The Ballet Time
The Ballet Time column presents an Elena Solominskaya's article dedicated to different versions of the Igor Stravinsky ballet The Rite of Spring. She considers its history as a mythological phenomenon. Its destiny caused its creators' anxiety even before it had been completed: the musicians refused to play the score, Stravinsky himself couldn't understand Nijinsky's choreography, whereas Nijinsky in turn caused an outcry on the part of the dancers. Having gone through as many as 120 rehearsals, The Rite of Spring was then only performed six times. But under the influence of its sacred magic, representatives of various schools and currents have been turning to it time and again. A foundation for their fantasies the artists find not so much in the plot as in the form, power and diversity of the Stravinsky's score. The Rite of Spring is a demolition, transformation and dynamic shaping of styles and forms, interpretations and compositions.
Another version of The Rite belonged to Leonid Massine (1920). As opposed to the Nijinsky's version, whose choreography had allowed the dancer's body to reveal its own abilities in new motions, the Massine's widely open compositions were oriented at spatial concepts of the dance. Stravinsky himself compared the ordonnance of Massine's ballet to his own musical concept. Massine felt free to change the plot according to the music, having made a first step towards development of a ballet of the new era – the symphonic one.
The Roman version by the choreographer Aurel Milloss (1941) hadn't been much of a success. The next staging belongs to Mary Wigman (Germany, 1957). She had raised the plane of the stage, having created a kind of podium on which girls in long black frocks danced around in ranks, forming various geometrical figures. Their postures of “worshiping the Earth” were to gain a second wind in 1959 in the famous Rite by Maurice Bejart. The difference would be that the latter was to represent a masculine prayer of savage men living in the woods, who know neither remorse nor mercy… Bejart would also avoid focusing on the plot, as if foreseeing, by his choreography, contemporary, as opposed to archaic, motives of the presented events.
Yet another choreographer who ventured into The Rite of Spring was the 90-year-old Martha Graham, one of the former performers (1930) of The Chosen One in the Massine's version. For her it was important to realize the power of rite, so she didn't follow any particular scenario.
In 1970's two Rite's lighted upon Europe: the Hamburg one, by John Neumeier (Le Sacre), and the Wuppertahl one, by Pina Bausch. And if the music of Stravinsky was referred to as “signals in the dark”, then perhaps no one has ever expressed the finitude of those signals more clearly than Bausch had. The naked form of the motions bore characteristics of some deadly rapture in the human essence.
In the 1980's, a Swedesh choreographer Mats Ek, who had seen the flourishing Rite of Bejart's and appreciated its femininity in Graham's one, once again turned to the sacral music of Stravinsky. Working with the Kullberg Ballet troupe, he aspired to combine the idea of a radically new music (of the beginning of the century) with that of a radically new cinema (of the 60's). Stravinsky's music and Kurosawa's films, a synthesis of Western choreography and Oriental dance have become a benchmark of Ek's philosophy of ballet.
The version by Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer with the Joffrey-Ballet troupe (1987), in whose making eyewitness accounts and memoirs, as well as archival materials, had been used, is considered the closest one to the original choreography by Wazlaw Nijinsky and the scenography by Nicholas Roerich.
On the Russian stage, The Rite of Spring first saw the spotlight in 1965 at the Bolshoy, choreographed by Natalia Kasatkina and Vladimir Vasilev. In 1969, it reached the banks of the Neva and was staged again by the same choreographers at the Malyi Opera and Ballet Theater of Leningrad. Later yet, they again staged The Rite of Spring at their own Classical Ballet Theater in Moscow.
The Russians “on the other side” haven't abstained from The Rite of Spring either. Baryshnikov has performed the part of the Youth in a Glenn Tetley production at the American Ballet Theater, while Valeri Panov had done the same at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin and later again in Antwerp with the troupe of The Royal Ballet of Flanders.
The contemporary European versions of The Rite of Spring have little to do with the pagan ritual of the ancient Rus'. They are almost completely devoid of any Russian motifs. The text of the dance becomes capacious and multicultural, more and more intensive and polyphonic. In the latest versions that I have seen in Germany and Switzerland – one by Richard Verlock in Basel, one by Antonio Gomez at the Mannheim Theater, and one by Ouri Vamos precedence over the contents and meaning of the action.
Whether in The Rite of Spring of the 21st century the toughness and aggression will prevail, such as have been so fashionable in the ballet constructions of the second half of the 20th century, time alone can prove. One might only suggest that the sacredness in that ritual sense which was originally assumed in the Stravinsky-Roerich libretto, given all tragic realities of the passed century, will assume more and more abstract and philosophical character, drifting away from the specific historical form of human sacrifice per se.
The remarkable ballerina Nina ANANIASHVILI offers her reflections on herself, on Fate, on classical ballet.
Natalia LEDOVSKAYA, the star of the K. S. Stanislavsky and Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater of Moscow, is one of the most brilliant ballerinas of her generation. She is now at that happy stage, the golden section of her career, when the acquired mastery and artistry afford her roles brilliance and thoroughness, while her youthfulness preserves in them lightness and volitation. 
Natalia SADOVSKAYA represents a ballet branch of the renowned theatrical family. For almost quarter of a century she had danced on stage of the Bolshoy, after which she went back to school and graduated from the A. Lunacharsky State Institute (now the Russian Academy) of Theatrical Arts. Now, she thought, it was high time for her to commit herself to ballet criticism. And indeed it was – for a while. But traveling all over the country and getting acquainted with many a ballet troupe gradually invoked in Natalia Mikhailovna the desire to make the riches of her homeland's arts available to the widest range of audience possible – reaching out far beyond one city, one region, one republic. That's how she got possessed with the idea to start bringing together ballet personalities from all over the country, popularizing their art, showing their achievements. And so in 1979, the first opera and ballet festival initiated by Sadovskaya was held in Minsk.
Lyudmila SAKHAROVA. It's she, the great ballet teacher, who once uttered the words, “A teacher must possess many qualities – firmness and softness, patience and perseverance and sturdiness… But above all is love for children, desire to train them up, all of them, both week and strong. And, creativity in one's approach to one's task is also above all…”
Ninel YULTYEVA has been deservedly dubbed a legend of the Tartar ballet scene. Ninel Dautovna's artistic career started off in Kazan' when she successfully danced the title role in Zugra, a ballet by Zhiganov. Since then she performed many leading roles on stage of the Musa Jalil Tartar Opera and Ballet House, including Nikiya, Giselle, Kitri, Odette-Odilie, Aurora, Laurencia, Esmeralda, Maria (The Fountain of Bakhchisarai), Katerina (The Stone Flower), Sari (The Path of Thunder), Raymonda and Suimbike (Shurale). As a choreographer Ninel Yultyeva “moved” to Kazan' and revived in the local theater such masterpieces as Swan Lake, Chopiniana (Les Sylphides), Scheherazade, La Bayadere, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Fountain of Bakhchisarai; she also stages many concert compositions.
The World of Ballet column presents information about three events of global scale. Victor Ignatov in his article The Pavane of Lyons relates of the 10th International Dance Biennial in Lyons dedicated to arts of the Latin America. Guy Darme, festival's founder and director, has invited 34 troupes (600 artistes) from 12 countries. During three weeks 120 performances had been held in 19 concert halls of Lyons, including ten world and European premieres. The most crowded were a pageant that attracted 45,000 people, and three dance balls – Cuban, Argentinean and Brazilian.