Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-18
Stravinsky's Ballots.

NOTING that it was for Sergei
4 Diaghilieff and his ballet that Igor
Stravinsky wrote the five works upon
which his fame as composer largely
rests, Deems Taylor, writing in the
September issue of McCall's Magazine,
observes that 1T is an interesting specu-
lation, even If it is not particularly
fruitful one, to wonder just what the
career of Stravinsky would have been
without Diaghilieff. Without the Ballet
Russo there would have been no Fire
Bird no 'Petrushka,' no The Night
ingale,' no Rites of Spring no Wed
ding Rites
In Europe, of course, even If there
had been no Diaghilieff, there might
have been some one else. But not here.
You would naturally expect movie
mad public like ours to be interested
in the art Of pantomime, since for IS
years several millions of us have been
looking at little else. Yet so innocent
are we of any organized ballet season
company that. with all our boosted up
to-dateness in music, even Stravinsky
has had to wait years to get an Ameri-
can hearing for his most important
works. The Fire Bird dates from 1910
and 'Petrushka' from 1912. Both have
long been in the current orchestral
repertoire, yet not until 1915 did we see
them in their original ballet form. The
Nightingale written in 1912, had to
wait Is years for an American stage
production cat the Metropolitan Opera
House,.
The Rites of Spring. written in
1918, has, so far as know, never been
seen here at all in Its stage form. Stra-
vinskys latest important ballet produc-
ton, Les Noces' The Wedding Rites
has had a similar fate. Written for
Diaghilieff in 1922, 1t was produced in
Paris the following year with great sue
cess. Only a year ago last Spring it
managed to get a performance in con-
cert form by the League of Composers.
In April of this year the league, having
waited in vain for some professional
producing organizat ton to step forward,
finally took its courage in hand and pro-
duced Wedding Rites in the ballet form
for which Stravinsky wrote them.
Having dared greatly. the league did
the job with admirable skill. It en-
listed the services of Leopold Stokowsky
as conductor, of Sergei Soudeikine as
designer of scene and costume and of
director. 1t provided a quartet Of dis
tinguished singers, including Nina
Koshetz and Sophie Braslau, another
quartet of equally distinguished plan
lists. a dancing company Of 81, a chorus
Of ~, and served up the whole at the
Metropolitan Opera House before a
capacity audience. whose more af1iuent
members had paid $40 for their seats.
"Soudeikine's scenery for the New
York production is extremely difficult to
describe, and really quite simple and
understandable to look at. It is in the
style of primitive Russian woodcarving
and represents the highly conventional
ICED interiors Of three Russian homes
At the right are some anonymous OBJ
jects that convey the house of the
bridegroom: at the left similar collec-
ton of knicknacks represents the home
of the bride. In the center is the
future home of the young couple, SYM
bolized directly and naively by the we'd
ding bed.
THE performance was a brilliantly
schooled one, the dancers trained to the
minute and the chorus and soloists,
needless to say, performing prodigies
under the Stokowsky baton. And yet,
for one spectator at least. the whole
thing didn't quite come off. 1t may
have been the staging. which differed
from that of the original Paris produc-
ton, not only in its vivid coloring Tin
the Paris version the costumes and
scenery were all black and white) but
in its greater literalness."