The history of art is woven with scandals, tumults and disorder. All this reigned on May 29, 1913 within the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées during the creation of the Rite of Spring, by Igor Stravinsky. One hundred and ten years after the eruption of the “volcano”, this work continues to nourish a fascinating myth.
I am taking advantage of its presentation this week by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Rafael Payare, to return to its history which has fascinated me for many years.
To recount this event, we must first talk about Serge de Diaghilev, this genius impresario who had a considerable influence on the performing arts at the beginning of the 20th century.e century. First director of the Ballets Russes of the Mariinsky Theater, he created his own troupe when he settled in Monaco in 1911.
This man who was feared as much as he was admired acted as absolute master over a court of submissive artists, crazy and rich countesses, and young favorites. Diaghilev was made of audacity and steel. He surrounded himself with talents made from the same materials: Michel Fokine, Stravinsky, Debussy, Léon Bakst, Jean Cocteau, Erik Satie and several others.
In 1913, Diaghilev composed a season of Ballets Russes for various cities, including Paris. He commissions music for a ballet from Stravinsky. The composer of Fire Bird And Petrouchka imagines a plot where it is a question of pagan rites during which a virgin dedicated to sacrifice dances until death, a sort of symbol of ancient Russia.
When he first heard the work performed on the piano by Stravinsky, Diaghilev was not impressed.
During one particular passage, he asks the composer: “How long will it last?” » The latter replies dryly: “As long as it takes. »
Diaghilev entrusted the dancer Nijinsky with the choreography of this ballet as he had done a year earlier with Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. This idea does not enchant Stravinsky who deplores “the ignorance of the most elementary notions of music” on the part of the dancer who constructs a demanding and complex choreography.
“Presumptuous, capricious and intractable”, Nijinsky damned Stravinsky and the entire troupe for months. According to documents, the fumbling choreographer required 120 rehearsals.
On the evening of the premiere, a certain excitement reigned behind the scenes, but nothing more. After all, the general held the day before went well with an audience made up of many painters, men of letters and musicians, including Ravel and Debussy (some sources claim that they were rather present at the premiere).
But on the evening of the 29th, it was the Parisian elite who came running. You should know that this evening marks the inauguration of the Champs-Élysées theater. Jean Cocteau, present at the premiere, also claims that “this worldly audience adorned with pearls, egrets and ostrich feathers” coupled with “a work of strength and youth” is the source of the poor reception Artwork.
The room plunged into darkness, conductor Pierre Monteux takes the podium. Stravinsky is in the room. As soon as the first bars begin, at the sight of the strange costumes and the dancers who rest their cheeks in one hand, a spectator calls out loudly: “A doctor, please!” » Laughter bursts out. Then another spectator adds: “No, more like a dentist!” » It’s a stampede!
When the first dissonances arise and the chaotic rhythms marked by the now famous bowing strokes of the Sacred, chaos spreads throughout the room. Spectators whistle, some get up and leave their seats.
In an attempt to calm the audience, Diaghilev turns the theater lights up and down. This adds fuel to the fire.
Stravinsky joins Nijinsky backstage. The latter stands on a chair and shouts the measures to the dancers: “I had to hold Nijinsky by his clothing. Because he was furious, ready at any moment to leap onto the stage to make a scene,” Stravinsky recounts in his Chronicles.
Just as observant and bad-tongued as his friend Marcel Proust, Jean Cocteau recounts: “Standing in her dressing room, her diadem askew, the old Countess de Pourtalès brandished her fan and shouted, all red: “This is the first time in sixty years make fun of me.” »
Misia Sert, great friend and patron of the impresario, witnesses this “battle”, divided between trouble and pride. “The howls of enthusiasm, interspersed with roller whistles and shrill cries, managed to create such a tumult that Astruc (Gabriel Astruc was the director of the Champs-Élysées theater) had to get up to harangue the spectators and re-establish a semblance of order. »
Suffering from a typhus attack, Stravinsky did not go to London to hear his Sacred. Diaghilev then hastened to withdraw the show from the Ballets Russes repertoire on the grounds that it “was not popular with the public”.
A year later, Pierre Monteux directed The Rite of Spring in concert version. The hall gave Stravinsky a triumph with endless ovations. The reviled work entered the upper room. All the mystery and sublimity of art are there.
Grandiose, violent, wild and overwhelming, The Rite of Spring is all that. Since its creation, we have never stopped wondering about the role it has played in modernity. Did this work, certainly revolutionary, also benefit from a mythology that only art is capable of creating? To find out, you would have to be able to go back in time and experience what happened on May 29, 1913 at the Champs-Élysées theater.
So, to the famous question “What moment in History would you like to experience?” “, what do you think I would answer?
The Rite of Springwith the OSM under the direction of Rafael Payare, September 12, 13 and 14, Maison symphonique