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'The revival of the discussion in the French Press about the length of ballet-skirts raises an interesting question. The decline in favour of the ballet is indisputable. The number of people in this city who could give the name even of a single living ballet-dancer is small. The name of Cléo de Mérode is, of course, well known because of her beauty and of the [Alexandre] Falguière statue, and not on account of her quality as dancer, which is not remarkable. All have heard of Otero; Carmencita's name cannot die because of the superb Sargent picture; and Tortajada has been heard of by many; but these ladies keep aloof from ballet, nor have they appeared here in the costume of the prima ballerina. Indeed, I doubt whether, in the ordinary drawing-room of Society, more than a small percentage of people could name a single living dancer who appears habitually in the costume sometimes described as suggesting a pair of braces and a sunshade, as an inverted wine-glass, a mushroom, and the like, although we have had for several years, and still enjoy, the work of Mdlle. Adeline Genée, an orthodox ballet-dancer of immense ability, whose name in earlier days would have been a household word. At first sight, the reason seems obvious. In the days when everyone talked of Taglioni, Lucille Grahan, Cerito, Fanny Ellsler, or Carlotta Grisi, the ballet formed an important, some might say the important, feature of the opera. Modern operas rarely introduce a ballet. Therefore, it might be assumed that the decay of the old type of Italian opera led to that of the ballet.
'This explanation is not really correct. The reign of the ballet was over ere that of modern opera began; even in days when the name of Wagner was accursed, the names of the current queens of the dance were of little weight. Indeed, the palmy days were before the Crimean War. Moreover, the change in public taste which brought about the decline of the old type of Italian opera and the regrettable downfall of the singers capable, unlike most of the moderns, of singing it properly, did not necessarily involve a change in attitude towards the ballet, which, I fancy, might still flourish outside the Alhambra and the Empire [in Leicester Square] but that an alteration in tradition has taken place. It will be said that ballet is popular, and than, indeed, with these two great houses constantly at work and the pantomime, we have more ballet than even in the golden days; but it may be remarked that very often, as in the present Alhambra ballet and in some of the best at the Empire, what one may call conveniently – and inaccurately – classic ballet-dancing has no part. Observation and inquiry have convinced me that many of those who take interest in these ballets do not care about the work of even such a brilliant dancer as Genée when she is dressed in her short skirts and giving pirouettes, entrechats, and wonderful steps on tip-toes.
'Now the view I have been aiming at is this: The dancer has destroyed interest in her work by trying to astound rather than to please. She has shortened her skirt in order to get greater freedom for violent movement and to exhibit the technical skill of her work. It is probably that none of those whom our fathers worshipped could have accomplished such extraordinary feats in dancing as those of Mdlle. Genée, just as, on the other hand, it is certain that only two or three living singers could succeed in perfect performance of the astounding vocal gymnastics of the old Italian singers. Unfortunately, in aiming at the wonderful the dancers have lost the graceful. Drawings that I have before me of the dancers I have named show that in the dresses they wore these ladies formed graceful figures, that their skirts and petticoats followed the lines of their movements and draped flowingly. The "poetry of motion" was a reasonable phrase when applied to them. One may quote on this topic a passage from a once-famous book: "The other beauties belonging to this dance are… all which together displays the greatest variety of movement in serpentine lines." On the other hand, to those who, like the modern première danseuse, have an almost rectangular, stiff skirt sticking out and separating one-half of them from the other, one may apply another sentence from the same work: "But the less they consist of serpentine or waving lines the lower are they on the estimation of dancing-masters; for, as has been shown, when the form of the body is divested of its serpentine lines it becomes ridiculous as a human figure."
'You have but to watch any ballet-dancer, even the admirable Genée, walking on or off in full battle-costume, to see someone ridiculous as a human figure and horribly ungraceful; and when she dances, this species of lamp-shade, this mushroom growth, this champagne-glass, this exaggerated, misplaced ruffle, this half-orange, this abbreviated crinoline, constantly contradicts her movements. Its shortness gives you, no doubt, a full view of the mechanism of the dance, and a fine study of muscles, and leaves her great freedom, though less than that of the almost extinct male dancers; but grace has gone; to the uninitiated, even the fact that there is an esoteric meaning to her conventional movements is unknown, ant there seems truth in the simple words I heard on the first-night of Vineland [Empire, Leicester Square, 26 September 1903] concerning her dancing: "I suppose it's very wonderful, like those acrobat fellows, but I don't call it dancing." The truth seems that Technique, the deadly enemy always lurking round every branch of art, has had its triumph: it destroyed Gothic architecture, it has ruined classic dancing. Just as some women dress not to please men but to displease other women, and to excite envy, hatred, and malice, not love, so the ballet-dancer accomplishes marvellous movements not to charm the man in the stalls or pit, but to crush her rivals – perhaps, this is unfair, and one should say she seeks the applause of the learned in her art, and not the enjoyment of those to whom her arabesques, her ronds de jambs, entrechats, pirouettes, and tutti quanti are nameless wonders.
'It was not by this kind of thing that the dancers of the past won their fame and have left important names. Mdlle. Sallé, who worked a reform in costume – temporary, not doubt – not only for the ballet but the opera itself; Sallé, the friend of the formidable John Locke, of Montesquieu, of Fontenelle, of Voltaire, detested violent movements. See the result: immortality in Voltaire's lines comparing her with the famous "La Camargo" -
Ah, Camargo, que vous êtes brillante!
Mais que Sallé, grand Dieu, est ravissante!
Que vos pas sont legers que les siens son doux!
Elle est inimitable et vous êtes nouvelle.
Les Nymphes danset comme vous,
Et les Grâces dansent comme elle.
'It will be answered that Mdlle. Genée is really popular. This I admit, assert with pleasure; but the popularity is due to her grace and charm in what she considers less ambitious dancing. See how her own words condemn her: "It is perfectly true that in The Milliner-Duchess [Empire, Leicester Square, 14 January 1903] I wore modern dress, but in that ballet I confined myself to easy and simple steps, the very ease and simplicity of which served to commend them to the public." It was not the ease or simplicity of the steps that pleased the public, but the grace and charm with which she invested them: a grace and charm at the command only of great dancers, and heightened in her case by – indeed, dependent on – the plastic costume.'
(E.F.S. ('Monocle'), 'The Stage From the Stalls,' The Sketch, London, Wednesday, 18 November 1903, p.158)
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Martin Harvey's presentation of
Max Reinhardt's production of Sophocles's tragedy,
Œdipus Rex,
translated by Gilbert Murray and adapted by W.L. Courtney,
Covent Garden, London, 15 January 1912
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