Nijinsky

by Lucy Moore

  43 ‘wicked’: Stoneley, A Queer History of the Ballet, pp. 68–9.

  44 ‘made me see’: Karsavina, Theatre Street, p. 283.

  44 ‘the clamorous demands … sensual demands’: quoted in Scheijen, Diaghilev, pp. 114–15 (phrases cited in different order from original source).

  46 ‘uninteresting’: Benois, Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet in London, p. 289.

  46 ‘to lose its human’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 210.

  46 ‘greatly impressed’: ibid., p. 253.

  46 ‘to their conversations’: ibid., p. 258.

  47 ‘to please Diaghilev’: quoted in Scheijen, Diaghilev, p. 162.

  47 ‘help cultivate’: quoted in Scheijen, ibid., p. 162.

  47 ‘his most fervent’: quoted in Scheijen, ibid., p. 169.

  47 It was first on the list he and Astruc wrote in June 1908 of what they hoped would form their 1909 season. See R. Buckle, Nijinsky (London, 1971), p. 63.

  48 ‘a child who’: Karsavina, Theatre Street, p. 170.

  48 ‘barefoot childish hoppings’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 224.

  48 ‘the green box trees’: quoted in R. Burt, The Male Dancer: Bodies, Spectacle, Sexualities (London, 1995), p. 13. Burt adds that at this time the male nude as a subject for painting and sculpture also disappeared, and plain, dark suits became a bland and sexless uniform for men of all classes.

  49 five times: N. Macdonald, Diaghilev Observed by Critics in England and the United States, 1911–1929 (London, 1975), p. 6.

  49 ‘I hated him’: Nijinsky, Nijinsky’ Diary, p. 103.

  50 ‘many beautiful women’: ibid., p. 205.

  50 ‘I knew perfectly’: Dolin, Autobiography, p. 44.

  51 ‘I came … long time’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 262. Some observers speculated that Lvov’s motive in trying to set him up with Diaghilev was to get rid of a lover of whom he had become bored, but I think Bronia and Nouvel’s accounts tally together better in this interpretation of events.

  3 DIEU DE LA DANSE, 1909–1910

  52 ‘the lovely sight’: Karsavina, Theatre Street, p. 219.

  52 ‘the tangled mass’: D. Milhaud, Notes without Music (London, 1952), p. 19.

  53 ‘little ladies … canary-bird’: de Gramont, Years of Plenty, pp. 24–5.

  54 ‘a fairy godmother’: Valentine Gross quoted in F. Steegmuller, Cocteau: A Biography (London, 1970), p. 69.

  54 ‘tournée des mécènes’: A. L. Haskell, Ballet Russe: The Age of Diaghilev (London, 1968), p. 11.

  55 ‘benevolent giant’: Drummond (ed.), Speaking of Diaghilev, quoting Marie Rambert, p. 110.

  55 ‘A conference was’: A. Khan, The Memoirs of the Aga Khan (London, 1953), p. 109.

  55 ‘It was impossible’: Romola Nijinsky, Nijinsky; and, The last years of Nijinsky, p. 120.

  55 ‘bare of adornment’: Karsavina, Theatre Street, p. 215.

  55 ‘did not want’: M. Calvocoressi, Music and Ballet: Recollections of M. D. Calvocoressi (New York, 1978), p. 226.

  56 ‘that would amaze’: Benois, Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet in London, p. 282.

  56 ‘shouted himself hoarse’: Karsavina, Theatre Street, p. 201.

  56 ‘had seen a Japanese’: ibid., p. 214.

  57 ‘His whole body’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 270.

  57 ‘a storm of applause’: Karsavina, Theatre Street, p. 197.

  57 ‘The familiar barriers … up there’: ibid., pp. 198–9.

  58 ‘every movement … his arm’: C. W. Beaumont, The Diaghilev Ballet in London, pp. 16–17.

  59 ‘wonder of wonders’: Commedia, 20 May 1909.

  59 ‘seen anything like’: A. Rubinstein, My Young Years (London, 1973), p. 219.

  60 ‘vacant eyes’: M. de Cossart, Ida Rubinstein (Liverpool, 1987), p. 17.

  60 ‘so thin you thought’: Cocteau, Journals, p. 55.

  61 ‘the cunning with’: Keynes, Lydia Lopokova, p. 215.

  61 ‘He couldn’t stand’: in Drummond (ed.), Speaking of Diaghilev, p. 244.

  61 ‘not this, that’: J. Bowlt, Z. Tregulova and N. R. Giordano (eds), Feast of Wonders: Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes (Milan, 2009), p. 21.

  61 ‘We really did’: Benois, Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet in London, p. 284.

  61 ‘we all lived’: S. Grigoriev, The Diaghilev Ballet, 1909–1929. (Harmondsworth, 1953), p. 25.

  61 And as Diaghilev’s most recent biographer Sjeng Scheijen observes, we must take the rapture shown by the ballet’s first audiences at face value.

  61 ‘Right away I’: S. Kahan, Music’s Modern Muse (Rochester, NY, 2003), p. 159 and Lifar, Serge Diaghilev, p. 161.

  61 ‘drably provincial’: ibid., p. 155.

  61 ‘When one has’: Tamara Nijinsky, Nijinsky and Romola (London, 1991), p. 376.

  62 walk upright: Oliveroff, Flight of the Swan: A Memory of Anna Pavlova, p. 163.

  62 ‘applied maximum … so that’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 401.

  62 ‘In no other art’: French Vogue, December 1986. R. Gottlieb (ed.), Reading Dance (New York, 2008), pp. 336–7.

  62 ‘how perfection lay’: Tamara Nijinsky, Nijinsky and Romola, p. 258.

  62 ‘should be as simple’: Romola Nijinsky, Nijinsky; and, The last years of Nijinsky, p. p. 93.

  62 ‘he could never watch’: ibid., p. 115.

  63 ‘like an old Marquise’: ibid., p. 89.

  63 ‘With Grigoriev following’: L. Sokolova, Dancing for Diaghilev (London, 1960), p. 39.

  63 ‘incapable of loving’: ibid., p. 37.

  63 ‘a capacity’: Benois, Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet in London, p. 190.

  63 ‘pride and joy’: Lifar, Serge Diaghilev, p. 143.

  64 ‘new existence’: Benois, Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet in London, p. 289.

  64 ‘uncanny swiftness … of Jesus’: Oliveroff, Flight of the Swan: A Memory of Anna Pavlova, p. 23.

  64 ‘tight, nervous … small space’: D. Bull, The Everyday Dancer (London, 2011), p. 159.

  64 ‘standing in the wings’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, pp. 517–18.

  64 ‘very small pair’: Cocteau, Journals, p. 50.

  64 ‘that murmuring’: J. Cocteau, Paris Album 1900–1914, p. 32.

  64 ‘We always knew’: L. Sokolova in Drummond (ed.), Speaking of Diaghilev, p. 144.

  65 ‘a glass … his shoulders’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 369.

  65 ‘His bearing was modest’: Beaumont, The Diaghilev Ballet in London, p. 28.

  65 ‘just as a horse’: Romola Nijinsky, Nijinsky; and, The last years of Nijinsky, p. 94.

  65 ‘all the ballerinas’: Nijinsky, Nijinsky’s Diary, p. 161.

  66 ‘great friends’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 273.

  66 ‘the peculiar specialities’: Romola Nijinsky, Nijinsky; and, The last years of Nijinsky, p. 95.

  66 ‘Bakst thought the women’: Steegmuller, Cocteau: A Biography, p. 78, quoting Paul Morand’s diary.

  66 ‘We are all living’: Karsavina, Theatre Street, p. 200.

  67 ‘that she was the only woman’: quoted in Scheijen, Diaghilev, p. 186.

  68 ‘Look at that strength!’: Buckle, Nijinsky, p. 95 and note.

  69 ‘the mere fact’: quoted in R. Davenport-Hine, A Night at the Majestic (London, 2006), p. 167.

  69 ‘I did not want … afraid of life’: Nijinsky, Nijinsky’s Diary, p. 198.

  69 ‘loved Diaghilev’: Nijinsky, Nijinsky’s Diary, p. 111.

  69 ‘this world of art’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 306.

  69 ‘but exhilarated at the prospect’: Massine, My Life in Ballet, p. 47.

  70 ‘like going to bed’: J. Richardson, Picasso, vol. 3, The Triumphant Years 1917–1932 (New York, 2007), p. 7.

  70 Figures from Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p. 178 and Buckle, Nijinsky, p. 106.

  71 Speculation on the genesis of Faune: Buckle, Nijinsky, p. 108 and note.

  71 ‘an eyeglass’: S. Lifar, Ma Vie: From
Kiev to Kiev (trans. J. H. Morgan; London, 1970), p. 41.

  71 ‘like a street urchin’: quoted in Stoneley, A Queer History of the Ballet, p. 68.

  71 ‘as if … stage costume’: Calvocoressi, Music and Ballet: Recollections of M. D. Calvocoressi, p. 209.

  72 ‘to society what Ida’: H. Acton, Memoirs of an Aesthete (London, 1948), p. 37.

  72 ‘it was more wonderful’: F. Rose, Saying Life (London, 1961), p. 70.

  72 ‘Diaghilev’s attitude’: Benois, Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet in London, p. 303.

  73 Firebird: R. Buckle, Diaghilev (London, 1979), p. 162, citing Boris Kochno.

  73 ‘in those days’: Benois, Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet in London, p. 302.

  73 ‘impossible to describe’: I. Stravinsky, Stravinsky in Conversation with Robert Craft (London, 1960), p. 174.

  73 ‘extraordinary … personality’: I. Stravinsky and R. Craft, Memories and Commentaries (Harmondsworth, 1960), p. 35 (phrases cited in different order from original source).

  73 ‘the elite … own art’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 306.

  74 ‘because I was’: Nijinsky, Nijinsky’s Diary, p. 89.

  74 ‘at ease … social blunder’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, pp. 306–7.

  74 ‘essay in choreography’: Buckle, Nijinsky, p. 130.

  74 ‘supremely right … heartache’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs p. 282.

  74 ‘I do not wish to share’: ibid.,, p. 283.

  75 ‘He was almost always alone’: ibid., p. 293.

  75 ‘that it … to speak’: Nijinsky, Nijinsky’s Diary, p. 52.

  75 ‘magic lantern’: quoted in Haskell, Ballet Russe: The Age of Diaghilev, p. 75.

  76 ‘Que veux-tu?’: Benois, Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet in London, pp. 310–11.

  77 ‘not unlike the bloom’: Beaumont, The Diaghilev Ballet in London, p. 33.

  77 ‘inexpressibly wild’: C. W. Beaumont, Michael Fokine and his Ballets (London, 1935), p. 42.

  77 ‘Nobody will believe me’: C. M. Joseph in L. Garafola and N. V. N. Baer (eds), The Ballets Russes and its World (New Haven, 1999), p. 201.

  77 ‘conscious of his performances’: Stravinsky and Craft, Memories and Commentaries, p. 36.

  77 ‘the grief of the repentant seducer’: Benois quoted in L. Kirstein, Nijinsky Dancing (London, 1975), p. 83.

  77 ‘his dancing was’: Beaumont, The Diaghilev Ballet in London, p. 24.

  77 ‘an acrobatic cat’: D. Parker, Nijinsky (London, 1988), p. 104.

  4 PETRUSHKA, 1910–1911

  78 ‘his usual brilliance’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 310.

  79 ‘I spit … at us’: ibid., p. 311.

  79 ‘But there was’: ibid., p. 314. 79 the music of Debussy: Bronia’s Memoirs indicate that even at this early stage he knew the music would be Debussy’s, but other sources suggest that the music was the last thing to fall into place, after Nijinsky had got quite far with his choreographic ideas. The fact that the music and his movements seem far apart in the piece might corroborate this.

  79 ‘I want to move away’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 315.

  80 ‘as if to encourage’: M. Chagall, My Life (London, 1965), p. 92.

  80 ‘an indecent … will be’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, pp. 319–20.

  81 ‘Paris is tolerant’: quoted in Scheijen, Diaghilev, p. 218.

  81 ‘conceited artist’: Benois, Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet in London, p. 318.

  82 ‘Vaslav was now’: ibid., p. 318.

  82 ‘Appalling scandal’: quoted in Scheijen, Diaghilev, p. 217.

  82 ‘where ballets’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 325.

  82 ‘A completely new path’: ibid., p. 324.

  84 ‘You don’t understand’: Karsavina, Theatre Street, p. 240.

  84 ‘looking very pompous’: Benois, Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet in London, p. 340.

  84 ‘a celestial insect’: Romola Nijinsky, Nijinsky; and, The last years of Nijinsky, p. 137.

  84 ‘suggested a cluster of leaves’: Beaumont, The Diaghilev Ballet in London, p. 28.

  84 ‘When he danced’: Rambert quoted in Drummond (ed.), Speaking of Diaghilev, p. 115.

  84 ‘the most perfect’: Beaumont, The Diaghilev Ballet in London, p. 26.

  84 ‘grace, freshness … the Rose’: E. Cecchetti and O. Racster, The Master of the Russian Ballet (London, 1922), p. 217.

  85 ‘The fact that’: Fokine, Memoirs of a Ballet Master, p. 182.

  85 ‘the artistry by which’: V. Gross, Nijinsky on Stage, p. 67.

  85 ‘played the chord’: D. Monteux, It’s All in the Music: The Life and Work of Pierre Monteux (London, 1966), p. 77.

  86 ‘all solicitude as’: Rambert, Quicksilver: The Autobiography of Marie Rambert, p. 57.

  86 ‘What grace coupled’: K. Kopelson, The Queer Afterlife of Vaslav Nijinsky (San Francisco, CA, 1997), p. 113; see also Steegmuller, Cocteau, p. 84 and J. Cocteau, The Cock and the Harlequin (Le Coq et l’Arlequin), translated by R. H. Myers (London, 1921), p. 42.

  87 ‘the “lowest sort”’: V. Stravinsky and R. Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents (London, 1960), p. 26.

  87 ‘that sets itself’ quotation continued, but in a better translation, in Homans, Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet, p. 290.

  87 ‘in perfect … of execution’: Fokine, Memoirs of a Ballet Master, p. 194.

  88 ‘The costumier … and glamorous’: M. Sert, Two or Three Muses (London, 1953), p. 129.

  88 ‘Only Monteux’: Monteux, It’s All in the Music: The Life and Work of Pierre Monteux, p. 76.

  89 ‘enchanted’: Benois, Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet in London, p. 337.

  90 ‘Only the swinging’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 373.

  90 ‘Of the once bright-red cheeks’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 373.

  90 ‘A friend … very clear’: E. Denby quoted in Paul Magriel, Nijinsky, Pavlova, Duncan: Three Lives in Dance (New York, 1977), pp. 19–20.

  90 ‘an entire poem’: Stravinsky and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, p. 67.

  90 ‘amplified the crazy doll’: Romola Nijinsky, Nijinsky; and, The last years of Nijinsky, p. 128.

  91 ‘seemed to have’: Beaumont, The Diaghilev Ballet in London, p. 45.

  91 distilling something … its loss: see Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, pp. 29, 32, 48.

  91 ‘personality, the imprisoned genius’: Keynes, Lydia Lopokova, p. 211.

  91 ‘a Hamlet’: Buckle, Nijinsky, p. 159.

  91 ‘to help the actor’: Valery Bryusov essay quoted in Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p. 27.

  91 ‘seen the finest actor’: Romola Nijinsky, Nijinsky; and, The last years of Nijinsky, p. 129.

  91 ‘the most … ever seen’: Stravinsky and Craft, Memories and Commentaries, p. 37.

  92 ‘the mythical outcast’: R. Gathorne-Hardy (ed.), Ottoline: the Early Memoirs of Lady Ottoline Morrell (London, 1964), p. 227.

  92 ‘in the midst’: S. Grigoriev, The Diaghilev Ballet, 1909–1929 (Harmondsworth, 1953), p. 55.

  92 ‘People thought and talked’: T. Beecham, A Mingled Chime (London, 1973), p. 149.

  92 ‘with their diamond tiaras’: Charles Ricketts quoted in Buckle, Diaghilev, p. 232.

  92 society girls: Lady Diana Cooper actually did; see Melville, Diaghilev and Friends, p. 122.

  92 ‘Now I knew’: M. Green, Children of the Sun: A Narrative of ‘Decadence’ in England After 1918 (New York, 1977), p. 30.

  93 ‘Je ne sais pas’: M. Draper, Music at Midnight (Kingswood, Surrey, 1929), p. 143.

  93 ‘he ate and drank’: ibid., p. 188.

  93 ‘Always he demanded’: Lifar, Diaghilev, p. 299.

  94 ‘the most rigorous seclusion’: Romola Nijinsky, Nijinsky; and, The last years of Nijinsky, p. 113.

  94 ‘to go … Certainly not’: Steegmuller, Cocteau: A Biography, p. 80.

  94 ‘childishly spoiled’: Stravinsky and Craft, Memories and Comme
ntaries, p. 35.

  94 ‘on the pretext’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 339.

  94 ‘mon petit’… restless: Count Harry Kessler and Kuzmin quoted in Scheijen, Diaghilev, p. 238.

  94 ‘thought I went out … horrible’: Nijinsky, Nijinsky’s Diary, p. 18.

  94 ‘I received a moral blow … a beast’: ibid., p. 20.

  95 ‘You have slapped … of China’: Karsavina, Theatre Street, p. 285 and Buckle, Nijinsky, p. 156. This took place in 1910. I am assuming that Diaghilev used the feminine pronoun because it simply wouldn’t have been acceptable to use the male. Whatever he may have thought Karsavina understood about his personal life, I don’t think he would ever have referred to it directly with her. In the unlikely case he had said ‘he’, she would almost certainly have changed it herself for publication.

  5 FAUNE AND JEUX, 1911–1913

  96 ‘That’s not so great … the ballet’: Benois, Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet in London, p. 318.

  97 ‘carry out my artistic ideas’: Lifar, Diaghilev, p. 142.

  97 ‘Oh, he was like the rest of them’: C. Spencer, Léon Bakst (London, 1978), p. 98.

  97 lacked taste: from Haskell, Ballet Russe, p. 74. Since Haskell relied heavily on Walter Nouvel’s interpretation of events, we can assume that Diaghilev’s ‘close collaborator’ to whom Haskell credits this assertion was Nouvel.

  97 ‘sweetly sentimental’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 315.

  97 ‘Leaping to his feet’: Lifar, Diaghilev, p. 146.

  97 Meyerhold: Faune transposed to the dance stage Meyerhold’s ‘static Theatre’ with its ‘two-dimensionality, stylised posture, foreshortened stage, depersonalised performing style, totalising design, and slow “signifying” movement’. Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p. 54.

  97 ‘moving bas-relief’: Haskell quoted in Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p. 52.

  98 ‘the source … own way’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 315.

  98 ‘laboratory experiments in’: Haskell, Balletomania, p. 82.

  98 ‘Explaining is the wrong word’: Rambert, Quicksilver: The Autobiography of Marie Rambert, p. 59.

  98 ‘without any preparation … the movement’: Nijinska, Early Memoirs, p. 316 (phrases cited in different order from original source).

  99 ‘unexpected and unusual severity’: ibid., p. 328.

  99 ‘remoteness of music’: Buckle, Nijinsky, p. 164.