GREAT ANNIVERSARIES

100th ANNIVERSARY OF DIAGHILEV'S BALLETS RUSSES


   The world has been celebrating the 100th anniversary of Sergei Diaghilev's legendary company, the Ballets Russes, since 2009. Various jubilee projects have been linked to different events from a century ago, such as the first Russian Seasons that Diaghilev organized in Paris with artists from the Mariinsky Theatre from St. Petersburg (1909 and 1910), the founding of the regular ballet company Les Ballets Russes in Monte Carlo (1911), the premieres of The Afternoon of a Faun (1912), The Rite of Spring (1913) - both choreographed by Wacław Niżyński (Vaslav Nijinsky), etc. Celebrating the memory and highlighting the significance of the company's work for the development of ballet art, few people notice that throughout the company's existence (1909-1929) at least half the dancers in Diaghilev's ballet were Polish, starting with the greatest dancer and extraordinary choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky and his sister Bronisława (Bronislava), both of whom studied at the St. Petersburg ballet school, through Stanisław Idzikowski, Leon Wójcikowski, and almost 80 other Polish dancers recruited mainly from among ballet school graduates and the ballet company of our own Teatr Wielki.

   The Polish National Ballet, established at the Teatr Wielki in the spring of 2009 under Krzysztof Pastor's management, was created exactly 100 years after Diaghilev's first Russian Season in Paris. This is just a coincidence, but Vaslav Nijinsky's legend has been with us from the very beginning, together with a desire to preserve him in the national consciousness as a symbol of Polish ballet talent. Though he was a star of Russian ballet and his artistic personality developed in St. Petersburg, we must not forget this great Pole whose work and career unfolded in foreign lands when our nation was stripped of its statehood. This is why it is a matter of honour for us to make the most valuable choreographic output of Vaslav Nijinsky and his sister Bronislava Nijinska a part of the Polish ballet tradition, of course never negating their obvious contribution to Russian ballet theatre.

       The first step in this direction is a production of Vaslav Nijinsky's greatest work: his choreography for Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, a project that was probably the greatest stage achievement of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Rejected by his contemporaries, Nijinsky's choreography was forgotten for many years after the huge scandal accompanying its world premiere in Paris on 29 May 1913. It came back to life in the United States thanks to the reconstruction of the American choreographer Millicent Hodson working with the British art historian Kenneth Archer, which was produced in 1987 for the Joffrey Ballet. This was when it turned out that the choreography had been a revolutionary work, far ahead of its time in ballet, and to Nijinsky's fame as a dancer it added the title of one of the greatest choreographers of the 20th century. Over the next few years many leading theatres around the world included Millicent Hodson's reconstruction in their repertoires: from the Paris Opera and Milan's La Scala, through the Hamburg Ballet, Finnish National Ballet and Monte Carlo Ballets, to the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. The time has come for The Rite of Spring choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky to be shown to Polish audiences as well.

   Our plan to celebrate Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring on the 100th anniversary of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes has assumed a grander scale, unprecedented in the history of ballet. We have decided to propose as many as three different choreographies to this composition during a single ballet evening. Next to Nijinsky's version, we will also present the most famous subsequent choreography - Maurice Béjart's from 1959, and one of the most recent ones - Emanuel Gat's from 2004. The Polish National Ballet is thus taking on three different dance styles in this performance, while our audience will receive a unique opportunity to watch three different productions without having to travel to other theatres in Europe. The premiere of The Rite of Spring by the Polish National Ballet will take place at the Teatr Wielki on 11 June 2011, followed by performances on 12, 19, and 21 June and in the following season.

Illustrations: Sergei Diaghilev and his legendary dancer, Wacław Niżyński (Vaslav Nijinsky)  

 

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200th anniversary of the birth of Fryderyk Chopin

 
   In 2010 the whole world celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of Fryderyk Chopin, Poland’s greatest composer who made an invaluable contribution to the development of music during Romanticism. His output and artistic personality was an inspiration for many other composers and piano virtuosos. It wasn’t just musicians, though. He inspired and still appeals to creative people from all fields, including ballet artists.

  

   It would be hard to enumerate the choreographers and dancers who have succumbed to the charm of Chopin’s music. A great many ballets were inspired by the work of this Polish composer. They were created by the likes of Mikhail Fokin: “Chopiniana” (1908; also at our Teatr Wielki, 1908) and the new version called “Les Sylphides” (1909); Anna Pavlova: “Les Feuilles d'automne” (1918); William Dolar: “Constantia” (1944); Jerome Robbins: “The Concert” (1956), “Dances at a Gathering” (1969), “In the Night” (1970), and “Other Dancers” (1976); Frederick Ashton: “A Month in the Country” (1976); John Neumeier: “Lady of the Camellias” (1978); Maurice Béjart: “Variations Don Giovanni” (1979; also at our Teatr Wielki, 1987); Lorca Massine: “Fortepianissimo” (Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera, 1999), and others.

  

   Polish choreographers also worked with Chopin’s music, to mention Bronislava Nijinska: “Concerto in E Minor” (Polish Ballet, 1937), “Chopin Concerto” (Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 1942), and “In Memoriam” (Le Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, 1949); Conrad Drzewiecki: “Five Nocturnes” (Polish Dance Theatre in Poznań, 1976) and a new version called “Nocturnes” (in the same place, 1982); Ewa Wycichowska: “Concerto in F Minor” (Teatr Wielki in Łódź, 1982); Waldemar Wołk-Karaczewski: “Chopin’s Muses” (Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera, 1991); Marek Zajączkowski: “Three Colours – Chopin in Nohant” (Opera Nova in Bydgoszcz, 2006), and Krzysztof Pastor: “Chopin Dances” (Israeli Ballet in Tel Aviv, 2009).

  

   The Year of Chopin will yield a new great production of the Polish National Ballet. At the initiative of Waldemar Dąbrowski, director of the Teatr Wielki, a ballet will be designed in Warsaw invoking the great Polish Romantic’s life and history. The script is the work of writer Antoni Libera, while the music will include pieces not only by Fryderyk Chopin but also composers who were influenced by his work: Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, Sergei Lyapunov, Franz Schubert, and Robert Schumann. The production will be choreographed by Patrice Bart, the French ballet master from the Paris Opera. This looks set to be a truly European choreographic world premiere. The inspiration comes from Warsaw, but the ballet will look at the legend of the great Polish composer from the point of view of Paris with which Chopin had such close ties. Without question, this will be the most important ballet event of the Year of Chopin.

 

(Picture: Fryderyk Chopin by Eugene Delacroix)

 

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225th anniversary of Polish ballet

  

   Warsaw’s ballet tradition dates back to the early 17th century, but for over 150 years almost exclusively foreign dancers and ballet masters worked at the Polish royal court and the city’s first public theatres. It wasn’t until 225 years ago, on 1 July 1785 to be precise, that the first Polish ballet company came into being, called His Majesty’s National Dancers.

   King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, a great patron of theatre, opera and ballet, took under his wing a group of Polish ballet artists orphaned by their founder. They were the subjects of Antoni Tyzenhauz, the Lithuanian court treasurer who had died in March 1785, leaving his artists to the king in his will. They had previously trained at Count Tyzenhauz’s famous school of the arts, which this Polish nobleman had maintained in the years 1774-1785 at his private estate: first in Grodno, later in Postawy.

   The 30-person group of young dancers arrived in Warsaw in late June 1785. After a few performances at King Stanislaus Augustus’ summer residence in Łazienki, on 15 August 1785 the company appeared for the first time at the public theatre in Krasińskich Square. This was the premiere of François Gabriel Le Doux’s ballet “Hilas and Sylvia” to music by François-Joseph Gossec, based on a pastoral comedy by Rachon de Chabannes. That was the beginning of His Majesty’s National Dancers, the first Polish ballet company in Warsaw.

   Remembering our origins and proud of the 225-year history of Polish ballet in Warsaw, today we look boldly ahead, building the future of our company as the Polish National Ballet. Nevertheless, we will celebrate the latest great anniversary of Polish ballet in 2010 with a jubilee exhibition and a special publication entitled “Od Tancerzy Narodowych J. K. Mości do Polskiego Baletu Narodowego” (“From His Majesty’s National Dancers to the Polish National Ballet”).

 

(Picture: King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski by Giovanni Lampi)

 

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100th anniversary of the death of Marius Petipa

 

   On 14 July 2010, a hundred years have passed since the death of Marius Petipa, widely recognized as the father of classical ballet. This brilliant French ballet master and choreographer, who worked for many years with the imperial ballet in St. Petersburg, left a legacy comprising a huge amount of repertoire. His most valuable ballet works are still staged by the world’s leading ballet companies, continually improved in the revisions and performances of successive generations of choreographers and dancers.

 

   These productions include the original ballets of Marius Petipa, such as “La Fille du Pharaon”, “Don Quixote”, “La Bayadère”, “The Talisman”, “The Sleeping Beauty”, “Halte de Cavalerie”, “Raymonda”, and “Les Millions d'Arlequin”, but also his choreography (with Lev Ivanov) for “Swan Lake” as well as new versions of earlier Romantic repertoire, to mention “Le Corsaire”, “Paquita”, “Giselle”, “Catarina, ou La Fille du bandit”, “Esmeralda”, or “La Sylphide”. For Pyotr Tchaikovsky, he authored the libretto and choreographic plan for “The Nutcracker”, though due to the ballet master’s illness the world premiere was ultimately staged by his assistant Lev Ivanov, designer of the “white acts” for “Swan Lake”.

 

   The Polish National Ballet’s standard repertoire includes the best works of Marius Petipa: “La Bayadère” in the unparalleled production by Natalia Makarova, “The Sleeping Beauty” staged here by Yuri Grigorovich, “Swan Lake” produced by Irek Mukhamedov, and “The Nutcracker” choreographed by Andrzej Glegolski based on Petipa’s staging concept.

 

   To mark the 100th anniversary of the great choreographer’s death and as a tribute to his memory, all these works returned to our stage many times over the this year or so. They was performed by our leading soloists and the Polish National Ballet’s corps de ballet. On 31 January 2010, “La Bayadère” featured a guest performance by Alina Somova and Denis Matvienko, the stars Mariinsky Theatre Ballet. This part of our repertoire is an expression of our huge respect for the origins of classical ballet, but also an opportunity to present the artistic excellence of our ballet company.

 

   Also in 2010, Warsaw will again play host to our friends from Boris Eifman’s St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre. On 8, 9, and 10 September the group will open the 2nd Days of Dance at the Teatr Wielki with their original version of “Don Quixote” - one of Marius Petipa’s most famous ballets.

 

(Picture: Marius Petipa, photo 1898)

 

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