(Preview) RSNO: The Rite of Spring
Join Music Director Thomas Søndergård for the start of the RSNO's 2022:23 Season, performing Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.
Watch online: streamed live on Saturday at 7:30pm, available on demand until 30 June 2023
An Introduction to the first concert of the RSNO 2022/23 Season.
The premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet, ‘The Rite of Spring’ (Le Sacre du Printemps), has gone down in history as one of the most controversial opening nights of any musical work. It took place at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées on the 29th May 1913, as the whole world was about to turn on its axis, with the announcement of hostilities signalling the outbreak of the First World War just over a year away.
In its way, the opening of a ballet became a metaphor for the conflict in the wider world, which had been brewing for some years. It has been said that the premiere of the ‘Rite of Spring’ was the day the modern world was born, and in many ways this view is justifiable. Just as the First World War swept away many of the features of society and life that had been present in Europe for generations, the ‘Rite of Spring’ sent shock waves through the musical world and laid the foundations for the new sound world that was to come. It also provided a link between the new and the old, demonstrating how Stravinsky’s music developed through contact with his contemporaries and not in direct opposition to them. He wasn’t composing in a vacuum. The first time the four hand piano version of the score (which became the first published version) was heard, it was played by Stravinsky and Debussy in Paris. When the opening was postponed by Diaghilev from 1912 to 1913, he and Stravinsky went to Bayreuth in the summer of 1912 to see Wagner’s ‘Parsifal’, having laid aside the ballet score for a few months.
Igor Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, near St Petersburg, in 1882 into a wealthy and musical family. His mother was the daughter of a high-ranking Ukrainian official in Kiev, and his father, Fyodor, was a famous bass singer of Polish origin, who had first sung professionally in Kiev and, for 26 years, was a leading bass at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. He sang several roles in new operas by Tchaikovsky, and in January 1882 just before the birth of Igor, he created the role of Grandfather Frost in Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera, ‘Snyegurochka’ (‘The Snow Maiden’), a role I myself sang in London, about 100 years later! I love these coincidences! Here’s another one – as a member of the ensemble at the Mariinsky, and as a great advocate of Ukrainian music, Fyodor modelled one of the Ukrainian Cossacks for Ilya Repin’s famous painting, finished in 1891, ‘Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire’, exhibited in the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg. In the story of this painting, the Cossacks send a reply to a demand for fealty by the Ottoman Sultan with ever filthier language, packed with crude sexual references and scatological crudity, too shocking even for the readers of the EMR (although you can Google it!). The French poet, Guillaume Apollinaire, wrote a versified version of the letter, which later still, in 1969, and translated into Russian, was set by Shostakovich as part of his 14th Symphony (which I have also sung!)
Young Igor obviously was brought up in a family steeped in music, but it was hoped that he would become a lawyer. He enrolled in the Law Faculty at St Petersburg University, where he made friends with Vladimir Rimsky-Korsakov, and, after meeting Vlad’s dad, the famous composer Nicolai, he started studying composition with the older man, with whom he worked until Nicolai’s death in 1908. Music took over from law and his life as a composer began. In 1906, he married Catherine Nosenko, his first cousin, and the couple moved to Ustilug, a small town on the Ukrainian/Polish border, where he designed and built a new house (now a museum). Igor’s maternal grandfather owned an estate near Ustilug (Ustyluh in Ukrainian), and he had spent many summers there as a boy.
His big breakthrough as a composer came in 1909, when two of his compositions were performed in a concert in St Petersburg. In the audience was the impresario, Sergei Diaghilev, owner of the Ballets Russes, based in Paris, who was very taken with the music of young Stravinsky. He needed a score for a new ballet, ‘The Firebird’, based on an old Russian fairy tale, and he took a punt on Stravinsky, who set to work. “The Firebird” had its first performance in Paris, at the Opéra de Paris, in June 1910, and caused a sensation.
Diaghilev had been instrumental in bringing Russian art and music to Paris in the early years of the 20th century, firstly with an art exhibition, ‘Two Centuries of Russian Art and Sculpture’ in 1906 at the Grand Palais, and then with performances of Mussorgsky’s opera, ‘Boris Godunov’, starring Fyodor Chaliapin at the Opéra in 1908. ‘Boris’ was an artistic triumph though a financial flop, but this didn’t put Diaghilev off, and the Saison Russe of 1909 was an utter success. Le Tout Paris was enamoured of all things Russian, and Diaghilev was the man to supply its needs. Born into a wealthy family of vodka distillers, he had entrées into high society, which he used shamelessly. He seems to have lived all his life on a precipice between success and bankruptcy, but his ambition was great and his achievements vast. Using the choreographer Michel Fokine, and showcasing the wonderful dancer, Vacslav Nijinsky, the roll call of triumphs was breathtaking. He commissioned Ravel to write ‘Daphnis et Chloé’, which was the success of 1912 at the Théatre du Châtelet. Well, another success actually, as Nijinsky had just triumphed the month before at the same theatre in Debussy’s ‘L ’Après-midi d’un Faune’, based on his symphonic poem, ‘Prélude a l’apres-midi d’un faune’ from 1894! Imagine it, both those iconic works staged for the first time a month apart! The following year, Diaghilev commissioned Debussy to write a new ballet for him, and ‘Jeux’ was staged for the first time on 15th May 1913, choreographed by Nijinsky. Unbelievably, two weeks later, ‘Le Sacre du Printemps’ was premiered at the Champs-Elysees Theatre a couple of miles away.
Nijinsky and Diaghilev were lovers, and this added a certain frisson to the whole project. A few months after the Rite, while on a tour of the Ballets Russes in South America, without Diaghilev, Nijinsky married a Hungarian aristocrat and dancer, Romola de Pulszky, who soon became pregnant. Never one to hold a grudge (haha), Diaghilev immediately sacked Nijinsky, who soon found himself in Budapest with his wife and child and was interned as an enemy alien during the First World War, due to his Russian nationality (although actually Polish). Diaghilev semi relented and found a way of getting Nijinsky to New York, where, sadly, he began to show signs of mental disease. For most of the next 30 years, he was in and out of mental institutions, never danced again, and died in London in 1950.
All this was in the future, and Nijinsky was at the height of his powers when he choreographed and starred in ‘Le Sacre du Printemps’ in May 1913.
Europe, as we have said, was beginning to prepare for the Great War, but most people were blissfully unaware of the undercurrents. Somehow though, societies all over the globe were evolving and change seems to have been in the air.
In Russia, the ingredients which led to the revolution in 1917 were being stirred up. The Duma (parliament) and Tsar Nicholas were at loggerheads, there were strikes and riots everywhere, the Bolsheviks were causing great unrest, and Rasputin (‘Ra! Ra! Rasputin! Lover of the Russian Queen!’ to quote the great historians, Boney M) was gaining influence at court. Blundering into the Great War unprepared, the seeds were being sown for the cataclysm that was to come.
In Britain, the aftermath of the long reign of Queen Victoria was the short-lived but vibrant Edwardian era. Edward VII, who was king from 1901 to1910, set the tone as the leader of a fashionable elite, and the period was characterised, not entirely spuriously, by images of women in large dresses and hats and men in white tie, top hat and tails, enjoying the high life in country houses or at the racetrack. Coinciding with the French Belle Epoque, the mixture of grand neo-baroque architecture and the groovy lines of Art Nouveau (Jugendstil in Germanic countries) introduced an entirely new look into public buildings. The automobile and early cinematic experiments were the first harbingers of what we know as modern life and, although the early films showed more of High Society than anything else, glimpses were offered into the lives of the working classes at the very moment when they were beginning to rouse themselves from centuries of servitude. Women too were slowly beginning to escape from the drudgeries of domestic life, and with the suffragette movement, allied to the invention of the sewing machine and the typewriter, opportunities in life other than house-keeping and child-bearing were becoming apparent. A shift in perception on the part of rich men was slower in evolving, but that too was coming.
A shift in political perception of the emerging colossus across the Atlantic was also clear. Now over a hundred years old, the Republic of the United States was starting to be seen as more than just a land of opportunity, but a powerhouse in global politics. The terrible upheaval of the Civil War had given credibility to the victorious Yankees, and as masses of immigrants flocked to the New World, a huge power was rising in the west, soon to dominate the world as we know it.
Musically, New York in particular was firmly on the concert circuit, so we find giants like Mahler spending time most years conducting in America. It’s amusing to think that still the standard attire of most orchestras and soloists is the formal dress of the Edwardian era, stiff white ties and tailcoats, and that standard wedding gear, except in Scotland where the kilt dominates, is the morning coat for men and big dresses and hats for ladies. Think of those fast action black and white films from the beginning of last century, and you see people dressed exactly like modern orchestras and wedding parties now!
Returning to Diaghilev, one can only wonder at the influence of that one man on the history of music. Not only did he bring contemporary Russian art and music to the forefront of European consciousness, but his championing of the cream of European composers gave a huge boost to the amazing surge of creativity in those early years of the 20th century. Growing up in Perm, his family held musical soirées fortnightly, and Mussorgsky was a frequent attendee. While at University in St Petersburg, Diaghilev studied with Rimsky-Korsakov privately, and cultivated artistic friends, notably Leon Bakst, who was to become his main scene and costume designer at the Ballets Russes. With his wealthy background, Diaghilev was able to put on art exhibitions from an early age, and his contribution to artistic life over a long period was astonishing, both in Russia and France, and then globally. During his career, he was able to commission music from Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel, Satie, Richard Strauss, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Glazunov, De Falla, Prokofiev, Poulenc and Respighi. It’s a glittering list, and if you include the singers, dancers, choreographers, set designers and producers he employed, one can only marvel at his largesse and influence.
That premiere night in Paris in 1913 was one of the most controversial and famous performances of all time, although accounts vary quite considerably, and there’s a suspicion that some of the controversy was contrived! What is clear is that something dramatic happened. The theatre had only opened its doors for the first time the month before, and the manager and Diaghilev had come up with a splendid show, including the ballet ‘Les Sylphides’ and Borodin’s ‘Polovtsian Dances’ from ‘Prince Igor’. ‘The Rite of Spring’ was the second item on the programme, and right from the start, with its eerie introduction, tempers were frayed. It seems that two factions were present, the traditional ballet audience, looking for a glamorous night out, and the Bohemian new wave, keen on modernity and up for a fight with the traditionalists. Both the, for the time, avant garde nature of Stravinsky’s music and the raw visceral quality of Nijinsky’s choreography, combined to shock the fashionable elite and delight the bohemians. Objects were thrown, fights broke out, shouting filled the air, and general mayhem occurred. Or didn’t! The level of riot and its subsequent reporting was hugely contradictory. Saint-Saëns was said to have stormed out, except he wasn’t there! The performance had to be stopped, except that it wasn’t! The music and the choreography were booed and shouted down - or weren’t! A quasi riot occurred, or the performance was cheered and applauded at the end?
What is clear is that this was an event of huge excitement, and it has gone down in history as one of the most important evenings in the history of music and theatre.
