Part 6
It would be as vain to describe the movements of the phantom visitant, as to seek to convey the sound of language without regard for the meaning it expresses. Movements may have an intrinsic grace and beauty, as words that utter no meaning may possess a splendour of sound. But the dance is to movement what language is to words: it implies selection and co-ordination for the purpose of expressing something--in this case the very essence of the sentimental emotions which the vibrant music of the strings evokes. Never was the ecstasy of the valse so irresistibly expressed. Leaping, swaying, its whole being abandoned to the intoxicating rhythm, the dancing phantom seems to draw the very power which animates it from the music’s throbbing pulse.
Deep in her romantic dream the young girl slumbers passive in her chair, till presently the spectral visitant pauses by her side. It leans towards her, while its hands make gentle passes that subdue her utterly to the magic rhythm. Obedient to the spell she rises to her feet and, yielding herself to the tender guidance proffered, she joins her phantom partner in the dance.
It is a scene of exquisite beauty, this vision of a young girl’s innocent dream of love and joy. Abandoning herself to the allurement of the moment, she dances long and joyously until, at length exhausted, she sinks once more upon her cushions, with her fantastic ideal--climax of ecstasy--prostrate at her feet. She has but to stretch forth her hand.
But the throbbing rhythm has died away: the dream is nearing an end. Swiftly the phantom rises, and makes as if to go. Tenderly it stoops over the fair face of the sleeper, and imprints a single kiss upon her brow. The music draws to a close, the appointed hour inexorably approaches. Longingly the phantom lingers, till a fear assails one, lest it tarry too long. But at the last moment it turns, and with a swift run, a magic leap through the open window, vanishes--is gone at the very instant when the music ends.
There is a brief pause. The sleeper stirs and wakes. She starts from the chair and casts a startled look towards the window through which her spectral visitant has fled. But no form, however shadowy, intercepts the moonbeams which lie athwart the garden. Dazed, she turns her eyes towards the floor. There lies the crumpled rose which dropped from her grasp as she fell asleep. At sight of it she recollects her thoughts: full memory of her dream so lately passed comes flooding into her mind. She picks the rose from the floor, and as she presses it to her lips, turns wonderingly to the open window and the still garden beyond.
NARCISSE.
MYTHOLOGICAL DRAMA BY LÉON BAKST.
MUSIC BY N. TCHEREPNIN.
DANCES BY MICHEL FOKINE.
SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY LÉON BAKST.
Without reference to “Hélène de Sparte” and “Daphnis et Chlöe,” two ballets in their repertoire which the Russians seem chary of presenting in London, it would be unfair to say that the Greek view of life baffles them. But their performance of “Narcisse,” despite its many beauties, suggests no very confident or happy exploration into classic mythology. One fancies their temperament is too restless, too sensuous, to appreciate the cool, almost austere, repose of Greek ideas. “Nothing in excess” is hardly a motto to appeal to the creators of “Scheherazade,” “Cléopâtre” and “L’Oiseau de Feu.” As a result their treatment is too florid, and at times clumsy. It is not so much that they do not know when to stop, as that they fail to strike the right note in starting.
The scene is a sylvan glade containing a shrine of the goddess Pomona. There is a spring beside the shrine which feeds a glassy pool and gives that cool humidity to the air which Léon Bakst has well suggested by the luxuriance of the green vegetation all around. The glade is shrouded in mysterious twilight when the curtain rises, and the queer forms of sylvan imps are dimly seen, frolicking to the woodland music of a flute. The orchestral accompaniment is charming, but it is unfortunate that the growing light should presently destroy illusion, and reveal what had seemed true elfin sprites as dancers clad in cloth overalls and wearing grotesque masks. One resents the needless clumsiness.
But there is a sound of approaching revelry and mirth. The woodland creatures hasten to their lairs, and a band of Bœotian peasants gaily troops on to the scene. Two and two, in merry pairs, young men and maidens enter. All are in holiday attire, come to do honour to the deities of woods and fields. They make procession round about the mossy dell, they dance, and offer supplications to the gods. These duties over, they disperse. Some fling themselves upon the ground to rest, others gather round the pool, and laughingly splash the water about. The joyous spirit of holiday animates them all.
There come others presently to the grove--a number of bacchantes who are celebrating the goddess of the shrine. For these the peasants form respectful audience while the due rites and ceremonies are observed. Libations are poured, dances are performed. First the leader of the bacchantes executes a solemn dance, which concludes with a prostration before the shrine. Her companions then join her, the bacchic frenzy begins to work, and a dance of wild energy ensues, which is not concluded until a climax of intoxication is reached and the dancers, from ecstasy or exhaustion, collapse.
While the bacchantes still lie prone a sound of distant singing is heard. The voices draw nearer, the listeners in the dell turn their heads expectantly. In another moment there enters running, gracefully eluding the efforts to stay him of two pursuing nymphs, a young shepherd. It is Narcissus--Narcissus the fair and cold: Narcissus of whose beauty all are enamoured, but whom no dart of the blind god has yet pierced.
Careless of his charms, and of the tender woes which he inflicts, Narcissus is in merry mood. He dances joyously while not only the two pursuing nymphs, but every maiden present, hangs in adoration on his every movement. Narcissus has no eyes for them, no thought of anything but delight in his own fair limbs and the joy of movement. He is a young man exulting in his grace and strength, with not a sentiment to dull the keen edge of sheer enjoyment of the act of living.
But even while Narcissus is thus dancing in self-centred abstraction, a female form, raven-haired and wrapped in a purple robe, is seen advancing slowly across the bridge which spans the background. It is Echo, mournful and lonely. Elusively she approaches, appearing now here, now there, before at length advancing into the midst of the youths and maidens. She prostrates herself imploringly before Narcissus. She too is enamoured of the lovely youth.
Narcissus pauses in his dance, and looks inquiringly at the pleading figure at his feet. For once his attention is distracted from himself. He stoops and raises the drooping Echo, gazing into her face. She returns look for look. The interest of Narcissus is aroused: he continues to forget himself, as Echo stimulates his curiosity. He takes pleasure in her, perhaps because in the ardent gaze which she fixes upon him he finds himself reflected.
But the watching nymphs are quickly roused to jealousy. Though Echo seeks to hold him, they tear Narcissus from his new-found pleasure. Derisively they declare that Echo’s love is but a mockery. Incapable of expressing any feeling of her own, she can but repeat the last words and gestures of those who choose to challenge her. Narcissus listens, astonished at so strange a tale. The nymphs, with jealous malice, urge him to test the truth of what they say. Nothing loth, Narcissus advances towards the sorrowful Echo. He dances a few gay steps, and pauses. Falteringly poor Echo repeats the last of them. Again Narcissus dances: again, on the instant that he pauses, the luckless nymph is constrained to imitate his final movements. Narcissus tries her with gestures--and unfailingly he sees, each time he pauses, his last motions repeated before his eyes.
It is true, then--this odd circumstance which the other nymphs related! Much amused, Narcissus breaks into a gleeful dance, and with all the heartless merriment of a wanton boy, indulges the whim of the moment. As he foots it round the hapless Echo he puts her, with unthinking cruelty, to every test
that his nimble wit can devise. In mute agony Echo responds to his pranks. Does he interrupt the dance to pause before her on tip-toes? She too, must raise herself into that attitude. Does he wave his arms around his head? She must copy the very gesture. So the cruel play goes on until at length Narcissus, wearying of the jest, merrily dances away in quest of some new sport. With him trip the eager nymphs. The peasant youths and maidens follow, and Echo is left to indulge her despair in solitude.
Unhappy Echo! Better to be dumb than condemned in this fashion to play the empty mime, a sport for idle moments. In gloomy abandonment to grief the hapless nymph unbraids her hair. The long black tresses fall about her shoulders, and thus, distraught in spirit, disordered in her looks, she flings herself in abasement before the shrine of the goddess. The mockery of her companions still rings in her ears, and in the first fury of a woman slighted she calls upon the deity to avenge her wounded pride. From the depths of her tortured soul she prays that Narcissus may learn something of the agony to which she is doomed, by giving his love where it can never be returned. The sacred grove darkens, the lightning flashes, and Echo, the bitterness with which her heart is overburdened thus discharged, goes mournfully forth.
The light returns, the cool recesses of the leafy glade invite retirement from the heat of afternoon. Narcissus, weary of his sportive play, returns alone to rest his tired limbs. He is thirsty, and the shining surface of the pool is grateful to his eye. He approaches, stretches his limbs in lassitude upon the sloping bank, and stoops to drink.
But his lips do not touch the water. He remains poised above the glassy surface, staring intently downwards. Out of the limpid depth he sees regarding him a fair and radiant face. Narcissus had never thought that such beauty existed on earth. He cannot remove his eyes, he is entranced. He raises his head--the beautiful image retreats. He stoops--and it comes nearer. He stoops lower--he would kiss the vision. But at the very moment when his lips meet those others, a ripple breaks across the still surface of the pool, the image is distorted, almost vanishes.
The prayer of Echo has been answered. The doom of Narcissus has been pronounced, and he loves where his love can never be returned. He scrambles to his knees, he stands erect. Out of the again placid mirror of the pool his own image smiles upward at him. He makes passionate protestations of love: his image answers him gesture for gesture. He seeks to fascinate by his grace and beauty: grace and beauty not less than his fascinate him in turn. Yet the vision, to his dismay, remains remote. It will not come to him, and though when he seeks to approach, it draws near in welcome, the moment of union brings catastrophe.
While the infatuated youth is thus occupied, Echo returns. Her mood of bitterness has passed, and at sight of the object of her passion all her love wells up anew. Pleading once more, she runs towards him with outstretched hands. But Narcissus pays her no heed. He has eyes only for the watery depths below him, and Echo’s distracted appeal falls unregarded on deaf ears.
Willingly would Echo now recall her prayer to the goddess. But wishes are in vain, and vain her efforts to distract Narcissus from his fate. Once she succeeds in drawing him, reluctant, from the margin of the pool, but the youth seems scarce aware of her existence. Too evidently preoccupied to listen to her pleadings, he is back at the water’s edge, rapturously gazing, as soon as her hold upon him is released. Inexorably it is borne in on Echo that fate is too strong for her. Sorrowfully she turns and goes.
Alone in the gathering gloom, Narcissus continues in rapt adoration of his own fair image. As presently appears, he is rooted, literally, to the spot. For as he stands there gazing he slowly sinks downward into the mossy soil, and in his place there rises a tall narcissus flower, whose pale petals glimmer luminously in the dusky twilight. From nooks and crannies the sylvan sprites creep silently forth, to pry with timid, curious eyes upon this strange apparition. Upon this ghostly scene, and the forlorn figure of Echo, passing sadly across the leafy bridge, the curtain gently descends.
One regrets to end this account of what is in many ways a charming ballet upon an adverse note. But a protest _must_ be entered against the Brobdingnagian flower, so evidently a thing of paint and paste-board, which is thrust up from the trap-door cavity by which Narcissus makes his escape. The whole business is so monstrously crude and childish that one can scarcely credit its occurrence. In conception the conclusion of the ballet is admirable, but if trap-doors and cardboard flowers (popping up from the soil in full bloom and fresh with the property master’s paint) are the only means by which such an ending can be accomplished, it seems amazing that such ordinarily nice taste as the Russians display should tolerate these enormities. There is a sense of proportion lacking here, as at the opening of the ballet when a clumsy heaviness of hand, seeking to make the most of the elfin creatures of the wood, effectually reduces them to nothing. The poignant final passage between Echo and Narcissus, eloquently expressed by Karsavina and Nijinsky, is spoilt by this grotesque termination.
Happily these blunders are as rare as they are inexplicable. Only perhaps in “Le Dieu Bleu,” with its similar resort to the artifice of the trap-door, its matter-of-fact demons, and impossible flight of aerial steps, is there a parallel to these which mar the beauties of “Narcisse.” Too close an attention to the cult of the body is perhaps the cause of this material, ultra-realistic touch.
“Narcisse” would be best appreciated if one could ignore its blemishes and enjoy its many excellences individually. The dresses of bacchantes, nymphs and peasants embody some of Bakst’s most splendid designs, but these are seen to better advantage in the artist’s original drawings than on the figures of the wearers in the ballet. (This is the case, of course, with all Bakst’s decorations--not excepting scenery, which necessarily loses much in execution from the original scheme--but is especially applicable to those of “Narcisse.”) The music of Tcherepnin has a charm and distinction which would lose nothing by an isolated hearing, while the joyous dancing of Nijinsky is independent of the environment in which it takes place. Possessed of many charming features, “Narcisse” yet lacks a something to make it, as a whole, convincing. The deficiency, one must suppose, is a lack of real sympathy with their subject on the part of the performers.
L’OISEAU DE FEU.
BALLET IN TWO TABLEAUX BY MICHEL FOKINE.
MUSIC BY IGOR STRAVINSKY.
SCENERY AND COSTUMES DESIGNED BY GOLOVINE.
An element of unreality is of advantage in the theme of a ballet. It not only excuses, but demands, the fantastic, for which the means of expression at disposal--pantomimic action, illustrative or suggestive music, for example--provide a suitable vehicle. It eases matters all round, and converts what are obstacles to the convincing treatment of a strictly realistic theme into positive aids.
It may be noted that this element of unreality, in varying qualities and degrees, is present in nearly all the themes which the Russians have chosen for presentation, and is most pronounced in those ballets which achieve the greatest artistic effect. Indeed, these dancers and mimes may be observed to introduce a suggestion of the fantastic, subconsciously if not deliberately, even where such is not necessarily required, seeming thereby to recognise tacitly the useful modification of the restrictions of their art which a remoteness from literal fact effects. “Le Carnaval” would not be the exquisite thing it is but for the impersonal, fantastic character with which the gay, flitting figures of the _bal masqué_ are so delicately endowed. Even when historical tradition is drawn upon, as in “Cléopâtre,” the episode is treated with an imaginative licence which removes it very nearly into the region of fancy.
The plot of “L’Oiseau de Feu” is based upon a folk tale. At least, if precisely such a story is not to be found in any known folklore, it is obvious whence its inventor has derived inspiration. To watch a performance of this ballet is to see one of Grimm’s Tales come to life before one’s eyes--an experience as agreeably thrilling in these later (but let us hope not entirely sophisticated) years, as was formerly a perusal of pages in that immortal book. In some respects, perhaps, it is an experience _more_ thrilling, for the story of the Fire Bird has the advantage of being unfolded to the accompaniment of Stravinsky’s music--an enhancement of its dramatic value which it would be difficult to over-rate. Stravinsky’s orchestral methods, it may be remarked in passing, have a special interest of their own, but it is enough here to comment on the descriptive quality of his music for this ballet, which is great.
The fantastic note is sounded at the very outset by the overture. Strange mutterings and uncouth, unexpected harmonies attune the hearer to an atmosphere of mystery and enchantment; he is ripe, when at length the curtain rises, for adventure in the gloomy forest whose midnight depths are disclosed. For the moment the eye takes in but little detail of the darkened stage. Gradually an open space within the forest depths is perceived, at the back of which stand high gates, giving upon a flight of stone steps. Whither the steps lead, what lies beyond, is hidden by the gloomy shadows. No friendly lamp surmounts the gates to light and welcome the belated traveller. If not the disused portals of some derelict demesne swallowed up by the encroaching forest, they must surely guard the secret lair of sorcerer or ogre. Dimly the wall in which the gates are set can be descried, but nothing else is visible save a low tree upon which a pale moonbeam falls slantingly.
Nought is stirring in the forest, but the midnight stillness is pregnant with mystery. Magic influences are abroad, there is a sense of something untoward about to happen. Suddenly a queer little _motif_, already heard in the overture, assails the ear; the music glows (if the image be allowed) like an ember fanned; and shedding a golden effulgence all around, the Fire Bird floats downward through the trees. The radiant object vanishes almost as soon as it is seen; but hardly has it gone when a stir among the trees attracts attention, and a young man is seen looking over a low wall that adjoins the mysterious gates. He peers eagerly in the direction taken by the Fire Bird, then vaults the wall and dashes impetuously in pursuit. Such wondrous quarry was never seen before by mortal hunter, and lured by its splendour Ivan Tsarevitch has ventured far from beaten tracks, heedless in his infatuated quest of the danger into which his careless steps have strayed.
But as he dashes across the clearing he is arrested by a faint gleam of something in the moonlight. Wonder fills him as he sees that the tree, which alone of all surrounding objects is illumined, bears golden fruit. He is about to satisfy his curiosity by a closer inspection, when again there is warning of the Fire Bird’s approach.
Quickly Ivan takes refuge beneath the clustered branches of the tree, and from this place of concealment spies upon the glittering apparition of the Bird of Fire. Unwitting of his near proximity the latter disports itself gleefully in the open clearing. Twice it approaches the tree, as if to seize the golden fruit, and each time Ivan, for all his daring, is powerless to make the longed-for capture. The brilliant light which emanates from the radiant creature dazzles and perplexes him. But once more the Fire Bird nears the tree, and this time Ivan, with a sudden impulse, springs forward and boldly seizes the coveted quarry.
There follows a passage between captive and captor, which can scarcely be described as a dance, yet is something more than the mere acting of a scene. Desperately and repeatedly the Fire Bird strives to escape from the strong arms which imprison it; again and again the Prince, though hard put to it to retain the elusive creature in his grasp, frustrates these fluttering efforts. Though dancing, in the sense of rhythmic movement, is not the precise descriptive term for these expressive postures and motions, one needs it to convey the poetic sense of beauty which Karsavina here reveals. It is no easy thing to suggest the panic fears, the tremulous attempts at flight of a captured wild bird; yet by look, by pose, above all by gesture and the motion of quivering, restless arms and hands, the dancer subtly achieves that difficult effect.
Frantically the Fire Bird struggles to escape; determinedly, at each new effort, the strong arms renew their hold. Then the creature has resort to guile, luring its captor to look full upon its dazzling countenance. The ruse is nearly successful; half-blinded by his captive’s beauty the Prince’s grip relaxes, but he doggedly keeps his advantage and release is still denied.
A ransom only will suffice. With sudden gesture the Fire Bird plucks a gleaming feather from its body and holds it forth--a talisman against evil, and pledge of its owner’s aid in hour of need. The Prince, abashed, accepts it, and as he places it for
safety in his girdle, the Fire Bird, rejoicing with agile dance in its regained freedom, vanishes into the recesses of the forest. As it flits away a momentary compunction pricks the young man. That such a wondrous quarry should elude him irks his hunter’s pride, and he snatches up his cross bow with intent to shoot. But even as he draws the string he calls to mind the compact made, and remembers that he is bound in honour to abstain from new aggression. With petulant gesture he lowers the weapon from his shoulder, and turns to go.
The darkness which has shrouded the forest depths is fading now. Through the no longer impenetrable gloom a sloping bank is seen, to which the steps behind the closed gates give access. Athwart this bank is now discernible a castle tower, and through the archway of this, even as the Prince, with astonished gaze, is wondering whither he should turn his steps, a young girl suddenly appears. She pauses silently for a moment, then slowly advances along the bank. Other maidens emerge behind her from the tower. Flesh and blood, and very fair to look upon, they seem, but in their long white gowns, so suddenly and strangely appearing, they have an almost spectral aspect, and the young man, caution prompting, hastily seeks a hiding-place from which he can watch unobserved.
One by one the maidens, in number twelve, gather upon the bank. The gates fly open at their approach, and with girlish glee they trip forth into the forest clearing. A moment later, hurrying to join her companions, yet another damsel appears, whose mien and richer attire seem to indicate a lofty rank. She hastens to the magic tree and gently shakes its bough. Down falls a shower of gleaming fruit, to the delight of the expectant maidens, who nimbly pursue, helter-skelter, the golden apples as they roll.