The New Romanticism in Russia
The latter half of the nineteenth century was prolific in ballets but, apart from Russia, gave us only one classic—Coppelia (1870) with the lovely Delibes music—though the schools of Paris, Milan and Naples continued to furnish Europe with maitres de ballet and dancers of wonderful skill and competence, long after their own native ballet had fallen into decay. In Milan the Director of the Imperial Academy of Dancing, Carlo Blasis, elaborated a perfected system of training of great importance for the future, while in Copenhagen the Bournonvilles, father and son, carried on the Vestris tradition. In Russia the Imperial School had been living on tradition handed down almost unbroken from the eighteenth century. Petipa, choreographer since 1862, composed long and intricate ballets full of invention and skill according to a set formula, but there was no collaboration between composer, librettist and designer. A new impulse was given to dancing by the visit of Virginia Zucchi to St. Petersburg in 1885, at the invitation of the Director of the Imperial Theatre, Vsevolozhsky, himself a remarkable man. Zucchi, a great dramatic actress, by her superb dancing and miming initiated a new movement, and Tchaikovsky, then at the height of his powers, was commissioned to compose a full-length ballet for her. The Sleeping Princess, produced in 1890, was an immediate success and was followed by Casse-Noisette. Lac des Cygnes, which had been a failure on its first production in 1877, was given new choreography by Petipa and his assistant Ivanov in 1895, after Tchaikovsky's death. All these ballets are likely to remain in the repertoire of any large company as Giselle has remained, for they have so much vitality and provide such wonderful opportunities for the prima ballerina to shine.
The new ballets had not broken with tradition but had given a new lease of life to a form of art which was to rise to still greater heights fourteen years later under the inspired leadership of a circle of artists and musicians grouped round Serge Diaghileff. Had there been no Imperial Russian Ballet to keep the tradition alive throughout the nineteenth century, there could have been no Diaghileff Ballet, for the performance of ballet depends largely on technical skill and a specialised training. And it is here that the school at Milan still had its part to play. When the Italian ballerina Legnani came as guest artist to dance at the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg she astonished the Russian public with her technical virtuosity. It was for her that the Lac des Cygnes as we now know it was created. When Diaghilerf was forming his troupe of dancers to dance outside Russia, the company which was to electrify Paris in 1909, he had the astuteness to secure the services not only of the great Fokine, who was to revolutionise the art of choreography, but of Cecchetti, the last and by no means the least of the long line of Milanese maitres de ballet who had trained dancers of European renown; the maestro to whom Pavlova would go for extra tuition during her vacations and the teacher of Nijinsky, Karsavina and other famous members of the Imperial Ballet in Russia. His pupils were to include two dancers of great importance in the future history of ballet in England, Marie Rambert and Ninette de Valois. Thus the Diaghileff Ballet, so free, so rich in its inspired creations, did not break technically with the past. It employed the instrument which had been preserved and cherished in Russia long after it had been allowed to fall into decay in Western Europe.
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