Watching “Petrouchka”
Michel Fokine’s ballet “Petrouchka,” created in 1911, is one I’ve seen many times. But perhaps I’ll never see it again, because I have a feeling it’s pretty much banned now. I’m virtually certain that one of its puppet characters, the Moor, would be considered irredeemably racist today.
The music is my favorite Stravinsky composition by far. The Fokine choreography is surpassingly strange, and the stage is full of people much of the time, with every character doing something different and creating the impression of a village fair come to life. The costumes are wonderful, with less of an ensemble quality and more like the individual costumes worn by the actors in a play. It’s a ballet, but only three characters wear pointe shoes, and two are street entertainers and one is a puppet. There are three puppets, but they periodically escape from the confines of puppitude and take on a life of their own.
I’ve always been very sensitive to staging, and this ballet is one of the most intricate in terms of staging. Probably the most intricate. That makes it extremely hard to film and hard to produce in the first place. There are certain magical moments I would always look forward to that were absolutely thrilling on the stage and – as with most filmed dance – lose quite a bit in any video.
One was the moment that the three puppets – the pretty but vapid Ballerina, the sad and introspective Petrouchka, and the bold and confident Moor – move off the stage with its restrictions (the dancers are on armatures to create the effect of puppets) and out into the crowd, staying in character. The Moor, with his forceful wide-open movements, represents the extroverted person of action, whereas poor Petrouchka is the introverted depressive. The Ballerina puppet is attractive, empty, and fickle.
Another wonderful moment is when the coachmen thump their arms on their upper torsos to keep warm as dusk begins, and then when the snow starts to fall as the coachmen and nursemaids twirl and twirl. That snowfall might just be my favorite moment in the staged ballet. Another is when the magician in charge of the puppets picks up the fallen Petrouchka (the dancer having sneaked offstage surreptitiously while the crowd surrounds him). The transformation from dancer-pretending-to-be-puppet into actual puppet always surprises the audience, which lets out a collective gasp of wonder. But in the video the magical quality is of course nowhere near as strong.
And then we have the final moment when the ghost of Petrouchka on the roof – the real dancer – flops forward and seems to turn into a puppet again before our very eyes.
Here is a filmed stage production that features Nureyev.
And here is a Russian film that opens up the action somewhat and sometimes shows more than what would happen on a stage, although for most of the time it’s faithful to the stage productions:
Watched, listened, enjoyed.
Subsequently ended watching, listening, quite enjoying Stravinsky’s Firebird, The Return Of The Firebird, as well.
Thanks!
fascinating, when is it supposed to be set, in the time of the berbers, if contemporary it’s the reign of the rassouli,
the moor is the more serious character, it doesn’t appear there was much russian/morrocan interaction, but here’s an italian example
https://www.geni.com/people/MARTHA-FRANCESCHINI-SULTANA-OF-MOROCCO/6000000180721684877
Not a dancer. But something about ballet fascinates me. I enjoy your discussions. I’ve always wondered if the choreography is always the same as a ballet is passed down through the years. And if so is it written? What is the notation?
Oldav8r:
Ballet is usually passed down by older dancers to younger dancers, in person. The choreography is generally unchanged unless it’s noted on the program that there is new choreography.
There is a kind of ballet notation by which steps can be written down, but as far as I know it’s not used very much and most dancers can’t read or write it. And these days sometimes old video is also used.
But there is no substitute for the personal touch of a dancer who once danced the role – or even originated it, and may have been taught the steps from the choreographer himself or herself. There are many YouTube videos of such coaching taking place, for example this one:
Neo says, “But perhaps I’ll never see it again, because I have a feeling it’s pretty much banned now. I’m virtually certain that one of its puppet characters, the Moor, would be considered irredeemably racist today.”
Obvious solution to the DEI problem: Have a female of color dance the role of the Moor; have the transgender dancer from the Royal Ballet Academy dance the role of the Ballerina; and have the usual white male dance the role of Petrouchka. The frisson induced by a biological male in love with a transwoman, followed by his death at the hands of a person of color, should satisfy the most progressive balletomane.
Serious question: Neo mentions the snowfall as her favorite moment in the staged ballet. In the Russian version of the ballet, the white stuff builds up on the stage floor to the point that Petrouchka’s body leaves a track in it as the Magician drags it away. I found myself wondering exactly what the stage crew used to make the snow– it would have to be some kind of nonslippery powder that would be safe for the dancers to move in/step on. It’s that kind of detail as well as the colorful costuming that got me caught up in both performances.
Thanks very much for presenting this masterpiece!
Petrouchka stands in the middle of THREE great ballet scores composed by Igor Stravinsky. All of them in — or adjacent to — the musical modernist avant garde.
Here’s a fun topic for casual viewer/listener to share at cocktail party or sundowner time: how many orchestral suites by Stravinsky are said to have caused riots on their premiere
? (Choose among the three landmarks; he did at least one more ballet scores, but since it was in his later neo- classical phase, it isn’t one near the objectionable avante garde
The Firebird, Petrouchka, and The Rite of Spring (or “les Sacre du Printemps”) are the three.
Somehow, whenever I think of the prologue to Kubric,’s 2002, A Space Odyssey”, I’m thinking of Les Sacre. Could Stravinsky inspired him?
“…caused riots…”
Ah, but did they actually provoke a genuine revolution and bring down a government?
(As for “Petrushka” I wonder if it’s a matter of Stravinsky believing that “anything Offenbach can do I can do better…”)
TJ– It’s “Le [singular] Sacre du Printemps” that is said to have caused a riot (can we say “insurrection”?) at its first performance in 1913. Not “les”– that’s the plural form of the definite article in French.
it might be a case of print the legend,
On the evening of 29 May, Gustav Linor reported, “Never … has the hall been so full, or so resplendent; the stairways and the corridors were crowded with spectators eager to see and to hear”.[58] The evening began with Les Sylphides, in which Nijinsky and Karsavina danced the main roles.[54] Le Sacre followed. Some eyewitnesses and commentators said that the disturbances in the audience began during the Introduction, and grew noisier when the curtain rose on the stamping dancers in “Augurs of Spring”. But Taruskin asserts, “it was not Stravinsky’s music that did the shocking. It was the ugly earthbound lurching and stomping devised by Vaslav Nijinsky.”[59] Marie Rambert, who was working as an assistant to Nijinsky, recalled later that it was soon impossible to hear the music on the stage.[60] In his autobiography, Stravinsky writes that the derisive laughter that greeted the first bars of the Introduction disgusted him, and that he left the auditorium to watch the rest of the performance from the stage wings. The demonstrations, he says, grew into “a terrific uproar” which, along with the on-stage noises, drowned out the voice of Nijinsky who was shouting the step numbers to the dancers.[56] Two years after the premiere the journalist and photographer Carl Van Vechten claimed in his book Music After the Great War that the person behind him became carried away with excitement, and “began to beat rhythmically on top of my head with his fists”.[61] In 1916, in a letter not published until 2013, Van Vechten admitted he had actually attended the second night, among other changes of fact.[62]
remember that walt disney used it to powerful effect in fantasia,
the presence of the moor does strike a discordant note, yes morocco and russia had cordial relations since catherine the great, which would seem ironic in light of her relations with the southern caucasus,
then again, morocco had good relations with the colonies,
On Russia and Moors – see Pushkin’s maternal great-grandfather:
“Scholars argue that Pushkin’s account may be inaccurate due to the author’s desire to elevate the status of his ancestors and family.”
Pushkin has since been elevated in a different way thanks to modern civil aviation: Sheremetyevo Airport, the busiest airport in Russia, started out as a military base but was converted into a civilian airport in 1959. Following a 2019 name-the-airport (“Great Names of Russia”) contest, the airport’s name was extended to include Pushkin. It’s now officially the Sheremetyevo Alexander S. Pushkin International Airport. Pushkin’s profile appears on the airport’s website:
https://www.svo.aero/en/main
No word about whether Pushkin’s great-grandfather Gannibal is commemorated somewhere in the public areas of the airport– it would be fitting if he is.
The censors don’t like the Moor character?
Well, just make [him?] something neutral- like a boat captain, or a flight attendant-guy, instead! 😀