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CM

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Posts posted by CM

  1. Complementing the link to the current Monaco exhibition, the link below includes footage of the Edinburgh Diaghilev exhibition (1953/1954?) that marked the 25th anniversary of Diaghilev's death. Exhibition footage begins at 4 minutes, 20 seconds. Firebird is at 10 minutes, 15 seconds. Thanks to Leonid for links to British Pathe.

    http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=74893

    Roy Strong describes and discusses the impact of the exhibition (London transfer) in his 2001 obituary of Richard Buckle, the exhibition's organiser.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/...4276346,00.html

  2. Thanks, Amy and CM, for the Links

    RE the exhibit at the Kunsthistorische Museum: I'm puzzled about the 7th illustration (out of 7). Can anyone identify a ballet called "The Mask of the Red Death"? Was this in the Ballet Russe season in 1916-17? Who or what is the "small idol" so beautifully illustrated here?

    Apr 11 2006,

    In the Tcherepnin Le Pavillion D'Armide thread on Apr 11 2006, Phenby wrote the following.

    "In his twenty years of ballet and opera productions Diaghilev only rejected a commissioned score a handful of times. Tcherepnin heads the list as having produced two such scores.

    In the early seasons Diaghilev had a secretary/advisor by the name of M. D. Calvocoressi, a young French music critic. Calvocoressi met a young, unknown composer (I forget the name) who had written a ballet score on his own entitled La masque de la mort rouge (The Mask of Red Death after Edgar Allen Poe). Calvocoressi passed the score along to Diaghilev who wasn't interested in the music but found the story an interesting idea for a ballet. Diaghilev approached Stravinsky on the subject but was rejected. So he turned to ... Nikolai Tcherepnin.

    In 1913, when Tcherepnin composed his ballet, Fokine had been dismissed and Nijinsky was now choreographer of the Ballets Russes. But Nijinsky was very slow and couldn't be counted upon to produce four new ballets every season. So for the 1913 season Adolph Bolm and Boris Romanov, two dancers in the company, were given their first opportunities to choreograph (both went on to long careers as choreographers). Tcherepnin's La masque de la mort rouge was schedualed for the 1914 season, but since Nijinsky was already overextended with preparations for two other ballets, Diaghilev assigned Tcherepnin's ballet to a guest choreographer: Alexander Gorsky. Then the rupture between Nijinsky and Diaghilev occured. As a result, Fokine came back to the Ballets Russes for the 1914 season and took charge of all new choreography. La masque de la mort rouge and Gorsky were scrapped."

    Sarah Banes in her book Writing Dancing in the Age of Postmodernism however states, “Goleizovsky began work in 1919 on “The Masque of the Red Death” and Eric W. Carlson In his “A Companion to Poe Studies” says that the ballet was given in 1919 at the Moscow Kamerny Theatre.

    I don't know how reliable Grigoriev is compared to other sources, however he wrote in ' the Diaghilev Ballet' that Gorsky was engaged in 1913 as guest choreographer for the Red Mask. However, Tcherepnine had not finished the score by the time Diaghilev's committee made the decisions on the 1914 spring ballet program - so the piece couldn't be included. I think I remember reading that Gorsky never got round to choreographing the 'Red Mask because other events, such as the first world war, took over.

    Also Diaghilev exhibition is still on in Monaco

    http://www.nmnm.mc/index.php/nmnm_en/content/view/full/59

    Article below includes slide show with podcast (in french)

    http://www.podcastjournal.net/Centenaire-d...anov_a2375.html

  3. Ballet Russes Exhibition - Schwäne und Feuervögel LES BALLETS RUSSES 1909 - 1929 opens tomorrow in Vienna.

    http://www.khm.at/en/kunsthistorisches-mus...e0fc#highlights

    (Images at bottom of page come up very well when double-clicked)

    Hamburg's Nijinsky exhibition - Dance of Colours. Nijinsky's Eye and Abstraction - is on-going. Exhibition flyer can be downloaded at the link below

    http://www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/start/en_start.html

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