6 Tristan and Isolde: Michel and Vera Fokine
IF ever there were two people who seemingly were inseparable, they were Michel and Vera Fokine. Theirs was a modern love story that could rank with those of Abélard and Heloïse, Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde. The romance of the Fokines continued, unabated, till death did them part.
The story of Michel Fokine’s revolution in modern ballet has become an important part of ballet’s history. The casual ballet-goer, to whom one name sounds very much like another, recognizes the name of Fokine. He may not realize the full importance of the man, but he has been unable to escape the knowledge that some of the ballets he knows and loves best are Fokine works.
The literature that has grown up around Michel Fokine and his work is fairly voluminous, as was his due. Yet, for those of today’s generation, who are prone to forget too easily, it cannot be repeated too often that had it not been for Michel Fokine, there might not have been any such thing as modern ballet. For ballet, wherein he worked his necessary and epoch-making revolution, was in grave danger of becoming moribund and static, and might well, by this time, have become extinct.
He was a profound admirer of Isadora Duncan, although he denied he had been influenced by her ideas. Fokine felt Duncan, in her concern for movement, had brought dancing back to its beginnings. He was filled with a divine disgust for the routine and the artificial practices of ballet at the turn of the century. He was termed a heretic when he insisted that each ballet demands a new technique appropriate to its style, because he fought against the eternal stereotype.
Fokine threw in his lot with Diaghileff and his group. With Diaghileff his greatest masterpieces were created. Both Fokine and Diaghileff were complicated human beings; both were artists. Problems were never simple with either of them. There is no reason here to go into the causes for the rupture between them. That there was a rupture and that it was never completely healed is regrettable. It was tantamount to a divorce between the parents of modern ballet. It was, as is so often the case in divorce, the child that suffered.
For a time following the break, the Fokines returned to Russia; and then, in 1918, together with their son Vitale, spent some time in and out of Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Conditions were not ideal for creation, and nothing was added to the impressive list of Fokine masterpieces.
In 1919, Morris Gest was immersed in the production of a gargantuan musical show destined for the Century Theatre: Aphrodite, based on an English translation of Pierre Louys’ novel. Gest made Fokine an offer to come to America to stage a Bacchanal for the work. Fokine accepted. Aphrodite was not a very good musical, nor was it, as I remember it, a very exciting Bacchanal; but it was a great success. Fokine himself was far from happy with it.
For a number of reasons, the Fokines decided to make New York their home. They eventually bought a large house, where Riverside Drive joins Seventy-second Street; converted part of the house into a dancing studio, and lived in the rest of the house in an atmosphere of nostalgic gloom, a sort of Chopinesque twilight. Ballet in America was at a very low ebb when Fokine settled here. There was a magnificent opportunity to hand for the father of modern ballet, had he but taken it. For some reason he muffed the big chance. Perhaps he was embittered by a series of unhappy experiences, not the least of which was the changed political scene in his beloved Russia, to which he was never, during the rest of his life, able to make adjustment. He was content, as an artist, for the most part to rest on his considerable laurels. There was always Schéhérazade. More importantly, there was always Sylphides.
Fokine’s creative life, in the true sense, was something he left behind in Europe. He never seemed to sense or to try to understand the American impulse, rhythm, or those things which lie at the root of our native culture. In the bleak Riverside Drive mansion, he taught rather half-heartedly at classes, but gave much of his time and energy in well-paid private lessons to the untalented daughters of the rich.
From the choreographic point of view, he was satisfied, for the most part, to reproduce his early masterpieces with inferior organizations, or to stage lesser pieces for the Hippodrome or the Ziegfeld Follies. One of the latter will suffice as an example. It was called Frolicking Gods, a whimsy about a couple of statues of Greek Gods who came to life, became frightened at a noise, and returned to their marble immobility. And it may be of interest to note that these goings-on were all accomplished to, of all things, Tchaikowsky’s Nutcracker Suite. There was also a pseudo-Aztec affair, devised, so far as tale was concerned, by Vera Fokine, and called The Thunder Bird. The Aztec quality was emphasized by the use of a pastiche of music culled from the assorted works of Tchaikowsky, Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Balakirev, and Borodine.
It was during the winter of 1920, not long after the Fokines, with their son Vitale, had arrived here, that we came together professionally. I arranged to present them jointly in a series of programmes at the Metropolitan Opera House, with Arnold Volpe and his Symphony Orchestra.
Fokine came with me to see the Metropolitan stage. He arrived at what might have been a ticklish moment. Fokine was extremely sensitive to what he called “pirated” versions of his works. There was, of course, no copyright protection for them, since choreography had no protection under American copyright law. Fokine was equally certain that he, Fokine, was the only person who could possibly reproduce his works. As we entered the Metropolitan, Adolph Bolm was appearing in an opera-ballet version of Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Le Coq d’Or. The performance had commenced.
As I have intimated, after he broke with Diaghileff, Fokine was so depressed that for some time he could not work at all. Then he received an invitation from Anna Pavlova to come to Berlin, where she was about to produce some new ballets. Fokine accepted the invitation, and when Pavlova asked him to suggest a subject, Fokine proposed a ballet based on the opera, Le Coq d’Or. Pavlova, however, considered the plot of the Rimsky-Korsakoff work to be too political, and also felt it unwise of her to offer a subject burlesquing the Tsar.
It was not until after Fokine temporarily returned to the Diaghileff fold that Le Coq d’Or achieved production. Diaghileff agreed with Fokine on the subject, and Fokine was anxious that it should be mounted in as modern a manner as possible. The story of the opera, based on Pushkin’s well-known poem, as adapted to the stage by V. Bielsky, requires no comment. Fokine’s opera-ballet production was, in its way, quite unique. There were two casts, which is to say, singers and dancers. While one character danced and acted, the words in the libretto were spoken or sung by the dancing character’s counterpart.
As a result of the Metropolitan Opera Company’s wartime ban on anything German, in 1917, Pierre Monteux, the former Diaghileff conductor, was imported by the Metropolitan for the expanded French list. One of the results of Monteux’s influence on the Metropolitan repertoire was Le Coq d’Or. Adolph Bolm, by that time resident in New York, having remained here after the last Diaghileff American season, was engaged by Otto H. Kahn to stage the work in the style of the Diaghileff production. Bolm, who had his own ideas, nevertheless based his work on Fokine’s basic plan, and that of the Fokine-Diaghileff production. Bolm was meticulous, however, in insisting that credit be given to Fokine for the original idea, and it was always billed as “after Michel Fokine.” The Metropolitan production, as designed by the Hungarian artist, Willy Pogany, whose sets were among the best the Metropolitan ever has seen, resulted in one of the most attractive and exciting productions the Metropolitan has achieved. Aside from the production itself, the singing of the Spanish coloratura, Maria Barrientos, as the Queen, the conducting of Monteux, and the dancing of Bolm as King Dodon, set a new standard for the Metropolitan.
On the occasion I have mentioned, we entered the front of the house, and Fokine watched a bit of the performance with me, standing in the back of the auditorium. He had no comment, which was unusual for him.
After watching for a time, I asked Fokine if he would care to meet his old colleague. He said he would. Together we felt our way back stage in the dimly lighted passages. The pass-door to back-stage was even darker. I stood aside to let Fokine precede me. Then my heart nearly stopped. Fokine stumbled and nearly fell prostrate on the iron-concrete steps. He picked himself up, brushed himself off. “Mikhail Mikhailovitch,” I said, half frightened to death, “you must be careful.”
“It is nothing,” he replied, “but why in hell isn’t the place properly lighted?”
The meeting with Bolm, who had made Fokine’s favorite ballet even more exciting than it actually was, was cordial enough, cool, and uneventful. Bolm was by far the more demonstrative. Their conversation was general rather than particular. Fokine and I looked over the stage, its size and its equipment. Fokine thanked Bolm, apologized for the interruption, and took his leave. As we felt our way out to the street, Fokine’s only comment on Le Coq d’Or was, “The women’s shawls should be farther back on the head. They are quite impossible when worn like that. And when they weep, they should weep.”
Fokine was a stickler for detail. In conversation about dancing, over and over again he would use two Russian words, “Naslajdaites” and “laska.” Freely translated, those Russian words suggest “do it as though you enjoyed yourself” and “caressingly.”
The programme for the appearances at the Metropolitan had been carefully worked out, balanced with joint performances, solos for each, with symphony orchestra interludes while Michel and Vera were changing costumes. For the opening performance it was decided that Michel and Vera would jointly do the lovely waltz from Les Sylphides; a group of Caucasian dances to music arranged by Asafieff; the Mazurka from Delibes’ Coppélia; and a group of five Russian dances by Liadov. Fokine himself would do the male solo, the Mazurka from Les Sylphides, and a Liadov Berceuse; while Vera’s solo contributions would be The Dying Swan, and the arrangement Fokine made for her of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.”
The advertising campaign was under full steam ahead, and rehearsals were well under way. So well were things going, in fact, that I relaxed my habitual pre-opening tension for a moment at my home, which was, in those days, in Brooklyn. I even missed a rehearsal, since Fokine was at his very best, keen and interested, and the music was in the able hands of Arnold Volpe, a musician who worked passionately for the highest artistic aims, a Russian-born American pioneer in music. Volpe devoted his entire life, from the time of his arrival in this country until his death, to the cause of young American musicians. He was an ideal collaborator for the Fokines. There was a fine understanding between Fokine and Volpe, and the performances, therefore, were splendid. I felt content.
But not for long. My peace of mind was shattered by a telephone call. It was Mrs. Volpe. The news was bad. Fokine had suffered an injury during rehearsal. He had pulled a leg tendon. The pain was severe. The rehearsal had been abandoned.
I rushed to Manhattan and up to the old Marie Antoinette Hotel, famous as the long-time home of that wizard of the American theatre, David Belasco. Here the Fokines had made their temporary home, while searching for a house. Michel was in bed, with Vera in solicitous attendance. To understate, the news was very bad. The doctor, who had just left, had said it would be at least six weeks before he could permit Fokine to dance.
But the performance had to be given Tuesday night. It was now Sunday. There was all the publicity, all the advertising, and the rent of the Metropolitan Opera House had to be paid. This was not all. A tour had been booked to follow the Metropolitan appearance, including Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond. Apart from my own expenses, there were the responsibilities to the various local managers and managements concerned. Something had to be done, and at once. The newspapers had to be informed.
The silence of the hotel bedroom, hitherto broken only by Vera’s cooing ministrations, deepened. It was I who spoke. An idea flashed through my mind.
“Mikhail Mikhailovitch,” I said, “could Vera Petrovna do a full programme on Tuesday night on her own?”
Michel and Vera exchanged glances. There was something telepathic in the communication between their eyes.
Fokine turned his head in my direction.
“Yes,” he said.
Quickly the programme was rearranged. Fokine suggested adding a Chopin group, which he called Poland—Three Moods: Happiness, Revolt, Sadness.
We went into action. The orchestra seat prices were five dollars, and a five-dollar top was high in those days. Announcements were rushed out, informing the public in big type that Vera Fokina, Prima Ballerina Russian Ballet, would appear, together with the adjusted programme, which we agreed upon as follows: Arnold Volpe and his Symphony Orchestra would play Weber’s Oberon Overture; Saint-Saens’ Symphonic Poem, Rouet d’Omphale; Beethoven’s Egmont Overture; Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Capriccio Espagnol; Ippolitoff-Ivanoff’s Caucasian Sketches; and the Wedding Procession from Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Le Coq d’Or. Fokina had an evening cut out for her: the three Polish moods I have mentioned; The Dying Swan; The “Moonlight” Sonata; the Danses Tziganes, by Nachez; Sapeteado, a Gitano Dance, by Hartmann; two Caucasian Dances, to folk music arranged by Asafief; and four of Liadov’s Russian Folk Dances.
A large sign to the same effect was installed in the lobby of the Metropolitan Opera House. The news spread quickly. But the public did not seem to mind. In this eleventh-hour shifting of arrangements, I was happy to have the whole-hearted cooperation of John Brown and Edward Ziegler, the administrative heads of the Metropolitan Opera Company.
The first performance was sold out; the audience was enthusiastic. Moreover, while in those days there were no dance critics, the press comment, largely a matter of straight reporting, was highly favorable. I should like to quote The New York Times account in full as an example of the sort of attention given then to such an important event, some thirty-odd years ago: “FOKINA’S ART DELIGHTS METROPOLITAN AUDIENCE—Her Husband and Partner Ill, Russian Dancers Interest Throng Alone, with Volpe’s Aid: Vera Fokina, the noted Russian dancer performed an unusual feat on February 11, when she kept a great audience in the Metropolitan keenly interested in her art for almost three hours. When it was announced that Mr. Fokine, her husband, was ill and therefore not able to carry out his part of the program, a murmur of dissatisfaction was audible. But the auditors soon forgot their disappointment and wondered at Mme. Fokina’s graceful and vivid interpretations.
“Among the best liked of her offerings was the ‘Dying Swan,’ with Saint-Saens’s music. Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, well played by an invisible pianist, Izia Seligman, and the Russian and Gipsy pieces. She was compelled to give many encores.
“Arnold Volpe and his orchestra took a vital part in the program, playing the music with a fine instinct for the interpretative ideas of the dancer. He conducted his forces through some of the compositions intended as the vehicles for the absent Mr. Fokine, and thus won an honest share in the success of the entertainment.”
So much for ballet criticism in New York in 1920.
The tour had to go on with Fokina alone, although Fokine had recovered sufficiently to hobble about and to supervise and direct and oversee. A certain Mr. K. had associated himself as a sort of local representative. Mr. K. was not much of a local manager; but he did have an unholy talent for cheque-bouncing. It was not a matter of one or two, due to some error; they bounded and bounced all over the country in droves, and daily. If the gods that be had seen fit to give me a less sound nervous system than, happily, they have, K.’s financial antics could have brought on a nervous breakdown.
At the same time, Fokine, with his tremendous insistence on perfection, hobbled about, giving orders to all and sundry in a mixture of languages—Russian, French, German, Swedish, and Danish—that no one, but no one, was able to understand. Even up to the time of his death, English was difficult for Mikhail Mikhailovitch, and he spoke it, at all times, with an unreproducible accent. His voice, unless excited, was softly guttural. In typically Russian fashion, he interchanged the letters “g” and “h.” Always there was an almost limitless range of facial expressions.
On this tour, Fokine, being unable to dance, had more time on his hands to worry about everything else. His lighting rehearsals were long and chaotic, since provincial electricians were not conspicuous either for their ability, their interest, or their patience. During the lighting rehearsals, since he was immobilised by his injury, Fokine and Vera would sit side by side. He knew what he wanted; but, before he would finally approve anything, he would turn to her for her commendation; and there would pass between them that telepathic communication I often saw, and about which I have remarked before. Occasionally, if something amused them, they would laugh together; but, more often than not, their faces revealed no more than would a skilled poker-player’s.
Fokine could manage to keep his temper on an even keel for a considerable time, if he put his mind to it. There was no affectation about Fokine, either artistically or personally. In appearance there was not a single one of those artificial eccentricities so often associated with the “artistic temperament.” To the man in the street he would have passed for a solidly successful business man. At work he was a taskmaster unrelenting, implacable, fanatical frequently to the point of downright cruelty. At rest, he was a gentleman of great charm and simplicity, with a sense of humor and a certain capacity for enjoyment. Unfortunately, his sense of humor had a way of deserting him at critical moments. This, coupled with a lack of tact, made him many enemies among those who were once his closest friends. These occasional flashes of geniality came only when things were going his way; but, if things did not go as he wanted, his rages could be and were devastating, all-consuming.
One such incident occurred in Philadelphia. As a matter of fact, Philadelphia was marked by incidents. The first was one I had with Edward Lobe, then manager of Philadelphia’s Metropolitan Opera House, then at Broad and Poplar Streets. It had to do with some of the bouncing K.’s bouncing paper. This straightened out, I returned to the stage to find turmoil rampant. There was another crisis.
The crisis had been precipitated by the man whose job it was to operate the curtain. Fokine had shouted and screamed “Zanovess! Zanovess!” at the unfortunate individual. Now “Zanovess” is the Russian word for curtain. The curtain had not fallen. Fokine could not say “curtain.” The operator did not have the vaguest idea of the meaning of “zanovess.” Moreover, the stage-hand suspected, from the tone of Fokine’s voice, his barked order, and the fierce expression of his face that he was being called names. When, finally, Fokine screamed “Idyot!” at him, the curtain-man knew for sure he had been insulted. The argument and hostility spread through his colleagues.
Eventually, I got them calmed down. Fokine insisted they were all idiots; they were all ignorant. This idea leaked through to the stage-hands, and that did not help matters. I finally suggested that, since neither of them could understand the other, the best procedure would be not to scream and shout and stomp—uttering strange mixed French and Russian oaths—but to be quiet and to show by gesture and pantomime, rather than to give unintelligible verbal orders. So, with only minor subsequent scenes, the rehearsal got itself finished.
Also, in Philadelphia, we had substituted Salome’s Dance of the Seven Veils, done to Glazounov’s score of the same name, in place of the “Moonlight” Sonata. It is hardly necessary to point out that the veils, all seven of them, are vastly important. Because of their importance, these had been entrusted to the keeping of Clavia, Vera’s Russian maid, instead of being packed with the other costumes. But, come performance time, Clavia could not be found. Hue and cry were raised; her hotel alerted; restaurants searched; but still no Clavia. She simply had to be found. I pressed Marie Volpe, Arnold Volpe’s singer-wife, into the breach to act as maid for Vera, and to help her dress. But only Clavia knew where Salome’s veils had been secreted. The performance started. The search continued.
Suddenly, there came a series of piercing screams emanating from an upper floor dressing-room. Haunted by visions of the Phantom of the Opera, I rushed up the stairs to find Clavia lying on the floor, obviously in pain. We managed to get her down to Fokina’s room and placed her on the couch in what was known in Philadelphia as “Caruso’s Room,” the star dressing-room Fokina was using. As we entered, Fokina stood ready to go on stage, costumed for The Dying Swan. The situation was obvious. Clavia was about to give birth to a child. The labor pains had commenced. I pushed Vera on to the stage and Marie Volpe into the room—in the nick of time. Mrs. Volpe, a concert singer, pinch-hitting as a maid for Vera, now turned midwife for the first time in her life. By the time the ambulance and the doctor arrived, mother and infant were doing as well as could be expected.
Next morning Mrs. Volpe found herself a new role. A lady of high moral scruples, herself a mother, she had realized that no one had mentioned a father for the child. Mrs. Volpe had assumed the role of detective (a dangerous one, I assure the reader, in ballet), and was determined to run down the child’s father. The newspaper stories, with the headline: “CHILD BORN IN CARUSO’S DRESSING ROOM,” had not been too reassuring to Mrs. Volpe. I counselled her that she would be well advised to let the matter drop.
On our arrival in Baltimore, I was greeted by the news that my rubber-wizard of a local manager, the bouncing Mr. K., had decamped with the box-office sale, leaving behind only some rubber cheques. This, in itself, I felt was enough for one day. But it was not to be. Vera, as curtain time approached, once again was up to her usual business of exhibiting “temperament,” spoiling her life, as she so often did in this respect, throughout her dancing career.
“What is it now?” I asked.
She waxed wroth with great volubility and at considerable length, with profound indignation that the stage floor-cloth was, as she said, “impossible.” Nothing I could say was of any avail. Vera refused, absolutely, irrevocably, unconditionally, to dance. Mrs. Volpe was to help her into her street clothes, and at once. She would return to her hotel. She would return to New York. I must cancel the engagement, the tour, all because of the stage-cloth. And the audience was already filling the theatre.
I thought quickly and went into action. Calling the head carpenter and the property man together, I got them to turn the floor-cloth round. Then, going back to the dressing-room, where Vera was preparing to leave, I succeeded in convincing her by showing her that it was an entirely new doth that we had just got for her happiness.
Vera Fokina never danced better than that night in Baltimore.
Our farewell performance, with both Fokines dancing, took place at Charles Dillingham’s Hippodrome, on Sunday evening, 29th May, 1920. For this occasion, the Fokines appeared together, by popular request, in the Harlequin and Columbine variation from his own masterpiece, Carnaval; Fokine alone danced the Dagestanskaja Lezginka, and staged a work he called Amoun and Berenis, actually scenes from his Une Nuit d’Egypte, which Diaghileff called Cléopâtre, adapted, musically, from Anton Arensky’s score for the ballet. I quote Fokine’s own libretto for the work:
Amoun and Berenis are engaged in the sport of hunting. She represents Gazelle, and he the hunter who wounds her in the breast. The engaged couple plight each other to everlasting love. But soon Amoun betrays his bride. He falls in love with Queen Cleopatra. Not having the opportunity of coming near his beloved queen, he sends an arrow with a note professing his love and readiness to sacrifice his life for her. Notwithstanding the tears and prayers of Berenis, he throws himself into the arms of Cleopatra, and, lured by her tenderness, he accepts from her hands a cup of poison, drinks it and dies. Berenis finds the corpse of her lover, forgives him and mourns his death.
The Hippodrome version consisted of “The Meeting of Amoun and Berenis” “The Entrance of Cleopatra,” by the orchestra; “The Dance Before Cleopatra”; “The Betrayal of Amoun and the Jealousy of Berenis”; “The Hebrew Dance,” by the orchestra; “The Death of Amoun and the Mourning of Berenis.”
In 1927, I presented the Fokines with their “American Ballet,” composed of their pupils, at the Masonic Auditorium, in Detroit, and on subsequent tours. Prominent professional dancers were added to the pupil roster.
That summer, with the Fokines and their company, I introduced ballet to the Lewisohn Stadium Concerts in New York, for three performances, to a record audience of forty-eight thousand people. I also presented them for four performances at the Century Theatre in Central Park West. The Stadium programmes included Les Elves, arranged to Mendelssohn’s Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream, with the addition of the same composer’s Andante and Allegro from the Violin Concerto. Also Medusa, a tragedy set to Tchaikowsky’s Symphonie Pathétique, a work for four characters, the title role being danced by Vera Fokina, and the sea god Poseidon, who fell in love with the beautiful Medusa, danced by Fokine.
It was during one of the Stadium performances, I remember, I had occasion to go to the Fokines’ dressing-room on some errand. I knocked, and believing I heard an invitation to enter, opened the door to discover the two Fokines dissolved in tears of happiness. So moved was Michel by Vera’s performance of the title role in Medusa, that they were sobbing in each other’s arms.
“Wonderful, wonderful, my darling!” Fokine was murmuring. “Such a beautiful performance; and to think you did it all in such a short period, with so very few rehearsals; and the really amazing thing is that you portrayed the character of the creature precisely as it is in my mind!”
In the love, the adoration, the romance of Michel and Vera Fokine, there was the greatest continuous devotion between man and wife that it has been my privilege to know.
Fokine’s American ballet creations have been lost. Perhaps it is as well. For the closing chapter of the life of a truly great artist they were sadly inferior. Towards the end of his career, however, he staged some fresh, new works in France for René Blum’s Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, including Les Elements, Don Juan, and L’Epreuve d’Amour. Then, for de Basil’s Original Ballet Russe, Cinderella, or since he used the French, Cendrillon, to a commissioned score by Baron Frederic d’Erlanger, which might have been better. But choreographically Cendrillon was a return to the triumphant Fokine. There was also his triumphant re-staging of Le Coq d’Or. Perhaps his last really great triumph was his collaboration with Serge Rachmaninoff on Paganini, a work that takes rank with Fokine’s finest.
Fokine restaged Les Sylphides and Carnaval for Ballet Theatre’s initial season. When Ballet Theatre was under my management, he created Bluebeard, in 1941, for Anton Dolin. In 1942, I was instrumental in having German Sevastianov engage Fokine to stage the nostalgic tragedy, Russian Soldier, to the music of Prokofieff.
While in Mexico, in the summer of 1942, working on Helen of Troy, for Ballet Theatre, Fokine contracted pleurisy, which developed into pneumonia on his return to New York, where he died, on 22nd August. For a dancer, he was on the youthful side. He was born in Mannheim-am-Rhine, Germany, 26th April, 1880, the son of Ekaterina Gindt. According to the official records of the St. Petersburg Imperial School, his father was unknown. He was adopted by a merchant, Mikhail Feodorovitch Fokine, who gave him his name. In 1898, he graduated from the St. Petersburg Imperial School. In 1905, he married Vera Petrovna Antonova, the daughter of a master of the wig-maker’s Guild, who had graduated from the School the year before.
At the funeral service at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral, in New York, were assembled all of the dance world in New York in mid-summer, to do him honor.
Some of his works will live on, but they suffer with each passing year because, in most cases, they are not properly done. The Sadler’s Wells and Royal Danish Ballet productions of the Fokine works are the exceptions. But all his works suffered continually during his lifetime, because Fokine had a faulty memory, and his restaging of the works was, all too often, the product of unhappy afterthoughts. Towards the end of his life he became more and more embittered. He, the one-time great revolutionary, resented the new developments in ballet, perhaps because they had not been developed by Fokine.
This bitterness was quite unnecessary, for Fokine remains the greatest creator of modern ballet. His works, properly staged, will always provide a solid base for all ballet programmes. Despite the hue and cry, despite the lavish praise heaped upon each new experiment by modern choreographers, and upon the choreographers themselves, in all contemporary ballet there is no one to take his place.
Other ballet-masters, other choreographers, working with the same basic materials, in the same spirit, in the same language, often require detailed synopses and explanations for their works, in spite of which the meaning of them often remains lost in the murk of darkest obscurity. I remember once asking Fokine to supply a synopsis of one of his new works for programme purposes. I shall not forget his reply: “No synopsis is needed for my ballets. My ballets unfold their stories on the stage. There is never any doubt as to what they say.”
I have visited Vera Petrovna Fokine in the castle on the Hudson where she lives in lonely nostalgia. But it is not quite true that she lives alone; for she lives with the precious memory of a great love, a tremendous reputation, the memory of a great artist, the artist who created Les Sylphides, Prince Igor, and Petroushka.