Original and new performances of
Stravinsky’s Firebird, Petroushka
and Rite of Spring
Vesa Matteo Piludu
University of Helsinki
Department of Art Research, Semiotics
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (1882 –1971)
Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский
 Music scores commissioned by impresario Sergei Diaghilev and
performed in the ballets of the dance company Ballets Russes
(Russian Ballets) of Paris
 L'Oiseau de feu or The Firebird (1910)
 Petrushka or Petroushka (1911/1947)
 Le Sacre du printemps or The Rite of Spring (1913)
 All this Ballet were considered innovative and avant-garde, even if
they were based on traditional Russian folktales (Firebird), folk
traditions as Russian folk puppet theatre (Petrushka) or artists’
visionary ideas about Russian ancient paganism (Rite)
 It was typical of the period doing avant-garde based on folklore or
distant cultures (the so-called primitivism)
Juri Lotman’s theory and Stravinsky’s ballets
 Difference between the symbol (signifier) and the meaning of the
symbol (significans)
 Certain symbols have an enormous capacity of resistance
(conservativism or memory of symbols: folklore legends)
 Book: Universe of the Mind
 The same symbol can have different meanings in different cultural
contests (cultural relativism, horizontal)
 If the cultural contest changes, the interpretation and the meaning
of the symbol could change (symbolic dynamic, vertical): same
signifier, different significant
 In the case of Stravinsky he used symbols and myths from Russian
folklore to produce avant-garde music and ballets: the symbols
could be traditional, but their meaning is completely different
from the one they had in the rural Russian oral culture
Performances in ballet
 The score of the composer (musical)
 The performance of the director of orchestra (musical)
 The performance of the musicians (musical)
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Dancer’s casting and role selection (visual)
The costumer’s work (visual)
The set designer (visual)
The choreography (visual)
The stage performance of the dancers (visual)
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Un-artistic performances:
Reaction of the public (mainly oral, sometimes written)
The articles of critics and journalists (written)
Reaction of impresarios (oral, written, production of new ballets)
Dialogic relations
 As there are so many performers with different artistic background
contrast are typical in the ballets’ production
 The ballet is a result of a complex dialogic relation between music
performers (composers, directors) and visual performers (dancers,
choreographers, set an customs designers)
 Sometimes the relations are fit in harmony, sometimes there are
serious conflicts or polemics
Stravinsky and Ballets Russes’ performances
 Stravinsky was extremely interested in all the elements of the Ballets
Russes’ performances, including the visual one: choreography,
costumes, dance
 In his autobiography of 1936, he is continuously giving accounts of
his ideas about different performances of the ballets
The Firebird, 1910
 Based on a typical Russian folktale
 Folkloric plot / Avant-garde music
 Imaginative orchestration, use of the 12/8 meter
 Choreographer: Mikhail Fokine
 Dancers: Nijinsky, Pavlova, Karsavina
Relation Stravinsky – Fokine - Nijinsky
 “Fokine created the choreography section by section, as the music
was handed to him”
(Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 27)
 “Nijinsky … he spoke little … a very backward youth, whose
intelligence was very undeveloped for his age.”
(Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 28)
Stravinsky about the Firebird’s
casting and dancers
 “The casting was not what I intended. Pavlova … had seemed to me
infinitively better suited to the role of the fairy bird than Karsavina …
for whom I had intended the part of the captive princess.”
 “Thought circumstances had decided otherwise than I planned, I had
no cause for complaint, since Karsavina’s rendering of the bird’s
part was perfect.”
(Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 29)
Stravinsky about the Firebird’s choreography
 “The choreography of this ballet always seemed to me to be
complicated and overburdened with plastic details, so that the artist
felt, and still feel ever now, great difficulty in coordinating their
steps and gestures with the music, and this often led to an
unpleasant discordance between the movements of the dance and
the imperative demands that measures of music demands.”
(Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 30)
Stravinsky about the musical direction
 It gives me much pleasure to pay grateful tribute to the mastery with
which the eminent Gabriel Pierné conducted my music
 (Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 30)
Petrushka, 1911
 Score: Stravinsky composed the music during the winter of 1910–11
 Impresario: Sergei Diaghilev
 Company: Ballets Russes
 Premiered in Paris at the Théâtre du Chatelet on June 13, 1911
 Premiere’s conductor: Pierre Monteux
 Choreography by Mikhail Fokine
 sets and costumes by Alexandre Benois
 The title dancer’s role was danced by Vaslav Nijinsky
The score of Petrushka
 The work is characterized by the so-called Petrushka chord
(consisting of C major and F♯ major triads played together), a
bitonality device heralding the appearance of the main character.
 In 1913, the Vienna Philharmonic initially refused to play the score,
deriding Petrushka as schmutzige Musik ("dirty music")
Sets and costumes for Petrushka's
production, designed by Alexandre Benois
The Petrushka’ idea
 ”I had in my mind a distinct picture of a puppet, suddenly endowed
with life, exasperating the patience of the orchestra with diabolical
cascades of arpeggios.”
 (Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 31)
Stravinsky’s opinion
on the execution of Petrushka
 “Pierre Monteux … was able to achieve a very clean and finished
execution of my score. I ask no more of a conductor, for any other
attitude on his part immediately turns to interpretation, a thing I
have horror of … traduttore-traditore; this is an absurdity in
music, and for the interpreter it is a source of vanity inevitably
leading to the most ridiculous megalomania”
 (Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 29)
Stravinsky’s opinion
about Petrushka’s choreography and dance
 I should like at this point to pay heartfelt homage to Vaslav Nijinsky’s
unsurpassed rendering of the role of Petrushka. The perfection with
which he became the very incarnation of this character was all more
remarkable because the purely saltatory work in which he usually
excelled was in this case definitively dominated by dramatic
action, music, and gesture.
 But it was a pity that the movement of the crowd had been
neglected. I mean that they were left to the arbitrary improvisation
of the performers instead of being choreographically regulated in
accordance with the clearly definite exigencies of music.
 (Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 34-35)
Stravinsky’s ballets as modern tradition
 All the Stravinsky’s ballets are now performed by numerous modern
dance companies. What was avant-garde became a kind of modern
tradition.
 Rarely these ballets are performed in the same way as the original
ones
 Often the interpretations contains radical changes and we can talk
about new ballets based on the original ballets
 We can say that the Stravinsky’s ballets are like jazz standards:
there is a basic theme, but large improvisations are allowed
 In contemporary dance, the public isn’t waiting for fidelity, is
searching for something new, surprising or even shocking
Accordionist James Crabb and Geir Draugsvoll
 Duos for Classical Accordions: Stravinsky and Mussorgsky
 1997 Emi Classic
 The CD contains the fours parts of Stravinsky’s Petrushka second
version’s (1947) score
 The duo played also in the Sofia Gubaildulina’s CD Silenzio
Finnish dancer and choreographer Tero Saarinen
decided to cooperate with Crabb and Draugsvoll
 “It was a matter of luck … In a French music store I found the CD
with the accordion version of Petrushka. The first time that I listened
the CD I was extremely surprised. Crabb and Draugsvoll adapted the
Petrushka’s piano version for accordions and, even if the result was
fresh and original, it was also extremely loyal to t the original work.
And the universality and popularity of the accordion’s sound was
perfect for the structure of the drama I wanted to build up!”
 Teero Saarinen, 2007
 Extract from an interview used for the Finnish article Crabb &
Draugsvoll harmonikkaduon uudet haasteet Tero Saarisen
Petroushka-tulkinnassa by Vesa Matteo Piludu and Anna Partanen,
published in Hanuri 3/2007. Free tranlation by Vesa Matteo Piludu
Accordionists on the ballet stage
 Crabb and Draugsvoll told me in an interview that the work done with
Saarinen was completely different from the typical classical
accordionists’ one.
 The choreographer put the two musicians on the stage and gave
them also a visual and theatrical role in the ballet
 Saarinen said them to wear a weird hut, to move dramatically when
they played music and even to play standing on the seats… things
simply unthinkable in a classical accordion concert, full of
conservative rules about the “serious” way in which the instrument
should be played on the stage
 Crabb and Draugsvoll loved the experience, because they found
themselves freed from the classical music performance’s restrictions
Stravinsky and Nijinsky
 “That scandal was in nowise due to the so-called novelty of the
performance, but to a gesture, too audacious and too intimate, which
Nijinsky made, doubtless thinking that anything as permissible with
an erotic subject.”
 (Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 36)
 Nijinsky was a faun importuning nymphs.
 “I must say her and how that the idea of working with Nijinsky filled
me with misgiving, notwithstanding our friendliness and my great
admiration for his talent as dancer and mime. His ignorance of the
most elementary notions of music was flagrant. The poor boy knew
nothing of music. He could neither read it nor play any instrument ...
This lacunae were so serious that his plastic vision, often of great
beauty, could not compensate for them”
 (Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 40)
Crabb and Draugsvoll
took the role of the magician
 In the original 1911 Petruska version at the beginning of the ballet
there was a magician who woke up with a whistle tree wood puppets:
Petrushka, Ballerina and the violent Moor.
 Petrusgka is a character of Russian puppet theatre, originally based
on the Italian Pulcinella, a mask and a puppet that become popular in
Europe with different names (Mr. Punch, Polchinelle)
 In the Saarinen’s version Crabb and Draugsvoll, on the stage, took
the role of the magician, playing at the same time the accordion
score of Stravinsky's Petrushka
Interaction between musicians and dancers
 The dancer’s stile reminds the grotesque movement of puppet
theatre and the customs in the Saarinen’s version are colorful as the
original Russian Ballet’s one
 The musicians interact many times with the dancers: they “torture”
them changing rhythm, tonality, stile
 The accordionists “acts” not only the role of the magician, but also as
the puppet theatre Maestro, the master who move the puppets with
strings.
The death of Petruska
 In all the ballet, there is a dance struggle between Petrushka and
Moor for the love of Ballerina, who is clearly divided and prey of
chronic indecision
 Finally Petrushka is killed
End in the original version: Petrushka’s ghost
 During the night, the Magician carry Petrushka’s limp body.
 But Petrushka’s ghost appears
 The magician is terrorized to see ghost of Petrushka and runs away
 the audience wonders what is "real" and what is not
Saarinen's end: no ghost
 The accordionists tried to wake up the puppet playing music, but
there is no way: Petruska died and there is no way to wake up him
 There is no ghost apparition
Saarinen’s interpretation:
a critic to competitive ideology
 Petrushka’s story is suitable for a social critic
 in our society all of as are “unsure” as Petrushka, Ballerina, the Moor
 We live as psychopaths, thinking that in every corner there is a
competitor, “someone who could be better than us”
 The excess of competition bring us to struggles that end in any case
badly, with the elimination of one competitor (in this case Petrushka)
 When the competition has such a dramatic end, there is no winner:
all the characters, including the Moor and Ballerina, are loosers
 Saarinen see in the new Finnish and European ultra-competition
social ideology a danger for the whole social system and his
Petrushka is a way to denounce, in an artistic way, how harmful the
obsession for competition could be
The Rite of Spring, 1913
 imaginary ancient Russia
 It has the subtitle "Pictures from Pagan Russia" (French: Tableaux
de la Russie païenne)
 Colourful idea of violent and cruel pagan Russia: a girl dance herself
to death for her community, in order to fulfil a sacrifice to the god of
Spring in order to gain his benevolence
 No reference to recent or living folklore: the Russian peasants’ spring
rites didn’t include any sacrifice in the XIX century
 Reference to a tragic romantic vision of a distant past (XIX century’s
and early XX century’s myths)
 Intensely rhythmic score, sometimes based on some extract of folk
music
Rite’s vision
 ”In St. Petersburg … I had a fleeting vision which came to me as
complete surprise, my mind at the moment being full of other thing. I
saw in imagination a solemn pagan rite: sage elders, seated in a
circle, watched a young girl dance herself to death. They where
sacrificing her to propitiate the god of spring … I must confess that
that vision made a deep impression on me, and as I at once
described it to my friend, Nicholas Roerich, he being a painter who
had specialized in pagan subjects. He welcomed my inspiration with
enthusiasm, and became my collaborator in this creation.”
 (Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 31)
Nicholas Roerich's 1913
set design for Part I: Adoration of the Earth.
Performers at the prémiere of Rite of Spring
 29th May of 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées of Paris
 Set design and costumes by archaeologist and painter Nicholas
Roerich
 Original choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky
 Prémiere’s music conducted by Pierre Monteux
Score of Rite
 Stravinsky used asymmetrical rhythms, dissonance, polyrhythms,
polytonality, layering of ostinati (persistently repeated ideas)
 Opening of the final section, the "Sacrificial Dance“:
The scandal of the prémiere
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The strong rhythm
The “primitive” and rude setting
The violence of the theme
The link dance/sexuality/fertility/death
The “unhappy end”
The Vaslav Nijinsky's radical departure from classical ballet’s clichés
(body components curled inward not opened outward, body pulled
down not lifted up, steps heavy not light, focus on grotesqueness not
elegance)
 shocked completely the audience accustomed to the conventions of
classical ballet
 The booing started at the very start of the performance
 Loud arguments between “denigrators” and “supporters”
degenerated in shouts and riots
 The police was able to restore the order, but not completely
The scandal
 I left the auditorium at the first bars of the prelude, which had at once
evoked derisive laughter. I was disgusted. These demonstrations, at
first isolated, soon became general, provoking counterdemonstrations and very quickly developing into a terrific uproar.
 (Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 47)
Different reactions
 Stravinsky fled from the Theatre, crying
 Diaghilev affirmed that the scandal was "just what I wanted!"
Stravinsky and Nijinsky
 ”I should archive nothing until I taught him the very rudiments of
music: values – semibreve, minim, crochet, quaver, etc. – bars,
rhythm, tempo and so on. He had the greatest difficulty in
remembering all of this.”
 Nijinsky complicated and encumbered his dances beyond all reason,
thus creating difficulties for the dancers that were sometimes
impossible to overcome.
 It was evident that the poor boy had been saddled with a task
beyond his capacity.
 (Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 41)
On the choreography
 What the choreography expressed was a very labored and barren
effort rather than a plastic realization flowing simply and naturally
from what the music demanded. How far it all was from what I had
desired!
 In composing the Sacre I had imagined the spectacular part of the
performance as a series of rhythmic mass movements of the
greatest simplicity which would have an instantaneous effect on the
audience, with no superfluous details or complications … the only
solo was to be the sacrificial dances at the end of the piece.
 But there again, althought he had grasped the dramatic significance
of the dance, Nijinsky was incapable of giving intelligible form to its
essence, and complicated it either by clumsiness or lack of
understanding.
 (Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 48)
Steps and tempo
 For is undeniable clumsy to slow down the tempo of the music in
order to compose complicated steps which cannot be danced in the
tempo prescribed. Many chireographer have that fault …
 (Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1990 (1936), Marion Boyard, London, page 36)
Rite in Disney’s Fantasia
 The Rite of Spring was further popularized through Walt Disney's
Fantasia (1940)
 In Fantasia much of Part I either was omitted entirely or was moved
to at the end
 some years later Stravinsky labelled the “film performance” as
“execrable” and declared that the animation “involved a dangerous
misunderstanding”
 Walt's nephew Roy E. Disney later used The Firebird in his
production of Fantasia 2000
Fantasia. Walt Disney
The Rite of Spring
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAYA486cFm4
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocxKPPjePfM&feature=related
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLFxIH1fs9M&feature=related
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgCX1OAmldc&feature=related
Rite and butoh
 the controversial, violent, pagan and primitivist thematic material of
the Rite of Spring, greatly influenced Hijikata and Tamano butoh
 Interesting is the fact that butoh is a kind of modern dance in which
isn’t necessary to follow the tempo of the music
Tero Saarinen’s Hunt
 The Hunt is a solo performance of Tero Saarinen based on the Rite
of Spring
 Saarinen is both choreographer and dancer, interpreting the girl that
will be dance herself to death
 The style is an interesting mixture of western contemporary dance
and Japanese butoh
 At the moment of the sacrifice, the multimedia artist Marita Liula
project and move photos of Saarinen itself on the body of Saarinen
 There are two dances at the same time: the one of Saarinen and the
movements of the digital photos
 At the moment of sacrifice, the digital images shown only separated
parts of Saarinen face … and finally Saarinen jump high and the
lights are turned off
The meaning of Hunt
 Again, Saarinen wasn’t interested in the colorful folkloric exotism
loved by the Ballet Russe
 He seen the multimedia sacrifice as a metaphor of what happens
every day: people are sacrificing their soul and their bodies to serve
a technocratic society
 His protest against technocracy doesn’t include a complete refuse of
technology, which could be used in a creative and even liberating
artistic way, as in his dance
 So the problem is how technology is used
Reaction of the public and critics
 The public and critics were extremely positive towards the
innovations of Saarinen
 The social critics, as they were expressed in a creative and
surprising way, were also well accepted
 We are in a time in which the followers of ballets are searching for
something more than mere executions of classics and the even
the radical reinterpretations are more accepted than the most
pure philological performances
 Today, the public is less exited by colorful dresses and exoticism and
the primitivism’s artistic attitudes sounds somewhat ridiculous,
showing clichés of Russian folklore that are too distant from
nowadays realities and imaginary
 The new interpretations, to be loved and better understood, must
include references to the contemporary cultural and social contest
Conclusions
 The paradox of the contemporary Stravinsky’s ballets is that to be
loyal to the ”Stravinsky’s tradition” doesn’t mean to repeat exactly all
the movements of the original ballets or use the same instruments,
but produce innovations in the interpretation and be loyal to the
avant-garde spirit of the Ballet Russe