LONDON SEASON

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 105, 31 October 1933, Page 4

LONDON SEASON

BATTLE OF THE BALLETS

AFTER DIAGHILEFF

It seemed almost certain, that an exceptionally dull London season would end with the departure of the Central .European Ballets Jooss. Then, to everyone 's surprise, there were announced visits from "Les Ballets 1933," the "Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo," and the "Ballets Serge Lifar," writes W. H. Haddon Squire in the "Christian Science Monitor." These companies had all taken part in the Paris season but, so far as art is concerned, Londoners know as much about what is happening in Paris as they do about the latest music in Mars. Only a handful of dancers had heard that Georges Balanchine was choreographer for "Les Ballets 1933" and that Leonide Massive was maitre de ballet of- the "Ballets Busses." .'. Both, of course, with Serge Lifar, were discoveries of Diaghileff and had done their early work under his supervision. When other familiar names associated with the old Diaghileff Ballet were announced, such as Woizikovsky, Danilova, Doubrovska, and Nikitina, the London dancing public—perhaps the keenest and most critical in Europe —began to sit up and take notice. Since the father of modern ballet

'passed away there has becn_ little enough, to deserve or hold critical attention. The stage was now set for an artistic battle royal of the ballets and their three rival choreographers, NOT A BALLET. "Les Ballets 1933" led off at the' Savoy Theatre with a programme that included "Anna Anna," the text and music of which have, already been described. A not very edifying story is decorated with movement and music, but by no stretch of imagination can the work be. called in a strict sense a ballet. The genre is that of a distant literary relation of the old Morality Play. The Anna who mimed very cleverly in the person of •. charming Tilly Losch, and her other self, the Anna who sang —sometimes strangely like a chorus girl—with the voice of Lotte Lenja, would, one could not help thinking, have lived .much less awkwardly between the covers of a book. And the presence of "a male quartet, which represents the family at home and among whom the mother can be seen in a gray wig; booming out in a basso prof undo voice her opinions upon her daughter," is enough to.cramp the style of any girl • —even a hard-hearted Anna. Kurt "Weill's music begins well, but declines into competence.' "Errante," thanks to the decors and costumes of Paul Tehelitchev, had a more attractive stage. Posturing and running about bare-footed are, however, once more a poor substitute for the vocabulary of the classical dance. The bigger the scale, the weaker the effect. Even with the aid of Balanchine as "choreographer," Tilly Losch

could not, for all her charm and cleverness, escape the narrow limitations inherent in this ''expressionist" conception of ballet. The music of Schubert, though tricked out with orchestral decor and costumes by Charles Kocchlin, seemed singularly inappropriate to a . desperately serious and highfaluting theme. Schubert lived in an unsophisticated age which kuew nothing of expressionism, cubism, futurism, and nepthis or neo-that. Why drag him in to do a job obviously more suited to a composer who has enjoyed these blessings? "Mozartiana" brought us back to tho classical school but Balanehino'S choreography turned out to be curiously ineffective. Tho old ingenuity is there, but everything is too much on one level. There are —if ono may use the metaphor—^too few high lights. In a lessor degree the same may be said of the choreography of "Les Songes," an attractive ballet for which Deiain has supplied the libretto, decor, and costumes, and Darius Milhaud tho music. Whatever tho reason is—some here- will point-to the influence of the Central European school —Balanchi.no lias disappointed his old admirers. Beraiu 's stage is delightful,- and although a few may object to "straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps," Milhaud 's score holds the attention and there are passages ■which show him at his best. Tamara Toumanova, who danced the part of the Ballerina, has an excellent technique and shows promise as an artist. . Then, at the same theatre and under the same management—Edward James —we saw the Ballets Serge Lifar in

"Promcthec" with Beethoven's music and choreography by Lifar. The rest of the ■programme was nmdeup of "Lo Spectre' de la Rose," "Jj'Aprcs-niidi^ cVun Faunc,"'and a group of divertissements. Perhaps not\ altogether inappropriately it may be said that-vaulting ambition o'erleapt itself in "Promethee." Lifar's acrobatic style and sharp accents are, to say the least, illsuited to the symmetry of Beethoven. And. the treatment is completely out of scale with such a big subject. .Bigness was confined to the frame, tlie stage itself, 'which looked strangely empty with, the dwarfed half-dozen dancers who made up the full cast. The impression was of pygmies playing a drama, of Titans. The choreography, "inspired by Nijinsky," of " L'Apres-ruidi dun. Faune,'' was more successful. But the Faune, played by Lifar himself, has reduced the number /of Ms nymphs, to one—who made only a brief appearance. The old JNJijinsky frieze of nymphs, "furtive, nimble, and voiceless,?' supplied a line and pattern thai one missed badly-in the Lifar version. But light-footed Diana Gould stepped oa to. the stage- as if straight from-.au idyll of Thepcritus. In a few fleeting moments .this gifted . young - artist managed to convey the dreamlike, atmosphere, the1 borderland of. waking and sleeping, which saturates Mallarme's poem and Debussy's music. No1 sooner—like the faun—had we caught a glimpse of a white shadow than, it was gone. • •-. "Les Ballets 1933" failed to win tha support of the general public, but "Ballets Eusses.de Monte Carlo" woa truly sensational success.