Diaghilev's Empire

July 4, 2022
Sublime art leaps from great showmanship in this vibrant chronicle of early 20th-century ballet. Dance journalist Christiansen (The Complete Book of Aunts) centers his narrative on Sergei Diaghilev, the Russian impresario who took Paris and London by storm before and after WWI with his Ballets Russes troupe, which showcased Russian dancers and choreographers in ballets that revolutionized the form. His Diaghilev is a larger-than-life rogue forever summoning reluctant male employees to his bed; an avowed charlatan with no talents except the ability to galvanize talented people into putting on a show; and with a restless, fertile sense of boredom that made him push the avant-garde. Surrounding Diaghilev and vividly sketched are such Ballets Russes geniuses as the preternaturally gifted (and possibly autistic) Vaslav Nijinsky—whose settings of modernist lightning bolts Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun by Debussy and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring almost caused riots with their strange movements, eroticism, and cacophony—brilliant choreographers Leonide Massine and George Balanchine, and set designer Pablo Picasso. Christiansen writes about ballet as evocatively as one can (prima ballerina Anna Pavlova was “a fluttering dragonfly, a melting snowflake, a winsome dryad, a will-o’-the-wisp—and... a dying swan, her arms quivering with a frustrated desire to take wing as the life force fades”). The result is a stimulating recreation of a cultural watershed. Photos.

August 1, 2022

British dance critic and self-professed "incurable balletomane" Christiansen (Faber Pocket Guide to Opera; City of Light: The Reinvention of Paris) traces the history and artistic reach of the Ballets Russes and its mercurial founder, tireless promoter, and creative director Sergei Diaghilev. Drawing extensively on published histories, biographies, and autobiographies, Christensen writes for the curious reader, with or without an extensive dance background, presenting a man with a brilliant eye for talent and a gift for discerning what an audience craved, sometimes before they realized they wanted it. Along with chronicling backstage drama and artistic triumphs beginning about 1909, the book puts Diaghilev's complicated personal life on full view; he had a chaotic relationship with ballet virtuoso Nijinsky, hired Picasso to design sets, invited Balanchine to choreograph, and collaborated with Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Jean Cocteau, and many others. After Diaghilev's death in 1929, ballet did not die out as some had predicted. Christiansen argues that the Ballets Russes' approach to dance remained influential for decades, gradually losing audience as new dance forms and artists emerged. VERDICT Christiansen's accessible book is a fascinating cautionary tale for readers with an interest in ballet history and those who enjoy books about visionaries who weather great failures and great successes.--Maggie Knapp

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2022
The dance critic for the Spectator recounts a seminal period in the history of ballet. He was the original Ed Sullivan, a man with "no creative gift of his own" but whose genius was "to spot and gather the necessary talents, to render them effective, and to get results." Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), the son of Russian landed gentry, "a great charmer," arrived in St. Petersburg at age 18 determined to make his mark. After joining forces with the Nevsky Pickwickians, a "small fraternity of young men of the upper middle class," Diaghilev formed the Ballets Russes, a troupe of Russian artists who set the standards that made ballet "a crucial piece in the jigsaw of Western culture." Christiansen, an "incurable balletomane," takes readers through the 20-year history of the Ballets Russes and the talents behind it: choreographer Alexander Gorsky; dancer Anna Pavlova; and, most notably, Vaslav Nijinsky, who shocked audiences with his "supernatural hovering jump," was one of Diaghilev's many male lovers, and whose mental state degenerated to the point that he was confined to a Swiss sanatorium in 1919 and thereafter "alternated between long periods of catatonic docility and episodes of violent self-harm." Christiansen often notes that many of Diaghilev's paramours--Nijinsky, "entirely heterosexual" dancer L�onide Massine, composer Igor Markevitch--were not gay, a debatable assertion next to comments such as that set designer Leon Bakst was "secretly cursed with perverse sexual tastes." This mars an otherwise well-researched work full of entertaining stories, as when Nijinsky, dancing Giselle for the Mariinsky in front of duchesses, forgot "to wear mitigating baggy trunks or a support strap, leaving the bulges of both his genitals and his buttocks exposed." When the ladies demanded decency, "Nijinsky, never one for a tactful compromise, refused and went on to dance the second act unencumbered." The Mariinsky fired him. A comprehensive look at the influence of one of ballet's most famous companies.

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October 15, 2022
Serge Diaghilev was not a dancer or choreographer, but he nonetheless left his imprint on twentieth-century ballet as an impresario and founder of the influential Ballet Russes. This year marks the 150th anniversary of his birth, and dance critic Christiansen (City of Light, 2018) sets out "to trace the historical moment when, thanks to a unique enterprise and the individual who drove it, ballet became a crucial piece in the jigsaw of Western culture." Diaghilev harnessed the forces of cutting-edge art, dance, and music, and, with him at the reins, the Ballet Russes galloped onto the world stage like no other dance troupe had before. From the opening look at the classic ballet film, The Red Shoes, as a point of reference, through succeeding chapters that offer historical context and discuss rivals, successors, and survivors, this is a full and thoughtful appreciation of a world populated by the likes of Nijinsky, Nijinska, Pavlova, Picasso, Matisse, and Stravinsky. Historical photographs and a generous bibliography make Christiansen's vivid chronicle an essential selection for any performing arts collection and a captivating read for balletomanes.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.