Father of the Russian Ballet

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 104, 23 July 1927, Page 24

Father of the Russian Ballet

pTGHTEEN years ago what was virtually a new form of art was introduced to Western Europe: Russian ballet. When M. Diaghileff launched his troupe he had the advantage of being able to draw for dancers on artists who had been through the admirable school of the St. Petersburg Opera, but what made his ballets so new and so engrossing was that the technique of the dancers was not the one interest of the show but was made to serve a poetic idea. He does not dance himself; he does not paint scenery or compose music, but he has a singularly acute judgment of the value of those who do, and he has ideas of his own. This remarkable man, the Petronius of modern European art, renewed the ballet by his connoisseurship and imagination.

The whole world is tM-mi-ballet’s province, and Diagblien ing fancy is the greatest 01 jyt* sessions. Because he has on mark with beautiful precision very reason why next time n ( shoot in another direction. there is know what is coming, and alwavs the chance of a maste P There has been a wide range styles of Diaghileff’s The extremes are the extra sumptuousness and historical jship of Bakst and the sheer tions of the 1926 “super-real""*. Musically, M. DiaghilefTs gre» toric deed was the revealing vinsky, who wrote for the “ Be rethree masterpieces. There i , proach to level at the magici - te ballet: it is that he has failed for years and years one oi exquisite pieces of the Foki rhlo*-* namely, Ravel's “Daphais and