THE GREAT REVIVAL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 779, 25 June 1954, Page 12

THE GREAT REVIVAL

THE DIAGHILEV BALLET, 1909-1929, by S. . Grigoriev, translated and edited by Vera Bowen; Constable, English price 35/-. \W ITH the death in 1929 of Serge Diaghilev the greatest period in the history of the ballet was over, In twenty years Diaghilev had revived an art forgotten all over Europe outside Russia and raised it to its highest pitch. He had secured the collaboration of the finest composers, painters, conductors and dancers in the world. Stravinsky, Utrillo, Picasso, Fokine, Pavlova, Nijin-sky---all worked with him, quarrelled with him, returned to him as though to a centre of magnetic attraction, Now for the first time what must be almost the full story of the Diaghilev Ballet is told by Serge Leonovidich Grigoriev, throughout the period régisseur or artistic director of the Company. Grigoriev has consulted his "logs" for each of the Ballet’s seasons and, from the bare accounts of rehearsals, the signing of contracts, the details of tours, woven an exciting and moving history of a great enterprise which, beginning in the glittering days of the Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg, surmounted -war, revolution, exile and acute and recurring financial stress, Grigoriey speaks frankly of events and persons, yet without malice and with a telling restraint. What emerges is a fascinating account of creative personalities at work, interacting and stimulating one another to achievement-and sometimes failure. For the balletomane

all the great names are there and how they interpreted their famous roles, but there is even greater interest in Grigoriey’s study of Diaghilev himself, the organiser, inspiration, tyrant and friend of this turbulent crew. An excellent appendix gives a complete list of the Ballet’s productions with credits and casts. My only complaint is that the illustrations are rather

poorly reproduced.

M.J.

B.