The impact of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes on the artistic and musical world in the West was so widespread that when he died in 1929 it was assumed that his ballet company would go with him. In the 1930s, however, under the joint management of Rene Blum and Colonel Vassily de Basil, the Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo emerged with a new generation of stars and soon the dynamic young Antal Dorati as Music Director.
Apart from still photographs and stage designs, there is so little to help a modern audience imagine what those glittering seasons were like that this CD has an almost dreamlike quality. When the company danced at Covent Garden, the London Philharmonic was the orchestra in residence, so these performances are authentic – unlike so many concert readings of ballet scores, this is how the music would have sounded in the theatre.
The four ballets represented were all popular items on the programme for several seasons. Although the last to be recorded, in 1939, Scuola di ballo, Jean Francaix’s arrangement of ten pieces by Boccherini, was one of the first works presented by the company in 1933. It was choreographed by Leonide Massine, and based on a play by Goldoni. Massine himself danced the central male role, with two of the most glamorous ballerinas as his partners – Irina Barnonova and Tatiana Riabouchinska. Massine’s choreography was based on eighteenth-century dance forms and commedia dell’arte gestures. It probably had a more convincing air than the music – the sound is, as Francaix put it, “full of Parisian modernisms”.
Balanchine’s ballet, Cotillon, was also one of the earliest post-Diaghilev efforts by the company. Chabrier’s music was mostly orchestrated by Vittorio Rieti, and the ballet was designed by Christian Berard. Unlike Balanchine’s later, more abstract work, it had a narrative about guests at a formal dance in a private house, with the theme of “The hands of fate”. Balanchine himself danced the First Guest at the premiere, with Tamara Toumanova as the Daughter of the House.
Le beau Danube, with Johann Strauss’s music arranged by Roger Desormiere, was one of the most enduringly popular of Massine’s ballets. The sets were by Vladimir Polunine, based on the drawings of Constantin Guys. Alexandra Danilova had a great success as the Street Dancer, with Massine himself as the Hussar. I remember that you could still buy the plum label 78s of this as late as 1956 – the finale, with Baronova’s solo culminating in 32 fouettes and then the rival Hussar and Dandy trying to outdo each other in pirouettes can easily be imagined in Dorati’s ecstatic conducting.
The rarest piece is Baron Frederic d’Erlanger’s Les cent baisers. Dorati conducted the world premiere at Covent Garden in July 1935 – the choreography was by Bronislava Nijinska with designs by Jean Hugo, and Baronova and Lichine in the main roles. The Hans Andersen tale of the Princess and the Swineherd is a story of romantic disillusion and d’Erlanger’s music, although evoking courtly traditions, has a swooning almost Korngold-like mood.
The sound of these recordings from the 1930s is very clear and free of distortion. Anyone with a curiosity about the great days of the Ballet Russe is likely to be as enthralled as I have been by listening to this utterly enchanting record.'