BOOKS

When Bolonsky danced Belushka

Arthur Marshall

Strange indeed is the wide variety of things and people which the inhabitants Of these islands suddenly decide to clasp to their bosoms and cherish for evermore Stonehenge, scampi, Lord Hailsham, barbecues, loft ladders, Anna Neagle, fish fingers, grubby jeans, Virginia Wade — and almost the most unexpected of the lot, given our well-known British suspicion of anything 'artistic', is the hold that ballet, and especially our home-grown kind, has had on the public in the last 50 or so years. Whoever would have thought that our stolid race could ever produce such a galaxy as that composed of De Valois, Ashton, Fonteyn, Helpmann, Dowell, Sibley and many others?

Not that ballet caught on straight away or was welcomed with equal enthusiasm in all parts of the country. There was the Merry episode on her first visit to Edin- burgh when Pavlova, touring with her com- Pany and nearing the end of her famous Dying Swan dance, was spread-eagled upon the stage, a white feathered form twitching and fluttering her life out to that memorable music: a moving moment and a sturdy Scottish lady was heard to say loudly to her neighbour, 'You know, she reminds Me a little of Mrs McCracken.'

Even in the Thirties and in London, Where the main crop of balletomanes was to be found, comediennes were still indulging in comic take-offs (they usually called themselves something witty such as Olga Toppleova) and there was Farjeon's affec- tionate send-up song, 'When Bolonsky danced Belushka in September 1910'.

Oh, the urge To see Serge!

What a thrill!

What a pill!

What a purge!

That supreme performer Hermione Bad- deleY dressed in a long, mauve and Shapeless sack and wearing a lot of rattling necklaces and beads, led a quartet of fans in a nostalgic memory of that great 1910 night:

How we screamed and shrieked and hooted, How we whooped and how we howled! We were ravished and uprooted!

We were frankly disembowelled!

Miss Baddeley, never one to underplay a valuable line, did full justice to the final word.

Farjeon's 'Belushka' was, of course, a j°keY corruption of the Diaghilev ballet Petrouchka, choreography by Fokine to the Music of Stravinsky, Diaghilev's company

having already appeared frequently at Cov- ent Garden and elsewhere, and it was to London that, in 1933, an emigre Cossack officer called Colonel De Basil brought his Monte Carlo-recruited ballet company, a company which, in view of its component parts, had every right to call itself the Ballets Russes. Although many dancers adopt other, and generally Slavonic, names (Eva Hartwig prudently swopped it for Vera Zorina, Valrene Tweedie very wisely became Irina Lavrova, and our own treasured Dame Margot kicked off in life as Peggy Hookham), the Colonel had decided on the opposite process, his original Rus- sian name, which need not concern us here, being lengthy and, in the West, a bit of a tongue-twister.

Londoners, robbed for four years of foreign balletic treats by the death of Diaghilev in 1929, pounced eagerly on the new arrivals. They came, under the wing of Sir Oswald Stoll, into the vast Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square, built as a varie- ty house and the 1916 home of The Bing Boys and George Robey. It did not matter. They could, as far as the public minded, have performed in an ABC tea-shop and what was at first intended to be a three- week season extended itself triumphantly from July to November. Led by the great Russian and former Diaghilev stars, Massine and Danilova (for many, still the most magical of them all), the dancers in- cluded three so-called 'baby ballerinas', Baronova, Riabouchinska and Touman- ova, each of them to become, before many more fouettes were out, a prima ballerina assoluta. There were ballets by Fokine, Massine and Balanchine. The orchestra was conducted by Efrem Kurtz. The Savoy Grill advertised special Russian dishes and down the red lanes of those who could afford them the tasty blinis slithered. Could ap- preciation go further? De Basil was made.

He had done well, and by 1932, to assem- ble such an array of talent for, after Diaghilev's death, not only were the dancers widely dispersed but also sadly scat- tered were the costumes and decors with which to mount the great ballets on which the company at first mainly depended — Les Sylphides, La Boutique Fantasque, Prince Igor, Scheherazade and the rest of We'.: obsessed with some mad theory about reincarnation.' them, a repertory of over 20. Many of these would have benefitted from the presence in the cast of a distinguished danseur noble, a Nijinsky or a Nureyev, but such phenomena are rare and they had to get by on the strength of their male demi-caractere performers, headed by Lichine and Woizikovsky and, of course, the masterly Massine.

Lucky enough to have the help of Rene Blum as the Monte Carlo artistic director and to have that enchanting Casino theatre as rehearsal room and show-case and base, the extraordinary Colonel, for whom in- trigue, scheming, double-dealing, sharp practice and blazing rows were the very stuff of life and who knew little or nothing of ballet, managed to keep the whole crazy raft afloat, partly by means of his great charm and partly by the iron rod. His con- tracts hardly favoured the dancers. Classes were obligatory and absences incurred heavy fines. Rehearsal clothes were to be in- variably 'ladies in a black Greek tunic, men in black trousers and white shirts.' Men must shave off beards and moustaches as required. No drinking or smoking in the theatre and De Basil's word was final. Svelte and slim figures were encouraged to remain so by the meagre nature of the pay-packet.

As ballet dancers are by nature masochistic and rather enjoy being bullied by somebody they respect (it is said that even now, when De Valois is known to be in front, they all shiver in their shoes), De Basil was admired rather than disliked. Primitive living conditions seemed also to fit into the picture. Toumanova, who was everybody's idea of a ballerina (huge, dark eyes, raven hair and magnolia skin) has revealed that, in London, she lived on fish- and-chips warmed up on a gas ring in a Seven Dials attic. Small and dingy hotels housed the rest, and how touching to find them taking their hols at The Balmoral Hotel, Torquay. The girls could afford no jewellery and De Basil's company, although feted, was not as successful as Diaghilev's had been.

We could have no better guide through all this than Miss Sorley Walker, diligent in research, admirable in presentation, pro- vider of fascinating details galore and pro- perly in love with her subject. And how well she describes the inner fires that drove these dancers on:

The company's devotion to the dance triumphed over everything. This is a point that cannot be overstressed. The commitment of dancers in the Thirties, dancers of all nationalities, to ballet was total. Their belief in it as a vocation af- fected every aspect of their lives . . . They cared so passionately about ballet, that to dance, even in small roles, in the corps de ballet, was a privilege. To work with choreographers such as Fokine, Balanchine, Massine or Nijinska they were willing to forego financial return, to scrape along on a pittance, to work all hours of the day or night, well or ill, in any conditions.

It would be quite inaccurate to consider,

as many do, stage performers as being vain. When they talk, they tell not of triumphs but of disasters, of missed entrances, forgotten lines and of speeches boomed out by mistake an act too soon. Ballet dancers are no exception and even Dame Ninette has a misfortune to report:

I had an entrance with Danilova, both of us completely hidden in lotus leaves which, upon the slight pulling of strings inside loosening the walls of our prison, fell about us as a form of extra skirt. On we both came, whirling, and on I con- tinued to whirl until the end, like a mad white cabbage, for my leaves had refus- ed to fall, and so I remained imprisoned for the entire performance, guided about the stage by the frenzied whispers of Danilova.

On one occasion, Massine's dog, Smokey, came leaping on with the fiercely prancing warriors in Prince Igor, while a terrier pup- py of Rostova's was happy to join the ladies during Les Sylphides. And it was at Bournemouth that Rostova, mercifully un- damaged, went too near a candle and caught fire in the wings, subsequently rushing on stage merrily alight; a sharp- eyed reporter from the Bournetnouth Daily Echo neatly summed it all up: 'The incident was the talk of the building'.

The story has, alas, no happy ending. The Colonel's Ballets Russes folded finally in 1952 and De Basil died a pauper. In quite good company, when one comes to think of it.