Sergei Diaghilev

Russian impresario

• Born: March 31, 1872
• Birthplace: Selistchev Barracks, Novgorod Province, Russia
• Died: August 19, 1929
• Place of death: Venice, Italy

Diaghilev founded and edited an influential journal of the arts and was an impresario in such diverse fields as painting, music, ballet, and opera. In Paris in 1909, he founded the Ballets Russes, which toured throughout the world. Diaghilev is credited with revitalizing ballet as an art.

Early Life

Sergei Diaghilev (syehr-GYAY DYAHG-yihl-yehf) was born a member of the aristocracy. His mother, Evgenia Essysova, died during his birth, and his father remarried two years later. Diaghilev referred to his stepmother, Elena Paneiva, as the best woman in the world. At ten he moved to his grandfather’s estate in Perm, graduated from its gymnasium in 1890, and then went to St. Petersburg to study law. These studies did not interest him and, through his cousin, Dima Filosofov, he met the “Neva Pickwickians” Alexandre Benois, Walter Nouvel, and Léon Bakst. His first ambition was to become a composer, but Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov persuaded him to abandon this intention, though he was an excellent sight-reader. With friends he began the journal Mir Iskusstva (world of art) in 1899. This art-for-art’s-sake journal lasted until 1904 (twelve volumes) and powerfully influenced Russian arts. In 1901, he published a scholarly study of the eighteenth century Ukrainian portraitist Dmitri Grigoryevich Levitsky, for which he received the gold medal of the Imperial Academy of Science. In this study, he made clear that a work of art was the intellect, soul, emotions, and attitude to the life of an artist.

Diaghilev’s interest in ballet dated from his first year in St. Petersburg, when he saw the Italian ballerina Virginia Zucchi. She was much admired by his friend Benois. In 1905, Isadora Duncan took St. Petersburg by storm. It was not so much her technique as her inner sense of music that he found interesting. In 1899, Prince Sergei Volkonsky, director of the Imperial Theater, hired him as Official for Special Missions. He edited the Annual of the Imperial Theater as well as supervised Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Sadko.

Diaghilev’s success led to his commission to revise the ballet Sylvia by Léo Delibes. However, independence and a modern outlook made him influential enemies, who were able to force his resignation in 1901.

Mir Iskusstva was discontinued in 1904, but an announcement appeared in its last pages that an exhibition of Russian portraits dating from 1705 onward would be held in St. Petersburg in 1905 consisting of some three thousand works gathered by Diaghilev from throughout Russia. In 1906, Diaghilev traveled abroad and convinced the Parisian Salon d’Automne to hold at the Grand Palais an exhibition of Russian art, especially icons. In 1908, Diaghilev put on five Russian concerts at the Paris Opéra, starring Fyodor Chaliapin in Modest Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, with stunning decor by Benois.

Gabriel Astruc told Diaghilev how impressed he was with the opera’s ensembles and commissioned him to bring Russian ballet to Paris for 1909. Diaghilev signed with the Théâtre du Châtelet to premiere his Ballets Russes, an occasion that should be considered the beginning of modern ballet. After 1909, Diaghilev gave ballet a firm organization and an increasingly new repertoire by commissioning outstanding works of choreography, art, and music.

Life’s Work

For the first Paris season, 1909, the committee chose Le Pavilon d’Armide , with music by Nikolai Tcherepnin, choreography by Michel Fokine, and decor by Benois. Dancers in the ballet included Anna Pavlova, Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, and Alexis Bulgakov. To Le Pavilon d’Armide were added shorter works such as Les Sylphides, so titled by Diaghilev from Fokine’s earlier Chopiniana, and he retitled An Egyptian Night as Cleopatra from the music of no less than seven Russian composers; the “Polovtsian Dances,” from Aleksandr Borodin’s Prince Igor, were also used, with Adolf Bolm as the chief warrior and decor by Nikolai Roerich. Finally, in Le Festin, Tamara Karsavina danced the Bluebird pas de deux with the immortal Nijinsky. The Diaghilev Ballet had its opening on May 19, 1909. Diaghilev told his troupe before their performance: “I am delighted to be showing Paris the Russian Ballet for the first time. Ballet, to my mind, is one of the most lovely arts and it exists nowhere else in Europe.” This success of May 19 determined Diaghilev’s career and his legend was born.

The 1910 season, as with 1909, used existing music, with the exception of Diaghilev’s commissioning of The Firebird from the twenty-seven-year-old Igor Stravinsky. This was the first score composed for Diaghilev’s ballet. Diaghilev admired this music for its daring originality and novel instrumentation. Stravinsky’s extraordinary music led Fokine to invent extraordinary steps with Lydia Lopakova dancing the Firebird, Bolm as the czarevitch Ivan, and Bulgakov as the unforgettable magician Kostchei. This season also saw Le Carnaval to the arranged music of Robert Schumann, selected by Diaghilev, with a Bakst decor; Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov, again with Fokine’s choreography; a revival of Giselle, somewhat disappointing to Paris; and Les Orientales, to music by Aleksander Glazunov.

In 1911, Nijinsky quit the Mariinsky Theater to be with Diaghilev. A regular troupe was created, and the season opened in Rome, played in Monte Carlo and Paris, and gave two separate seasons in London one in June for the coronation of George V and another from October to December. The ballet master Enrico Cecchetti was hired to give regular lessons to the entire cast. Four new works were added to the growing repertoire: Le Spectre de la Rose, to the music arranged from Carl Maria von Weber’s “Invitation to the Dance,” Tcherepnin’s Narcisse, and Swan Lake. Most important, Diaghilev suggested that a concerto that Stravinsky was composing be converted to the ballet Petrushka, with the composer and Benois doing the book. It was to be about the carnival that precedes Russian Orthodox Lent. Even with all the difficulties attendant on producing Petrushka , especially severe arguments between Diaghilev and Benois in which the latter left the company, and the constant fight between Stravinsky and Fokine over the music’s tempo, Diaghilev triumphed and produced an immense impression with this ballet.

The 1912 season began in Paris and included one of the greatest musical scores Diaghilev ever commissioned Claude Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun , which was also Nijinsky’s first choreographed piece. The choreography caused a great scandal because of Nijinsky’s final onanistic pose. At this time, Diaghilev and Nijinsky studied eurythmics with Émile Jacques-Dalcroze. With Nijinsky in choreography, Fokine was forced to leave, having completed two additional ballets, Daphnis and Chloë, with music by Maurice Ravel and decor by Bakst, and Thamar, with music arranged from the late Russian composer Mily Balakirev and decor by Bakst.

The 1913 season was very critical to Diaghilev, as the loss of Fokine meant that much hinged on Nijinsky’s abilities as a choreographer. Diaghilev introduced two new ballets, The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky and Jeux by Debussy. The former, pictures of pagan Russia in two parts, was a primitive ritual sacrifice starring Nijinsky, with Marie Piltz as the chosen one, who must dance herself to death. Stravinsky’s music was harsh, even brutal, making a total break with neoromanticism. In this work, eurythmics were employed and the beat was crucial. The audience stamped, catcalled, and fought with the police. Even Debussy, sitting next to Diaghilev, blocked his ears. Yet Diaghilev enjoyed scandal and considered this his greatest evening. Diaghilev even experimented with pure rhythm and no music in Liturgie but abandoned the effort. Diaghilev greatly admired Stravinsky and commissioned Pulcinella, after scores that he discovered by Giovanni Pergolesi; Les Noces; Le Chant du Rossignol, adapted to the ballet from Stravinsky’s opera; Renard; and Apollo. He also commissioned Stravinsky’s operas Mavra and Oedipus Rex. From the moment he directly challenged Parisian taste with The Rite of Spring and won, he imposed his aesthetics on Paris.

It was after the 1913 season in Europe that the company went to South America and Nijinsky married a member of the ensemble, Romala de Pulszky. When Diaghilev found out, he used the excuse that Nijinsky had missed a performance to dismiss him and end their close relationship. Diaghilev was able to rehire Fokine, recruit new dancers on his last trip to Russia, and find a major new dancer, Léonide Massine, to take Nijinsky’s place.

The 1914 season saw the beginning of World War I. Nevertheless, Diaghilev added to his repertoire Le Coq d’Or , a three-act opera of Rimsky-Korsakov. An interesting feature of its performance was that the singers were placed in the pit and the dancers on the stage. Natalia Goncharova did the decor, and along with her husband, Mikhail Larionov, they were to be Diaghilev’s two most important designers. This was also the season in which Diaghilev introduced Richard Strauss’s music to the ballet in The Legend of Joseph. During 1915, the company was invited to the United States, and Diaghilev joined the troupe in the middle of its American tour. Rome became the Ballets Russes’s temporary home for the war years. There Diaghilev was joined by his intimate circle, the new “committee” composed of Bakst, Larionov, Goncharova, Stravinsky, Jean Cocteau, and Pablo Picasso. There, also, Massine produced the first choreographed work, The Good Humored Ladies. Furthermore, in 1917, Diaghilev produced his cubist fantasy, Parade, with book by Cocteau and decor by Picasso.

During 1917, the troupe went to Spain and remained there through 1918. From this experience, Massine produced his two Spanish inspired masterpieces, La Boutique Fantasque, with music arranged by Ottorino Respighi from that of Gioacchino Rossini, and The Three Cornered Hat by Manuel de Falla with Picasso’s decor. Nevertheless, by 1920 Massine and Diaghilev had a falling out, and Diaghilev chose Bronisława Nijinska, the great Nijinsky’s sister, as his choreographer. (Nijinsky himself had gone mad and remained institutionalized until his death in 1950.) In 1921, Sergey Prokofiev was first commissioned for Chout. Diaghilev tried to revive Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty, now called Sleeping Princess, but it did not succeed.

Surrounding Diaghilev in the 1920’s were the major artists of the period, from Georges Braque to Joan Miró to Henri Matisse. The year 1923 saw Nijinska produce her masterpiece, Les Noces. Nijinska’s choreography was composed of a combination of brusque movements at right or acute angles and a pas de bourrée with the dancers on the tips of their toes and the men stressing the music’s accents with a slow Botticelli-like undulation in groups.

Beginning in 1924, the troupe performed fewer new works. Darius Milhaud composed for Le Train Bleu, Nijinska did the choreography, and Picasso did the famous curtain. Beginning in 1925, both Serge Lifar and George Balanchine made their appearances in major roles as two of the last great protégés of Diaghilevism. Olga Spessivtzeva became Diaghilev’s final prima ballerina. Balanchine choreographed Diaghilev’s last two masterpieces, The Prodigal Son , with music by Prokofiev, and Apollo , with music by Stravinsky. Lifar starred in each of these. The decor by Rouault for The Prodigal Son was especially effective.

In 1928, Diaghilev was beginning to lose his enthusiasm for the ballet. He was exhausted and sick by 1929, lonely and isolated, with acute diabetes. He went to Venice to rest and died on August 19, 1929, at the Grand Hotel des Bains on the Lido; in the ballroom below, he had first heard The Rite of Spring, forty-eight ballets before his death. He is buried on the isle of San Michele. It is a fitting tribute that the Paris Opéra, the scene of some of his greatest triumphs, commemorated the square off Boulevard Haussmann next to the Opéra as Place Diaghilev.

Significance

Sergei Diaghilev is credited with revolutionizing the dance, an art form considered dead in 1909. Some of his greatest productions allowed Diaghilev to transform ballet while popularizing modern art and twentieth century music. His productions were based on the principles of asymmetry and vigorous motion in which both music and decor became integral features. Diaghilev’s personal coordination of all the elements of dance decor, costuming, music, story, and lighting produced extraordinary effects. The effects were gained by the collaboration of outstanding choreographers, dancers, composers, and painters. That collaboration was his greatest achievement.

Bibliography

Buckle, Richard. Diaghilev. New York: Atheneum, 1979. Though the author of this definitive biography greatly admires Diaghilev, he still remains objective. This book is well researched and splendidly illustrated.

Garafola, Lynn, and Nancy Van Norman Baer, eds. The Ballets Russes and Its World. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999. Collection of fourteen essays from dance and music scholars and critics assessing the importance of the Ballets Russes.

Grigoriev, S. L. The Diaghilev Ballet, 1909-1929. Translated by Vera Bowen. London: Constable, 1953. This is an impeccable source by a close collaborator of Diaghilev who knew the daily routine of the troupe and had an unfailing eye for what its best products were.

Haskell, Arnold L., and Walter Nouvel. Diaghileff: His Artistic and Private Life. London: V. Gollancz, 1935. This large book summarizes Haskell’s great admiration for Diaghilev, gaining greatly by Nouvel’s collaboration. This somewhat sensationalist book was long the standard work and remains a must for everyone.

Lifar, Serge. Serge Diaghilev, His Life, His Work, His Legend: An Intimate Biography. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1940. This is a splendid biography by one of Diaghilev’s greatest protégés. The author acquired the personal archive of Diaghilev and, given his personal acquaintance with Diaghilev, has produced a highly readable and reliable work. It is particularly good on the technicalities involved in being a great impresario.

Percival, John. The World of Diaghilev. London: Studio Vista, 1971. This is a brief and cogent review of Diaghilev’s life and work. It makes a good starting place for the beginner and contains a short table listing the ballets of Diaghilev and other details. It has some good black-and-white illustrations but lacks an index.

Press, Stephen D. Prokofiev’s Ballets for Diaghilev. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2006. Examines the fifteen-year collaboration between Diaghilev and composer Prokofiev, including descriptions of the ballets Prokofiev wrote for the Ballets Russes.