The Genghis Khan of Ballet

By Annalyn Swan

DIAGHILEV by Richard Buckle; Atheneum; 616pages; $22.50

"I am, firstly, a charlatan, though rather a brilliant one; secondly, a great charmer; thirdly, frightened of nobody; fourthly, a man with plenty of logic and very few scruples; fifthly, I seem to have no real talent," wrote Sergei Diaghilev to his stepmother in 1895. It was an uncharacteristically harsh, but characteristically penetrating judgment. For two decades, until his death in 1929, Diaghilev's unscrupulous logic and charm dominated the stages of Europe. He founded and directed the Ballets Russes. He was the first to create theatrical spectacles with a mix of dance, painting and music. Under his guidance, Stravinsky and Prokofiev composed; Picasso and Matisse painted; Nijinsky and Pavlova danced; Massine and Balanchine choreographed.

If Diaghilev was a charlatan, Richard Buckle shows in this exhaustive new biography that he was also a historical necessity. Almost alone, he bridged the old and new centuries. He was at home in the twilight romanticism of the 1890s. But he was also one of the first to recognize the vigorous new iconoclasts, whose art and music would soon sweep away the lingering shades of the fin de siecle.

Born in 1872 into the minor aristocracy of tsarist Russia, Diaghilev hungered for artistic recognition. He studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakov, but he had no musical talent. Soon, after, he joined the art circle of Alexandre Benois and Leon Bakst. Here, too, his gift was for organization and promotion. With Diaghilev as editor, the group published the World of Art, an influential journal that celebrated Baudelaire, Balzac and the pre-Raphaelites.

But Diaghilev had already begun to make enemies. Even as a schoolboy, notes Buckle, Sergei had offended his friends by his "society manners" and a desire to "make calls, leave cards and write his name in the books of distinguished people." Foes pressed for his dismissal from the staff of the Imperial Theaters. A more sensitive man might have looked closely at himself: Diaghilev looked West.

In 1908, under the patronage of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovitch, Diaghilev opened his first season of dance in Paris. The jaded city was ripe for an invasion of exotica. His company, to the frenzied rhythms of the Polovtsian dances from Borodin's Prince Igor, swept Paris like a Mongol invasion. Next came Scheherazade, with its orgy of writhing dancers, the extraordinary half human, half feline Golden Slave portrayed by Nijinsky, and the unexpected colors of Bakst. That was succeeded by the most famous opening-night brawl in history, when a glittering crowd booed Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Nijinsky, who choreographed the Rite, was forced to stand on a chair backstage and shout instructions above the din. La Belle Epoque was over.

Diaghilev's private life was as notorious as his public spectacles. He was a celebrated figure in the Paris underworld; Nijinsky was one of his lovers. "It is almost impossible," said Stravinsky, "to describe the perversity of Diaghilev's entourage--a kind of homosexual Swiss Guard." He reminded one musician of a "decadent Roman emperor--possibly Genghis Khan or even a barbarous Scythian--and lastly, what he really was: a Russian grand seigneur."

In praise of himself, Diaghilev boomed: "Society will have to recognize that my experiments, which appear dangerous today, become indispensable tomorrow." He was right. He discovered Stravinsky at a concert in St. Petersburg and Picasso in a shabby studio in Montmartre. In Parade, first performed in 1917, he juxtaposed cubist costumes with the sharp-edged music of Satie and a Cocteau libretto.

Diaghilev was more than a gilded talent scout. Wherever he found genius, he made it fashionable. Parisians flocked to see Parade, which coincided with the flowering of cubism. Romeo and Juliet, designed by Miro and Max Ernst, popularized surrealism. Apollon Musagete, the first successful collaboration of Stravinsky and Balanchine, marked the beginning of neoclassicism in music and dance. Diaghilev's own life was measured out in hotel bills and telegrams. He ranged ceaselessly from Europe to America in search of backers and triumphs. World War I and the Russian Revolution slowed his progress but never stopped it.

His death in Venice was straight out of Thomas Mann: the old homosexual fading with the epoch he had introduced.

Buckle, formerly the dance critic of the Sunday Times of London, might have speculated more about the period and the art and placed Diaghilev's achievement in perspective. But if analysis is missing, the man transcends his interpreter. For Diaghilev's life was his work, and that has continued. His followers have founded many of the world's leading dance companies, including London's Royal Ballet and the New York City Ballet. It is a suitable legacy for the impresario who. with one daring jete after another, brought the East to the West and the West into the 20th century.

Excerpt "Much has been written about the perfect collaboration between choreographer, composer and designer under Diaghilev's supervision. The stages by which one of the most famous costumes of any Diaghilev ballet, that for Nemtchinova in the adagietto in Les Biches, reached its final form, are therefore of interest. We have seen how Laurencin's nebulous watercolors had been evolved by Sudeikina and Kochno ... Nemtchinova appeared before Diaghilev's eyes in a long blue velvet frock-coat, like that of a head porter in a hotel. 'Give me the scissors, Grigoriev!' Diaghilev exclaimed. He cut away the collar, to make a wide V-neck. He cut away the velvet, till it barely covered the buttocks. Nemtchinova had never shown so much leg before (what ballerina had?) and she protested. 'I feel naked!' 'Then go and buy yourself some white gloves!' said Diaghilev. The celebrated white gloves became almost a part of the choreography. "

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