Nina Verchinina: some Australian connections

Nina Verchinina, born in Moscow in 1910 and brought up in Shanghai and Paris, began her performing career in Paris in 1929 with the company of Ida Rubinstein. Throughout the 1930s she danced extensively with the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo under various directors including René Blum, Léonide Massine and Colonel Vassily de Basil.

Verchinina came to Australia as a leading dancer on the 1939–1940 tour by Colonel de Basil’s Original Ballet Russe, arriving in Sydney on the Orcades on 18 December 1939. In Australia she was especially celebrated for her performances in Massine’s symphonic works, in particular as Action in Les Presages, a role she had created for Massine and had made her own following the work’s premiere in Monte Carlo in 1933. Writing in The Herald after Verchinina’s Melbourne debut in Les Presages, Basil Burdett wrote of her performance as Action:

‘Her interpretation of the role … is striking in its combination of energy and joyousness. To strong and beautifully marked rhythms she adds an emotion of delight in movement in a conception of the part which differs considerably from other versions we have seen.’

Verchinina was also the sister-in-law of de Basil—her younger sister, Olga Morosova (Olga Verchinina, born 1912), had married de Basil in 1938. As part of family business, Nina Verchinina involved herself in some of the publicity activities in which de Basil engaged while in Australia during the 1939–1940 tour. For example, photos show her with her sister, de Basil and others in Melbourne visiting Edouard Borovansky’s ballet school to watch his pupils.

(l-r) Alexander Philipoff, Nina Verchinina, Edouard Borovansky, Colonel de Basil, Olga Morosova and Tatiana Stepanova watching students in Melbourne, 1940. Geoffrey Ingram Archive of Australian Ballet, National Library of Australia. Photo: S. Alston Pearl

But Verchinina’s visit to Australia was also marked by two significant encounters with individual Australians—one with composer Margaret Sutherland and one with young Australian dancer Valrene Tweedie.

On 9 May 1940 the Original Ballet Russe gave a charity matinee in aid of the Royal Melbourne and Children’s Hospitals. Dithyramb, one of the divertissements on the program, was a solo choreographed and danced by Verchinina. The music, also called Dithyramb, was by Margaret Sutherland and the collaboration attracted the attention once again of Melbourne critic Basil Burdett. He wrote in The Herald on 10 May:

‘Verchinina’s number, to music by Melbourne composer, Margaret Sutherland, alternately energetic and yearning in mood, showed her forceful style, based on the modernist expressionist mode, perfectly. Miss Sutherland’s music was finely adapted to the spirit and style of Verchinina’s dancing. One would like to see these two artists collaborate in a larger work.’

In her PhD thesis, ‘Reconstructing the creative life of Australian composer Margaret Sutherland: the evidence of primary source documents’, Cherie Watters-Cowan notes the development of the collaboration between Verchinina and Sutherland. Although it is a point she does not develop in any great depth, Watters-Cowan indicates that the music was written around May 1940 and originally as a solo for Verchinina. Sutherland later transposed the music for solo piano.

Although Sutherland and Verchinina never collaborated on a longer work as suggested by Burdett, Dithyramb was presented again at a midnight performance in Sydney on 19 September 1940 in a program entitled ‘Farewell Original Ballet Russe’. At this performance, Verchinina reportedly performed in a costume designed by Loudon Sainthill in tonings of black and red. The anonymous critic for The Sydney Morning Herald wrote:

‘One of the loudest and longest receptions was accorded to Nina Verchinina … Both score and choreography proved to be uncommonly vehement, and Verchinina brought to her interpretation all the force and fire which had made her work so popular during the tour’.

The next day the dancers left Australia on the S. S. Monterey bound for the United States. As she prepared to board the ship on 20 September, Verchinina sent Sutherland a telegram, ‘DITHYRAMB GREAT SUCCESS CRITICS AND PUBLIC WARM OVATION. VERCHININA.’

Also boarding the Monterey on 20 September was Valrene Tweedie, aged 15, about to begin a professional career as Irina Lavrova with de Basil’s Ballets Russes. Although she had been accepted by de Basil for his company, Tweedie was too young to be given a work visa for the United States without having a legal guardian. It was Verchinina who took on the role. In immigration documents completed when she arrived in Australia,Verchinina gave her name as Nina Verchinina-Chase and referred to identity papers issued in Sacramento, California, by the Secretary of State in May 1939, which gave her American status. Her husband at the time apparently was the American-born composer Newell Chase. This was enough to secure the visa. Verchinina attended Tweedie’s family farewell in Sydney in June 1940.

Ngaere Tweedie, Nina Verchinina, Valrene Tweedie and Renée Tweedie (left to right) at Valrene Tweedie’s family farewell, Sydney, June 1940. Papers of Valrene Tweedie, National Library of Australia.

Verchinina’s career with de Basil continued briefly until 1941 and Tweedie recalls her fondly as a guardian who never interfered but who was always available if needed.

Tweedie encountered Vechinina again in Cuba in 1943 during a period when there was little work or money for dancers. At that stage Tweedie too had left the de Basil company and with her then-husband, Luis Trapaga, performed in a small group of just four dancers, which Verchinina had established and for which she choreographed and produced small works. Tweedie recalls that they performed at the National Theatre in Havana and then toured to Matanzas and San Fuegos.

There is still much to discover about Verchinina’s Australian connections. Her collaborative endeavours with designer Loudon Sainthill are yet to be adequately researched, for example. Her connections with Tweedie and Sutherland, discussed briefly in this article, were significant highlights in the careers of those two Australians. They also deserve closer examination.

© Michelle Potter, 5 August 2009

All images published with the permission of the National Library of Australia.

Postscript to this article

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Newspapers: Basil Burdett, ‘Melbourne ballet lovers enthralled. ‘Les Presages: a first favourite’, The Herald, 2 April 1940, p. 10; Basil Burdett, ‘Successful ballet for hospital funds’, The Herald, 10 May 1940, p. 14; ‘New ballet tonight’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 September 1940, p. 19; ‘Midnight ballet. Enthusiastic audience’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 September 1940, p. 4.

Theses: Watters-Cowan, Cherie. ‘Reconstructing the creative life of Australian composer Margaret Sutherland: the evidence of primary source documents’, 2006. PhD Thesis, University of New South Wales, Sydney.

Other sources: Interview with Valrene Tweedie recorded by Michelle Potter, December 2004. Oral History Collection, National Library of Australia, TRC 5350; Telegram from Nina Verchinina to Margaret Sutherland, 20 September 1940. Papers of Margaret Sutherland, National Library of Australia, MS 2967, Box 1; ‘Personal statement and declaration: business visitor’, Nina Verchinina-Chase. National Archives of Australia, Item 6831038.

A Feast of Wonders

A Feast of Wonders: Serge Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes
Edited by John E. Bowlt, Zelfira Tregulova and Nathalie Rosticher Giordano (Milan: Skira, 2009)

In this very handsome volume published in conjunction with the exhibition Étonne-moi: Serge Diaghilev et les Ballets Russes, which opened in Monaco on 9 July 2009, Alexander Schouvaloff has an essay entitled ‘The Diaghilev Legend’. In it he remarks on the ‘continued fascination’ with the Ballets Russes. He writes, ‘It is puzzling. Artifacts and records remain to obsess scholars.’ Well, the contents of this book make his use of the word ‘puzzling’ a puzzling one indeed.

The publication contains, in addition to the Schouvaloff piece, eleven other essays most of which develop their topics in contexts that have not previously been widely examined in the existing English writing on the Ballets Russes. For example, Nicoletta Misler’s ‘Dance, Memory! Tracing Ethnography in Nicholas Roerich’ draws on a wide range of Russian sources to examine Roerich’s use of shamanistic and similar imagery, particularly in his designs for Le Sacre du printemps. Then, Evgenia Iliukhina traces the roles of Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova in the Diaghilev enterprise. She notes Goncharova’s sources and the influence of other artists on designs for her major pieces, including those works, such as Liturgie, which were not realised but which nevertheless were significant developments. Iliukhina also looks at Larionov’s interest in choreography and the evolution of his attitude to the role of design in ballet. The article rightly positions Goncharova and Larionov as major artists in the post 1914 period of the Ballets Russes and as more than simply successors to Bakst and Benois.

These articles, and others of equal interest, suggest that the ‘continued fascination’ will last for decades yet, especially when there is still much primary source material awaiting the attention of scholars. Despite the fact that 2009 celebrates the centenary of Diaghilev’s first Ballets Russes season in Paris, it is clear that there is still much to be discovered and written about. And to return to Schouvaloff, if one follows his instructions regarding the ‘Find a grave’ website, which he gives at the end of his piece, it is clear too that Diaghilev’s charisma has not waned.

In addition to the essays, the book contains a list of operas and ballets for which Diaghilev was responsible. The list begins in 1908 with Boris Godounov and ends in 1929 with Le Bal. Its strength, or its particular interest, is the way in which the list is illustrated – not with a single image but usually with several from a variety of sources and of different media. So we have Le Coq d’or illustrated with set designs, set models, costumes, costume designs and photographs. The illustrations for Le Spectre de la rose include swatches of fabric, paintings, posters, costume designs, designs for stage props, photographs and sketches. The list is made all the richer as a result of this diverse illustrative material. In fact illustrations throughout the book are themselves a feast of wonders and go well beyond those that have become so familiar in the current literature.

The introductory pages contain a long list of lenders to the exhibition, which will move to Moscow in October 2009. The list of lenders, private as well as institutional, is interesting in its scope as well as for the one or two major collections that are not represented.

A Feast of Wonders is a beautifully and meticulously produced book and a delight both visually and intellectually—much more than an accompanying catalogue.

Michelle Potter, 26 July 2009

Valrene Tweedie ca. 1952. Photographer unknown

Valrene Tweedie (1925–2008). The fire and the rose

‘The fire and the rose ‘ is a tribute to and obituary for Valrene Tweedie, Australian dancer, teacher and choreographer who died in August 2008. Tweedie danced with Colonel de Basil’s and Sergei Denham’s Ballets Russes companies and with an embryonic National Ballet of Cuba. She choreographed for stage and television in Australia, pioneered dance education programs and founded Ballet Australia in the 1960s to encourage Australian choreography.

‘The fire and the rose’ first appeared in Brolga. An Australian journal about dance in December 2008.

Michelle Potter, 7 July 2009

Featured image: Portrait of Valrene Tweedie ca. 1952. Photographer unknown

Swans and Firebirds

Swans and Firebirds (Schwäne und Feuervögel)
Austrian Theatre Museum, Palais Lobkowitz, Lobkowitz Platz 2, Vienna, 25 June to 27 September 2009

Georges Barbier, ‘Tamara Karsarvina in *The Firebird*‘, pochoir print from the series *Homage to the Ballets Russes*, after 1914. Collection: Derra de Moroda Dance Archives, Salzburg.

Like many other museums, galleries and libraries around the world, the Austrian Theatre Museum in Vienna is staging an exhibition to mark the centenary of the first Paris season of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Although this exhibition carries a sub-title ‘Die Ballets Russes 1909-1929’ it uses the term ‘russes’ in a wide sense as the exhibition includes material not strictly speaking from the Diaghilev enterprise as we have come to understand it. Jointly curated by Drs Claudia Jeschke and Nicole Haitzinger from the University of Salzburg, it draws for its material on the collections of a number of institutions, largely in Russia, Germany and Austria, and one major private collector, John Neumeier.

The exhibition suffers at the outset from being displayed very awkwardly in two rooms at the far end of the main entrance to the Palais Lobkowitz. The two rooms are on opposite sides of the entrance lobby and thus are not obviously linked except perhaps in an architectural sense. Combined with pretty much non-existent signage, this physical arrangement makes for a disorienting experience for the exhibition viewer.

One finds oneself moving fairly logically, or snake-like, from the central space at the end of the lobby, which is devoted to material from Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, into the first room to the right. This first room focuses on the notion of ‘white’ and includes material from Les Sylphides and, mysteriously given the white tag, Diaghilev’s 1920s production of The Sleeping Princess. Other material relates to The Dying Swan and includes an interesting reconstruction of the swan tutu as worn by Pavlova in this celebrated solo. A video screening in this room—a dancer from the Bayerisches Staatsballett dancing the waltz from Les Sylphides—is a problematic inclusion. The amplified sound of the dancer landing after the many jumps in this solo is unpleasant, spoils the sound of the accompanying music and does little to evoke the poetic qualities of Les Sylphides. It does nothing for one’s perception of the dancer’s skills either.

Moving to the second room is not a logical progression from the first and initially the impression is that the exhibition finishes with the white material. Once one discovers the second room, on the left of the main lobby, the two other organising concepts—’unicolour’ (einfarbig) and ‘multicolour’—enter the equation. Designs for Petrouchka and Coq d’or are major items in the multicolour section and lead on to Natalia Goncharova’s beautiful drawings and extensive notes for the unrealised ballet Liturgie. Beyond Liturgie is material relating to Le Sacre du printemps and Les Noces, including a rare and valuable glimpse of the progression of Goncharova’s work for Les Noces from early designs in the Russian Primitivist mode to the final stripped-back designs. But the three colour codings—the organising concepts—are forced. The material to my mind is pushed to fit the concepts rather than emerging from them. Much of the material doesn’t seem to fit well anyway. This includes some quite fascinating notations (in facsimile) from 1910 by Fokine for Firebird from the St Petersburg State Theatrical Library.

But perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this second room is a loop video, which purports (according to the wall label) to show two recordings of George Balanchine’s Apollo each of around 30 mins in length. Sadly, however, all that is playing is about 3 minutes of a Radio Canada recording made in March 1960 with Jacques d’Amboise as Apollo and Diana Adams, Francia Russell and Jillana as the Muses. A great cast. But it got to where Apollo receives his lyre and holds it up to start playing only to return to the opening moments of Apollo’s birth from where it continued again to the receiving of the lyre. And nothing of the second recording.

Looking more positively, there are some wonderful items in the exhibition and many of them belong to John Neumeier. In fact, the strength and individuality of Neumeier’s collection is perhaps the outstanding aspect of this exhibition. In the pre-exhibition space—that is in the space between those two annoyingly unlinked rooms—there is a beautiful bronze sculpture of Adolphe Bolm in Polovtsian Dances. It stands about 25 cm high and is mounted on a small wooden plinth. It captures the passionate movement of Polovtsian Dances beautifully. Also from Neumeier’s collection is a hat by Léon Bakst for Tamara Karsarvina in Firebird—a pert little skull cap in green and tan with a white feather perched on top. Although designed by Bakst, it is in many respects one of those devotional items that so often grace dance exhibitions rather than an art historical piece. With the inclusion in the show of many photos of Karsarvina as well as designs for costumes she wore, this little cap seems to embody the spirit of its original wearer. Also of considerable interest are several photographs taken in Paris in 1910 by Auguste Bert, most again from the Neumeier collection. They include one of Vera Fokina as the Tsarina in Firebird. She stands with her body turned just slightly off-centre. Her head tilts softly to the left, her chest lifts and her hands gently lift her hair from her shoulders. This and other photographs by Bert have a soft, expressive quality and a sense of light movement to them. They are an absolute delight to examine and very revealing of this photographer’s approach to dance as an expression of the age.

There is a catalogue to this exhibition. Unfortunately there are a number of oversights in its production. Perhaps the most frustrating is that the images are not credited adequately – a final frustration in an exhibition that really needed to have been curated and produced more rigorously.

Michelle Potter, 1 July 2009

Igor Schwezoff. The Australian interlude, 1939–1940

Igor Schwezoff was born in St Petersburg in 1904, the third of four children of a well-to-do family. His early life was, therefore, a comfortable one. But the Russian Revolution changed all that. In his autobiography, Borzoi, Schwezoff tells of the hardships he endured while living under the Communist regime until he finally defected, arriving in Harbin, China, in 1931. He had been initially smuggled over the border from Vladivostok where he was performing, and had then been detained in China in abject conditions and hidden by various supporters until he was finally free to travel to Europe. The story told in Borzoi concludes, however, in 1931 and, while Schwezoff’s early dance training and performing experience in Russia, and his burgeoning interest in choreography are covered, his Australian interlude with Colonel de Basil’s Original Ballet Russe between 1939 and 1940 is not.

In Australia Schwezoff created the role of the Old General in David Lichine’s Graduation Ball, which had its world premiere in Sydney in February 1940. The Sydney press commented after opening night: ‘Schwezoff’s enormous height was a primary asset. He added to it by a cleverly ludicrous make-up and a cumbrous severity of motion.’ Archival film footage taken of performances in Australia in 1940 by an amateur film maker, ophthalmologist Dr Joseph Ringland Anderson, shows that Schwezoff at 6′ 2″ (188 cm) did indeed tower over the rest of the cast. But nothing can detract from the quality of his performance. Later, when the work opened in Melbourne, Schwezoff’s performance was described as ‘highly diverting’ and the same film footage, now fading and in disconnected fragments, indicates that Schwezoff gave a well considered performance. What stands out is his ability to take on a role and imbue it with a strong feeling for characterisation. In the case of the Old General he created an idiosyncratic character, slightly daft perhaps. But evident too is an awareness that this character was in a particular situation that required that his day-to-day military precision be tempered with gentlemanly behaviour towards the Headmistress (Boris Runanine). The tall Schwezoff, and the much shorter Runanine complement each other beautifully. What also is noticeable, especially in the mazurka Schwezoff performs with the Headmistress, is his expansive way of moving—he uses his long limbs to great advantage. The role of the Old General became, to a large extent, his signature one and he continued to perform it into the 1940s in the Americas, including with Sergei Denham’s Ballets Russes.

But Schwezoff seems not to have danced in many, if any of the other works in the standard repertoire in Australia. He is described in the biography of his Ballets Russes colleague, Tatiana Leskova, as coming to Australia as a teacher and choreographer, although this is not corroborated by others who knew him then, including Anna Volkova who maintains that to her knowledge he did not teach company class in Australia. However, Schwezoff was 36 in 1940, which was relatively old compared with the other dancers in the company, many of whom were teenagers, so it is conceivable that Schwezoff did tour to Australia largely as artistic support staff rather than primarily as a dancer. His height may well have been a further factor that determined the nature of his role with the Original Ballet Russe in Australia.

The first piece of choreography Schwezoff made in Australia was probably a solo divertissement called Etude, which he performed himself to Chopin’s Etude No. 12. It was made for a midnight concert staged in Sydney on 12 March 1940 for a Polish Relief Fund and a program note states that the work expressed ‘the desperate struggle and fight of a man in his last attempt to life and freedom’, which may well have alluded to his long and arduous defection from Russia. The Polish Relief concert was mentioned the next day in The Sydney Morning Herald but without any critical discussion of the program. It was largely seen as a social event.

Lutter Eternelle — Nina Verchinina and Georges Skibine in *Lutte eternelle*, Original Ballet Russe, Sydney 1940. Photo: Colin Ferguson [?] National Library of Australia

In terms of his Australian choreography, Schwezoff is best remembered for Lutte eternelle, a one act ballet that premiered in Sydney in July 1940. Lutte eternelle was a reworking of an earlier ballet in the symphonic mode called Elkerlyc, which Schwezoff had first staged in 1936 in Amsterdam where he had briefly directed a ballet school and a performing group. Elkerlyc is the name of a fifteenth century Dutch morality play thought by some scholars to be a precursor to the English Everyman and Schwezoff’s ballet, danced to Schumann’s Etudes symphoniques, was, according to a contemporary review, concerned with ‘mental struggle and the triumph of will’. Just how close Lutte eternelle was to Elkerlyc is a matter for conjecture but Lutte eternelle certainly followed a similar vein of exploration and used the same music as the earlier piece. It was an allegorical examination of man’s struggle against the temptations that confront him in life. In its premiere season, which consisted of just seven performances, it featured Georges Skibine as the Man and Nina Verchinina as the Woman with Tamara Toumanova as Illusion, Sono Osato as Beauty, Marina Svetlova as Truth and Boris Runanine as Will. The press intimated that there were similarities to be observed between Schwezoff’s work and the choreography for Les Presages, but nevertheless Lutte eternelle was well received. An anonymous Sydney reviewer wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald:

[Schwezoff’s] individuality expressed itself in a combination of emotion with formal abstract pattern. “Eternal Struggle”—to give “Lutte Eternelle” its English title—spoke from the heart. No matter how it grouped its symbolical characters, such as Truth, Illusion, and Beauty—no matter how it drafted cohorts of people to and fro across the stage—there was always warm, human feeling within the eye-filling design.

Schwezoff continued to stage Lutte eternelle in the Americas in the 1940s and, when Verchinina left the de Basil company in 1941, Anna Volkova took over her role as the Woman.

The Original Ballet Russe left Sydney in September 1940 headed for the United States. Schwezoff stayed with the de Basil company until 1941. His dance life post-Australia is recorded in a variety of sources including an article in Dance Magazine in 1969, ‘Around the world with Igor Schwezoff’ and in an online article in 1979 by Scott Highton ‘Igor Schwezoff—master of the ballet’. Schwezoff died in 1982.

With thanks to Pat Rader, Dance Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and Anna Volkova.

Michelle Potter, April 2009

Featured image: Igor Schwezoff as the Old General, Boris Runanine as the headmistress, Graduation Ball, Original Ballet Russe, Melbourne 1940. Photo: Hugh P. Hall. National Library of Australia

Resources

Books

Braga, Suzana. Tatiana Leskova. Uma bailarina solte no mundo (Rio de Janeiro: Lacerda Editores, 2005).
Schwezoff, Igor. Borzoi (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1935).
Walker, Kathrine Sorley. De Basil’s Ballets Russes (London: Hutchinson, 1982).

Magazines

Russell, Nina. ‘Around the world with Igor Schwezoff’. Dance Magazine, June 1969, pp. 64-67.
Stoll, Denis. ‘I present a bouquet’. Dancing Times, February 1936, pp. 635-636.
Philipoff, Olga. ‘A Schwezoff ballet. A note from the de Basil company—encouraging Australian artists. Dancing Times, October 1940, pp. 8–10.

Newspapers

‘The Ballet. Gay world premiere. Lichine’s Graduation Ball’. The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 March 1940, p. 19.
‘Midnight ballet performance. Polish Relief Fund benefits ‘. The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 March 1940, p.5.
Burdett, Basil. ‘High spirited comedy in new ballet’. The Herald (Melbourne), 9 April 1940, p. 17.
‘A new ballet. Schwezoff’s “Eternal Struggle”. The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 July 1940, p. 11.
Obituary: ‘Igor Schwezoff, ballet dancer’. The New York Times, 30 October 1982, p. 35.

Online

http://www.highton.com/pages/pictstories/schwezoffstory.html (accessed April 2009).

Film footage

[Graduation Ball], 1940. 16 mm film, black and white and colour, no sound, 30 mins. National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra. Title no: 450398