BALLET SEASON OPENS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 73, 29 March 1937, Page 6

BALLET SEASON OPENS

STIRRING RECEPTION

DANCE, MUSIC, COLOUR

Just by way of an aperitif, Colonel de Basil's Monte Carlo Russian Ballet season at the Opera House on Saturday was opened with the ballet music from Schubert's "Rosamunde." It was not danced to, but was beautifully played by the-orchestra, it proved a wise selection, for putting the large audiences at the two performances into the right humour of expectancy and receptivity for. the business in hand, the ballets. In passing it should be stated that the orchestra consisted of some 25 instrumentalists, strings, wood, brass, and percussion, bui no place was found for the saxophone. It was an orchestra, hot a Dand, forming an integral part of the ballet, ancillary to what was going on on the stage. This point appeared to be clearly perceived by tne audience at both performances: it listened to the orchestra, the buzz of talking stopped when the conductor raised his baton, and a quiet and respectful hearing was given to the music. Tension was relieved by a <*reat burst of applause when it ceased. Then the curtain rose, discovering a glade with rocks and a pool, all in subdued colour and indefinite outline, and suffused by a delicate hue midway between blue and silver, suggesting the atmosphere of that borderland or buffer state between reality and fancy, which is crossed and recrossed by elves sprites, pixies, leprechauns, and such folk in their traffic with facts and real people. The title of the ballet to which this simple and beautiful stage scene was the background was Les Sylphides," the music appertaining to the ballet being drawn from the treasury of Chopin. The sylphs were all grouped at the back of the stage like a flock of white herons, dominated by a solitary male being (Igor Yousskevitch), who was also all in white except for a dark-coloured doublet. The sylphs were made up and wore the ample skirts of the dancers of long ago of whom steel engravings survive to tell us how they looked, but suggesting barely the grace with which they danced. So they stood, in "Les Sylphides," awaiting the note or cue from the orchestra, upon which they danced into life, the silver-blue light in delicate nuances playing . over all. The first dance was a nocturne—a perfect example of the unity of the arts of music, poetry, dancing, design, and colour. The principals were Helene Kirsova, Nina Youchkevitch, Nathalie Branitza, and Igor Yousskeyitch, with a pas de deux by Anna Skarpa and Irma Bondireva. It.was a singularly Graceful expression in human action of Chopin's musical ideas, so iar as the dance might express them. All was in perfect harmony and perfect time There followed familiar waltzes and mazurkas with a prelude interpolated, as music suitable for the ballets purposes. The music, cleverly orchestrated and exquisitely played as it was, seemed subordinated to the dance— the dance was the thing. -So the audience thought, so it expressedl itself m applauding every feature in the ballet and in a tornado of applause at the close-calling and recalling the principals to! the footlights to show what it thought of them and their art. "Les Svlphides" was too the acme of graceful movement in every part of the body legs and feet, arms and hands, boay and head, face and features each eloaSent in turn, and sometimes all together perfect in harmony, unity, and fhythm, sometimes the very muscles when visible, having something to say in faultless time to the.music What followed this jjeauty? Stark The «ors, toU *■> "»"•■ , bul "^ ZSSZ'l&f? w2<a£SS«%| They were. No sooner had the oultan SKf retinue left the palace thanthe wives, including the houn Zobeide (Nina Raievska), and the oddeques Thadee Slavinsky) to letloose a gang of negroes among the ladies ot tne harem, and the orgy was on. "led to some wild delirious dances and the Sing of'imaginary potent liquors from papier mache beakers and goblets also for the benefit of the enhrilled audience some richly coloured and embroidered groupings. So the pace I?ew faster and faster. Discretion was banished in voluptuous and shameless wantonness. Then the Sultanl and his brother returned. Hysterical and drunken laughter gave place to screams for mercy. There was none for these incontinent wives and their coloured gentlemen friends. Zobeide stabbed herself, falling near the prostrate body of her slaughtered particular negro partner (Leon Woizikowsky). The stage was cumbered with the dead and dying wives and their negro lovers. The Sultan and his associates having nothing more to do, wipe their dripping scimitars and put them up. The tragedy is over, notla word said, not a sound, except of footfalls, heard throughout but all is done to and in time with the music of Rimsky-Korsakoff. The curtain fell to deafening applause. It was wonderfully descriptive dancing,, uncanny in its expressiveness, especially that of Woizikowsky, which was suggestivlof all the agility and. ferocity of the panther, in contrast with that of Zobeide representing the sinuous; progress and fascination of the viper. Everything in the dance was m keeping"with the. spirit of revolt against conventions, whatever they maybe, tot even Sultans1 wives are required to respect and observe. By way of contrast the next and final ballet, was "Le Mariage d'Aurore.." For this fine example of choreographic art, the music was furnished by Tchaikovsky's^Sleeping Beauty." The ballet contained a dozen episodes, each complete in itself yet forming.part of a delightful whole. The curtain rose on a setting of the interior of a palace of proportions, giving the idea of immensity, a skilful combination of massiveness with elegance. Ladies of honour, quaintly attired, with attendant gentlemen, wearing embroidered militarly coats and glittering silver helmets with feathers, also knee breeches and silk stockings and shoes, all led by. a marshal in scarlet and gold-laced tunic, black tricorne, and breeches and stocKings a costume of the period of Queen Anne, also caprymg a staff of office. This gay and gallant company danced together and the duchesses separately, but in the main they formed the background for six little and entirely dissimilar dance solos, called variations, by Irina Vassilieva, Nathalie Branitzka, Anna Skarpa, Marija Korjinska, Tamara Tchinarova, Nina Youchkevitch. Each little dance was a scintillant gem in itself. In the opinion of the enraptured audience the outstanding episode was "The Blue Bird" by Nina Golovina and M. Roland Guerard. They were recalled again and again, she for her charm and grace, he for his amazing neatness of figure and fluent dancing and the lightness and airiness of his movements. Other episodes which greatly pleased and were admirably danced were "Ariane and her Brothers" (including MM Birger Bartholin and Thos. Armour); "Red Riding Hood" (Vanda Grossen, and "The Wolf," Milos Ristic the Chinoiserie, "The Porcelain Princesses" (Sonia Woizikowsky and Irina Bondireva with Jean Hoyer); and the "Three Ivans," a real Russian dance, squatting on the heels (MM. Valery Shaevsky, Serge Unger, and Dmitri Tovaroff. The whole concluded with the full strength of the ballet in a brilliantly danced mazurka. The conductor of ",Les Sylphides" was Ivan Clayton, and of "Scheherazade" and "Le Mariage d'Aurore" Jascha Horenstein. . . The ballet master was Leon Woizikowsky. • The season will continue the programme given on Saturday and a com- j

plete change will be ■ made in the next programme. The ballet completely captivated the audience at both performances on Saturday and is certain to do so until the end of the season.