August 20, 2009: Listening to Stravinsky in his proper context

We have become so familiar with concert performances of the music that Igor Stravinsky composed for ballets created for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes that we tend to think of them as concert, rather than theatrical, compositions.  There is no doubt that there is much to listen to in these works, but there is something missing when the listening experience is divorced for the choreography for which the music was created.  Unfortunately, there are few opportunities in which we can experience this more complete account of the synthesis of music and dance;  but an excellent one is now available in cyberspace as one of the offerings of Classical TV.  One of the Premium Video offerings is entitled The Ballets Russes at the Mariinsky.  It presents three ballets for which Stravinsky composed the music, each for a different Ballets Russes choreographer:

1. The Firebird by Michel Fokine, regarded by many (including myself) as the Father of modern ballet.
2. The Rite of Spring by Vaslav Nijinsky, one of his few choreographic efforts and probably Stravinsky's most famous succès de scandale.
3. Les Noces by Nijinsky's sister, Bronislava Nijinska, one of the most interesting (for both its choreography and its music) works to enter the Diaghilev repertoire following the First World War.

This Mariinsky effort is probably as close as we are going to get to faithful reconstruction of the original choreography and original performance practices;  and, with Valery Gergiev in the orchestra pit, we also have the benefit of a conductor who understands the Russian roots of the music and delivers performances that serve both the dancers and the listeners in equal measure.

Each of these ballets is revolutionary in its own way.  On the surface The Firebird is a setting of a traditional Russian folk tale;  but, from a dramatic point of view, it is far from routine.  Althought the Firebird herself is critical to the plot, we see relatively little of her;  and, while the story is told in such a way that creates abundant opportunities for virtuosic dance, the concluding wedding scene is practically static.  However, when we see this ballet, rather than just listen to the music, we appreciate just how skillful Stravinsky was in complementing Fokine's approach to narrating this tale through dance.  This score is probably Stravinsky at his most motivic;  and those motives tend to keep "narration time" valuably coupled to both "narrative past" and "narrative future."  Furthermore, while the appearances may seem a bit too stylized, both the music that the performances by the dancers establish this as a ballet that, while now one hundred years old, is very much a work of the present.

What we know best about The Rite of Spring is the riot it sparked on opening night.  Stravinsky's Autobiography would have us believe that his music was the primary provocation, beginning with its first notes played by a bassoon in a very high register.  Stravinsky was not particularly kind to Nijinsky in this account, giving the impression that he never quite knew what he was doing and that the choreography would be better off forgotten.  However, in 1987 the Joffrey Ballet performed the result of Millicent Hodson's effort to reconstruct Nijinsky's choreography;  and, while she has taken a fair amount of criticism for her results, I personally enjoyed the Joffrey performance the first time I saw it on Public Television.  The decision of the Mariinsky to stage her reconstruction gives the work a certain imprimatur of authenticity.

I suspect that some of the criticism directed against Hodson had to do with the fact that the choreography did not, in any way, look like classical ballet.  As I see it, this takes the spotlight away from Stravinsky in accounting for why the audience rioted.  The work abounds in rhythmic stomping and jumping, giving all the impressions of a primitive society with none of the refinements that would later be called "art."  This vision seems perfectly consistent with the folk source material that Stravinsky concealed within his polyrhythms and raucous orchestration.  Most important, at least in the Mariinsky performance, is that the premise of the "rite" itself, a virgin selected to sacrifice herself by dancing herself to death, was surprisingly credible.  We should all be thankful that this particular resource is now so readily available to anyone curious about it through the good graces of the Internet.

One possible warrant for the claim that Nijinsky's choreography consisted heavily of that "rhythmic stomping and jumping" is that his sister's choreography of a more recent traditional wedding ceremony ("Les Noces") draws upon similar rhetoric.  Nijinska's composition is more disciplined than her brother's, particularly in the way she contrasts intense activity with equally intense stasis;  but both works rely fundamentally on the "raw basics" of movement itself.  This is one of Stravinsky's most complex works, setting four solo voices and a full chorus against four pianos and four percussionists;  but Nijinska's choreography distills all of that complexity to a ritual that is simpler than Nijinsky's and far more familiar.  The pairing of these two works is all the more interesting for the different strategies of control that Gergiev brings to managing their respective musical resources.  I would guess that anyone willing to take the time to watch the almost two hours of video available in this offering will not listen to Stravinsky in concert quite the same way again;  and, from the point of view of our all trying to be better listeners, I would take that to be a good thing!