 1939. But online references to documents held in the National Archives of Australia consistently indicated that his name was Valentins Zeglovskis. The family, however, while acknowledging his stage name regarded Valentin Zeglovskis as his ‘real’ name and believed that Valentins was a misnomer.

zeglovsky-cropped — Portrait of Valentin Zeglovsky, 1940s. Photographer unknown. Courtesy National Library of Australia, Geoffrey Ingram Archive of Australian Ballet. Reproduced with permission.

Examination of the hard copy records in the Archives revealed an interesting situation. During his time in Australia, Zeglovsky spent some of his time teaching in Sydney. He set up a school in a studio in the house in which he lived in Macdonald Street, Potts Point, in the early 1940s. From there he submitted four patent applications to the Sydney office of the Commonwealth of Australia’s Registrar of Copyrights. The applications were for four ballets, The Red Poppy, Les Amoreux, Miralda and Morning Noon and Night. They were probably never realised but the libretti were submitted and approved between late 1942 and mid 1943. On these applications the name Valentins Zeglovskis appears quite clearly both in typewritten and handwritten form, including as an official signature. Not only that, Zeglovsky applied to be naturalised in 1945 and this was achieved in 1946. On naturalisation documents held by the Archives, including copies of newspaper declarations of his intent to seek naturalisation, his name appears as Valentins Zeglovskis. It seems that this situation remained until his Australian passport, issued in 1949, was cancelled and his naturalisation certificate returned to the Department of Immigration in Canberra in 1954 from the London office of the High Commissioner for Australia. In 1954 he registered as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies. So for some reason he clearly wanted to be known officially, at least in Australia, as Valentins Zeglovskis.

While names will always be somewhat capricious, especially in the situation in which Zeglovsky found himself during his years in Australia, research into those archival documents revealed other fascinations about the life of a dancer in Australia in the 1940s. They will be the subject of a future post.

Algeranoff in Melbourne

The dance interests of Harcourt Algernon Essex, better known simply as Algeranoff, were extraordinarily diverse. In the earlier years of his career, as he toured the world with companies that included that of Anna Pavlova, the Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet and the Ballets Russes companies of Colonel de Basil, he was forever watching, taking lessons in, and lecturing on the dance of the countries he visited. A lot of his research fed into a series of divertissements that he performed while on tour, as special demonstrations or simply as part of the regular company program, which in the case particularly of the Dandré-Levitoff company each night always included a selection of about ten divertissements across a range of dance styles.

But it seems that Algeranoff was also an interesting character off stage. During some recent research into the Dandré-Levitoff company I came across the following in the Melbourne magazine Table Talk, now long defunct, and would like to share it with others who may be as surprised and delighted as I was by the evocative and personal account of Algeranoff.

‘I used to be a little in awe of Algeranoff: to see him walking down the street in his corduroys, with a paisley handkerchief about his throat, another round the waist, his typewriter, sachel [sic] packed to bursting point with costumes and make-up, and his sandals, that reveal feet stained with some indelible Oriental dye, one could hardly imagine him to be what he is, a fresh and unaffected chap, with lots of humour, and—ssshhhh—an English accent’.

—from Table Talk, 20 December 1934. Find more resources on Algeranoff in Trove.

Algeranoff in one of his divertissements—*The Faun.* Photo by Gustav Thorlichen. National Library of Australia. Reproduced with permission

Michelle Potter, 15 July 2010

Postscript to Graduation Ball. The sequel

On 9 July 1955, a short news article appeard in the Melbourne newspaper The Age announcing the engagement of David Lichine to produce Francesca da Rimini and Girls’ Dormitory for the Borovansky Ballet. Towards the end of 1955 Lichine did stage a new production of Francesca. It had designs by William Constable and featured Jocelyn Vollmar, Arvids Fibigs and Royes Fernandez in the leading roles. During the same engagement Lichine also created his very popular Nutcracker for the Borovansky Ballet. It premiered in Sydney on 19 December 1955 and became the highlight of future Sydney Christmas seasons by the Borovansky Ballet.

Girls Dormitory was never staged by the Borovansky Ballet. The suggestion that it was to be staged is interesting, however, and one wonders, given that the Buenos Aires staging (see previous post) had such a short life span, whether the Benois designs held in Boston, and dated 1949 (post Buenos Aires), were created for a new version that Lichine was contemplating.

Note: The article in The Age erroneously gives the date and location of the world premiere of Graduation Ball as Melbourne 1939. It was in fact Sydney 1940.

Graduation Ball. The sequel

David Lichine choreographed close to fifty ballets during his lifetime. Graduation Ball, which premiered in Sydney on 1 March 1940, was probably his most successful. In Australia, from March to August 1940, the work was given 69 performances by the Original Ballet Russe, a statistic equalled only by one other ballet during the season—Les Sylphides, which also received 69 performances.

Lichine also created a sequel to Graduation Ball, scarcely known, apparently performed only in Argentina, and called Girls’ Dormitory. The Riabouchinska/Lichine papers held by the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts contain a letter from Lichine to the Director-General of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, dated 13 March 1947, in which Lichine maintains that a sequel was in his mind ‘from the moment the curtain closed on the opening night of “Graduation Ball”‘. According to Anne Robinson, Girls’ Dormitory was planned for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1945, although it was never performed by that company. Its premiere performance was given in Buenos Aires in July 1947 by the Teatro Colón Ballet.

In the same letter to the Director-General Lichine writes ‘The ballet will have many comedy situations … and the corners filled to capacity with youthful abundance of virginal gaiety’, and he notes that the costumes will be similar to those of Graduation Ball. He writes: ‘The boys are all dressed as young cadets and all the girls in uniform with only slight alterations’.

Robinson records that the music for Girls Dormitory was by Offenbach, orchestrated by Antal Dorati, and that the work was designed by Mstislav Dobujinsky. However, a series of designs all dated 1949, clearly entitled ‘Girls Dormitory’ and signed by Alexandre Benois are part of the Manuscripts and Rare Books collection of the Boston Public Library. They appear to be for a different production entirely as the costumes for the girls are chaste night dresses rather than the uniforms mentioned in Lichine’s letter. They are labelled ‘Tenue de nuit de toutes les pensionnaires’. Other designs in the Boston collection are labelled ‘II—Le cauchemar’ and, according to Anna Winestein, in this second act ‘the protagonists find themselves in an exaggerated, nightmarish version of the school they attend’. In his letter to the Director-General Lichine also advises that he is enclosing a synopsis of Girls’ Dormitory but, frustratingly, this synopsis is not included as part of the Riabouchinska/Lichine papers. So the relationship between the ballet Benois designed and what went onstage in Buenos Aires remains unclear.

However, some of the Benois designs in Boston are of interest in the Australian context. Three of these designs are for teachers who appear in the Act II nightmare—’Le Maître de l’Histoire’, ‘Le Maître de Geographie’, and ‘Le Maître de la Grammaire’. While the designs for the professors of Mathematics and Natural History who appeared in the Australian divertissement ‘Mathematics and Natural History Lesson’ (see previous post) have not been located, the Boston designs give an insight into what they may have looked liked. They perhaps also suggest that the idea of the Australian divertissement may have been that of Benois rather than Lichine.

Notes:

Girls’ Dormitory was, according to Robinson, never seen onstage outside of Argentina, although a film combining Graduation Ball and Girls’ Dormitory was made in Mexico in 1961 by Jose Luis Celis.
The Boston designs are reproduced in Anna Winestein’s Dreamer and showman. The work of Benois is still in copyright and this website is not in a financial position to be able to pay reproduction fees.

Bibliography

Anne Robinson. ‘The work of dancer and choreographer David Lichine (1910–1972): a chronology of the ballets with a brief critical introduction’, Dance Research, 19 (No. 2, Winter 2001), PP. 7–51
Anna Winestein. Dreamer and showman. The magical reality of Alexandre Benois (Boston: Boston Public Library, 2005).
Papers of Alexandre Benois 1913-1959, Boston Public Library, MS 2029
Papers of David Lichine and Tatiana Riabouchinska (unprocessed), Jerome Robbins Dance Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet. Indonesia, September 1934

The Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet arrived in Brisbane on 8 October 1934 for the Australian leg of a tour that had begun in South Africa in May 1934. The company sailed into Brisbane aboard a Dutch ship, the S.S Nieuw Holland, part of the fleet of the KPM line (Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij or Royal Packet Navigation Company). KPM maintained sea connections between the islands of Indonesia, formerly the Netherlands East Indies, and also sailed between Indonesia and Australia and New Zealand. The ballet company had embarked for the trip to Australia in the east Javanese city of Surabaya on 28 September following a number of performances across Java.

Scant attention has been paid to this Indonesian interlude, yet it was significant. It was in Java, for example, that Russian ballerina Olga Spessivtseva (known as Spessiva during her appearances in Indonesia and Australia) gave her first performances with the Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet. She had not performed with the company in South Africa but had joined them in Singapore although she had not danced there. Her presence was essential to the success of the company for she was perceived of as continuing the classical heritage of Anna Pavlova, whose popularity in the southern hemisphere was without any doubt.

George Zoritch, an American-born member of the Dandre-Levitoff Russian Ballet, is one of the few authors who has attempted to provide any form of documentation of the company’s performances in Indonesia. Zoritch wrote in his memoir, Ballet mystique, that the company performed in ‘Batavia (now Jakarta), Surabaya, Java and Borneo’. But, like many of those who have written about this company to date, Zoritch has relied on memory and some errors and misunderstandings are instantly discernable. Why, for example, does he include Java in his list as if it were a separate destination from Batavia and Surabaya, both of which are located on the island of Java? In addition, here is no documentary evidence that the company performed in Borneo, an island in the Indonesian archipelago not all that close to Java and not on the main routes of passenger ships? From a distance of 70 years or so perhaps he confused Borneo with Bandung, a city in Java where the company did perform?

The most reliable information yet uncovered about the Indonesian schedule comes from a Dutch newspaper—De Locomotief—published in Semarang, a city on the northern coast of central Java. According to De Locomotief, the Indonesian tour lasted from 8 September 1934 when most of the company arrived in Jakarta from Singapore on another KPM vessel, the S. S. Ophir, until 28 September 1934 when they sailed on the S. S. Nieuw Holland via the island of Bali to Brisbane. The proposed season dates as listed by De Locomotief on 7 September 1934 were:

Batavia (Jakarta): 12-16 September
Bandoeng (Bandung): 18-19 September
Semarang: 21 September
Soerabaia (Surabaya): 22-27 September

Subsequently it appears that the performance in Semarang was cancelled and Semarangers were advised to travel to Surabaya to see the company. On 18 September De Locomotief noted that if at least 50 people applied an extra train would be scheduled between Semarang and Surabaya especially for the occasion.

Little information about the repertoire as performed in each Javanese city can be gleaned from De Locomotief . The newspaper does note, however, that Swan Lake was performed in Surabaya and that Spessivtseva was a great hit. It also mentions generally that Les sylphides, La fille mal gardée and Polovtsian dances from Prince Igor were part of the repertoire. Dancer Harcourt Algeranoff, who joined the company in Jakarta, also mentions in his letters to his mother in England that the repertoire included La fille mal gardée, Prince Igor, Carnaval and various divertissements, including his own Indian-inspired piece Abhinaya. In other words, the repertoire was the standard Dandré-Levitoff one as performed in all cities visited during an extensive tour to several countries in 1934-1935. This repertoire was largely that performed by the company of Anna Pavlova and the media promoted heavily the links to Pavlova through this repertoire as indeed they also promoted Spessivtseva as a successor to Pavlova’s classicism.

It was also in Java that Victor Dandré, variously described in Australia as ‘manager’, ‘backer’ and ‘guiding spirit’ of the company, joined the troupe. The Brisbane Courier Mail notes on 9 October that Dandré had made a quick decision to join the company in Java and had ‘travelled by the air mail services’. In a letter from Bandung, Algeranoff confirms Dandré’s arrival and perhaps gives a reason for Dandré’s sudden appearance. He writes: ‘We’re all very glad he’s come. His presence was badly needed. The company is strong but there was no direction’.

There is much more to this company than we have yet discovered. Knowing a little more about its visit to Indonesia is a part of the puzzle.

Discover more on Trove

Bibliography:

‘Het Russisch Ballet’, De Locomotief (Semarang), 7 September 1934, p. 5
‘Het Russisch Ballet te Soerabaia’, De Locomotief (Semarang), 18 September 1934, p. 2
Letter from Harcourt Algeranoff to Alice Essex from Bandoeng, 18 September 1934, Papers of Harcourt Algeranoff, National Library of Australia, MS 2376, Series 1, Item 445
‘Het Ballet te Soerabaia’, De Locomotief (Semarang), 25 September 1934, p. 2
‘Classical dance will return. Spessiva’s faith. Modern music too grotesque’, The Courier Mail (Brisbane), 9 October 1934, p. 21
George Zoritch, Ballet mystique: behind the glamour of the Ballet Russe (Mountain View, CA: Cynara editions), 2000