BALLET
The New Monte Carlo Ballet. At the Cambridge Theatre.
THE reappearance of Serge Lifar as a dancer in London gave most interest to the new ballets presented by the Ne,w Monte Carlo Ballet company this week. 'He appeared only in the revival of Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faun of which he gave an impressive performance, although he has lost some of his youthful grace and agility. This ballet created,- I believe, by Nijinsky for Diaghilev, remains—largely on account of the music—one of the finest of Diaghilev's creations, but Mr. Lifar took the sense out of it by omitting the nymphs who drop the scarf ; La Mon du Cygne to music by Chopin, choreography by Lifar, is an attractive ballet chiefly owing to the poignant expressiveness of the swan's dying movements which are not realistic but beautifully suggestive within the formal convention of ballet. The dancing of Yvette Chauvire, well-partnered by Edmon Audran, was remarkably sensitive and technically impressive. Technically the dancers of this company are of the highest class and this virtuosity made Mephisto Valse danced by Ludmila Tcherina, Edmon Audran and V. Skouratoff an impressive affair, trite though the theme is. The chief novelty, Aubade, music by Poulenc, choreography by Lifar, ig based on the familiar story of Diana and Actaeon, but for some incomprehensible reason the small orchestra used by Poulenc was brought on the stage where it had no place in the decorative scheme and was merely a distrac- tion. Even the brilliant dancing of Renee Jeanmaire and V. Skoura- toff could not compensate for this strange mistake. It is possible that the idea was to give a modern touch to a classical subject—for Poulenc's music is in the fashionably modernistic vein of the 1920's
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