Catalogue Principally of Diaghilev Ballet Material: Decor and Costume Designs, Portraits and Posters. Theatre Designs from the Collection of the late Max Reinhardt (9-10 July 1969)
Sergej Dyagilev i russkoe iskusstvo. Stati, otkrytye pisma, intervju. Perepiska. Sovremenniki o Dyagileve. V 2-h tomah./Sergei Diaghilev and Russian art. Articles, open letters, interviews. Correspond
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev, usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.
Background
Sergei Diaghilev was born on March 31, 1872, to a wealthy and cultured family in Selishchi (Novgorod Governorate), Russia. His his father, Pavel Pavlovich, was a cavalry colonel, but the family's money came mainly from vodka distilleries. After the death of Sergei's mother, his father married Elena Valerianovna Panaeva, an artistic young woman who was on very affectionate terms with her stepson and was a strong influence on him. The family lived in Perm but had an apartment in Saint Petersburg and a country estate in Bikbarda (near Perm). In 1890, Sergei's parents went bankrupt, having for a long time lived beyond their means, and from that time Sergei (who had a small income inherited from his mother) had to support the family.
Education
Sergei's studies from an early age included music and music theory. At home and at school his role as 'Young Master' was accepted as appropriate. There were those then, and later, who thought he was arrogant, but it was generally recognized that he possessed superior qualities.
After graduating from Perm gymnasium in 1890, he went to the capital to study law at St. Petersburg University, but ended up also taking classes at the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music, where he studied singing and music (a love of which he had picked up from his stepmother). After graduating in 1892 he abandoned his dreams of composition (his professor, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, told him he had no talent for music).
During Sergei's years at University, Diaghilev's cousin Dmitry Filosofov introduced him to a circle of art-loving friends who called themselves The Nevsky Pickwickians. They included Alexandre Benois, Walter Nouvel, Konstantin Somov, and Léon Bakst. Although not instantly received into the group, Diaghilev was aided by Benois in developing his knowledge of Russian and Western art. In two years, he had voraciously absorbed this new obsession (even travelling abroad to further his studies) and came to be respected as one of the most learned of the group.
It was already clear that Diaghilev's taste in art as well as music was exquisite, and that he had a flair for discovering talent, and a talent for discerning its possibilities. He began to write essays about artists and art trends, and soon found himself, along with Benois and Baskt, opposed to existing art criticism. Neither the conservative academics nor the realism of the political left was acceptable to the three friends, and they were vehement in their objections. Non-political, they spoke for the new voice of art as the expression of the individual. From their fervor there came to life a new magazine titled Mir Isskustva (World of Art), which for five turbulent years shocked the art world.
One result was that outspoken Diaghilev was invited to join the Maryinsky Theatre, jewel of the Russian imperial theatres, to be in charge of "special missions." His first assignment was to edit the year book of the imperial theatres. He did it well and was then assigned the supervision of an opera, and after that a ballet. But his impatience and arrogance in dealing with the bureaucracy resulted in trouble, and in 1911 he left. It was at the Maryinsky that he became acquainted with Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Michel Fokine, and other members of the Imperial Ballet and further developed an interest in the ballet.
Pursuing his interest in Russian art he travelled extensively through the country to collect and make possible exhibits of arts of the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1905 he was responsible for a major St. Petersburg exhibit titled Russian Historical Portraits. He took the exhibit to Paris in 1907, the first export of Russian art. From that beginning in Paris there developed the opera and ballet career that was to make the name of Diaghilev a shining light in the Western world.
In 1908 Paris was receptive to new ideas. There Diaghilev presented Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunoff, with Maryinsky basso Feodor Chaliapin in the title role. The impact was ecstatic and resulted in an invitation to bring a troupe of Russian dancers to Paris. The result made history.
On October 19, 1909, the Ballets Russes presented five ballets, four of them choreographed by Fokine, who had already broken with the classical style and dared to invent dance movement appropriate to the ballet's subject. The ladies were not forever dainty, and the male dancers revealed an unprecedented energy and virtuosity. Nijinsky, Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Adolph Bolm, Mikhail Mordkin, and Ida Rubenstein were among the dancers. Fokine later wrote about opening night: " … the audience rushed and actually tore off the orchestra rail in the Chatelet Theatre. The success was absolutely unbelievable." Karsavina, in her book of recollections, Theatre Street, wrote "The atmosphere enveloping the Russian season had a subtle, light, gay intoxication. Something akin to a miracle happened every night—the stage and audience trembled in a unison of emotion."
In 1910 the ballet company returned to Paris, again on leave from the Maryinsky. But in 1911 Diaghilev decided he would set up a full-time, permanent company. With Baskt and Benois again as colleagues, he established the first privately supported company of people willing to give up pension, honors, and benefits to join Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. The company was already famous. It was soon to be augmented by other brilliant talents, men and women from countries other than Russia, attracted to collaborate in daring new ventures.
In the years between 1911 and Diaghilev's death in 1929 the company toured over and over again throughout Europe, South America, the United States. In England it inspired the beginnings of The Royal Ballet. In Boston a young Lincoln Kirstein, determined to be like Diaghilev, brought George Balanchine across the Atlantic to establish the School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet. New Englander Lucia Chase, a ballet student of Mordkin (who had been Pavlova's concert partner as well a member of Ballets Russes), was encouraged by him to start Ballet Theatre. And many of today's ballet teachers in the United States trace their pedagogical heritage to the Russians who stayed behind to open up dance studios.
In addition to Pavlova and Nijinsky, some of the company's famed dancers were Bolm, Dubrovska, Danilova, Dolin, Karsavina, Lifar, Lopokova, Markova, Mordkin, Sokolova, Spessivtzeva, Vilzak, Vladimirof, and Woizikovsky. While many of the dancers were not Russian-born, all of the choreographers were. Choreographers, and some of their ballets, were Fokine: Les Sylphides, Spectre de la Rose, Petrouchka, Firebird, and Scheherazade; Nijinsky: Afternoon of a Faun, Jeux, and Sacre du Printemps; Massine: Parade, Boutique Fantasique, and Le Tricorne; Nijinska: Les Noces and Les Biches; Balanchine: Apollo and Prodigal Son. While this is an incomplete list, it represents some of the Diaghilev ballets performed in company repertoires today, a remarkable reminder of Diaghilev "classics." Diaghilev died of diabetes in his beloved Venice on August 19, 1929.
Quotations:
"Of all the wonders that the world had to offer, only art promised immortality."
"Your Majesty, I am like you. I do no work. I do nothing, but I am indispensable."
Personality
Throughout his life, Diaghilev was severely afraid of dying in water, and avoided traveling by boat.
Diaghilev was known as a hard, demanding, even frightening taskmaster. Ninette de Valois, no shrinking violet, said she was too afraid to ever look him in the face. George Balanchine said he carried around a cane during rehearsals, and banged it angrily when he was displeased. Other dancers said he would shoot them down with one look, or a cold comment. On the other hand, he was capable of great kindness, and when stranded with his bankrupt company in Spain during the 1914–18 war, gave his last bit of cash to Lydia Sokolova to buy medical care for her daughter. Alicia Markova was very young when she joined the Ballet Russes and would later say that she had called Diaghilev "Sergypops" and he had said he would take care of her like a daughter.
Dancers such as Alicia Markova, Tamara Karsavina, Serge Lifar, and Lydia Sokolova remembered Diaghilev fondly, as a stern but kind father-figure who put the needs of his dancers and company above his own. He lived from paycheck to paycheck to finance his company, and though he spent considerable amounts of money on a splendid collection of rare books at the end of his life, many people noticed that his impeccably cut suits had frayed cuffs and trouser-ends.
Interests
Artists
The long list of collaborators in Diaghilev's Ballets Russes included designers Bakst, Benois, and famous names from the world of art—Braque, Chagall, Cocteau, de Cherico, Derain, Laurencin, Matisse, Picasso (who designed posters, sets, and costumes and also married a company ballerina), Roerich and Utrillo.
Music & Bands
Among those who composed music for his ballets were Debussy, de Falla, Milhaud, Poulenc, Prokofiev, Ravel, Satie, and Stravinsky.
Connections
Diaghilev's life and the Ballets Russes were inextricably entwined. His most famous lover was Nijinsky. However, according to Serge Lifar, of all Diaghilev's lovers, only Léonide Massine, who replaced Nijinsky, provided him with "so many moments of happiness or anguish." Diaghilev's other lovers included Anton Dolin, Serge Lifar and his secretary and librettist Boris Kochno. Ironically, his last lover, composer and conductor Igor Markevitch later married the daughter of Nijinsky. They even named their son Vaslav.
Diaghilev dismissed Nijinsky summarily from the Ballets Russes after the dancer's marriage in 1913. Nijinsky appeared again with the company, but the old relationship between the men was never re-established; moreover, Nijinsky's magic as a dancer was much diminished by incipient madness. Their last meeting was after Nijinsky's mind had given way, and he appeared not to recognise his former lover.