What We Are Doing in Europe

TRISTAN TZARA

Some Account of the Latest Ballets, Books, Pictures and Literary Scandals of the Continent

THE June season in Paris, practically every year, includes a series of performances by the Russian Ballet. This year the productions took place at the Opera and at the Théâtre Nogador. The Russian Ballet brought us several novelties and the proof that its director, Serge de Diaghilev, is still in possession of his sure vitalizing power.

The Marriage of Sleeping Beauty is a ballet embroidered on an old folk tale and set to subtle and inventive music by Tchaikovsky. His score seems to me, however, rather sentimental and sweet. But, not being a connoisseur, I rely on the judgment of Stravinsky, who orchest r a t e d it and who tells me that it is very beautiful. The settings and costumes are by Madam Gontcharoona.

Madame Nijinska, the sister of Nijinski, is the present soul of the Russian Ballet. A precise fantasy, strange and marvellous facial expressions and graceful but powerful movements animate her body. She dances the part of the Cat in the Sleeping Beauty, a prodigious and impish cat.

The culminating point of the ballet is at the end, where Madame Trifilova, an incomparable dancer, lightly executes thirty-two continuous pirouettes on the tip of her toes. Here is what Mr. A. Levinson, a specialist in ballet dancing, writes about this feat:

"For a half century the great Italian virtuosi had held the first place in the imperial stage, the Theatre Marie of Petrograd. The last Italian star was Pierina Legnani, who thrilled the ballet enthusiasts of the capital by executing in this coda of Tschaikovsky twenty-four pirouettes. The years had rendered this tour de force a great memory, when Triplova, a young premiere danseuse, dancing this same finale, executed thirty-two pirouettes with the same simplicity, the same reserved grace, that we admire in her today. By this symbolic gesture, the Russian ballet was definitelv freed from foreign domination; its own supremacy became indisputable, and soon was undisputed."

"The Fox"

ANOTHER ballet, The Fox, is founded on a well known Fable; for it Igor Stravinsky has written music which is curious and fervently rich— music which proves to us once more that he is one of the great composers of our time. Four singers placed in the orchestra sing the roles of the four dancers on the stage. One of them shouts 'at a certain moment when the music pauses: "But what is all this music?" This produces an irresistible effect. At the end of the ballet one hears the same voice announcing, "If our story has pleased you, please pay us our due."

The action of the ballet takes place in a barnyard. The cock is roosting. In order to get him off his perch, the fox employs all sorts of stratagems and finally appears disguised as a nun. He tries to sieze the fox, but the cat and the ram come to the latter's assistance. After various tumblings, which are a stylized simplification of dancing, the fox retires.

Madame Nijinska's choregraphy adapts itself marvelously to this clumsy and childish peasant talk. The designs for scenery and costumes were made by the Russian painter, Larionov, who is a frequent collaborator with M. Diaghilev in the staging of his ballets. As simple and naive as a child's drawings, they amusingly illustrate this baroque farce which is familiar in every European nursery.

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Stravinsky's portrait by Robert Delaunay has recently been shown. The canvas has created a sensation; it is certainly not flattering, but at any rate, it is expressive. The portrait was painted two years ago when Stravinsky and Delaunay met in Madrid. Delaunay, who lives in Paris, is the inventor of "simultaneiste" painting; his most famous picture showed the Eiffel Tower crumbling into space.

Two caricatures of Diaghilev and Nijinski which have just been done by the Parisian poet, Jean Cocteau, are another manifestation of what we call in France "Ingres' violin." Ingres, who was a great painter but a mediocre violinist, had a contrary conception of his own talents. "Ingres' violin" is thus not a musical instrument, but the nickname for a habit which artists have developed of experimenting in other fields of art than their own. Cocteau's caricature of Nijinski was made when the latter was still among us.

La Nijinska has shown imaginative intelligence in the choreography she has evolved for the new ballets and has taken her brother's place in L'Apres Midi d'un Faune; the ballet to Debussy's music which M. de Diaghilev has revived this year at the Opera. One vividly remembers the indignant protestations wiLh which this symbolist's work was received at its first performance. The new sets for it have been conceived by Diaghilev and Picasso.

At Zurich, a marionette theatre has lately produced a play which has caused a real sensation, thanks to its scenery and characters. These were conceived and carried out by Mlle. Sophie Taeuber, a subtle artist. The fancy, the feeling for "ensemble" and the novel harmony of colors which Mlle. Taeuber displayed have marked a new era in the art of marionette drama. The personages are made of wood, metal and feathers, painted in a most expressive fashion and are fifty centimeters high. Their mobility responds amazingly to the words which are uttered for them by hidden actors. A musical intermezzo is played by a barrel organ. One of the principal characters is the Birdcatcher, a skinny individual, made of a series of rings, on which the birds perch as on the branches of a tree. The Birdcatcher is evidently also a poet. An Officer at court is in love with the Queen, who does not return his regard, owing to his invincible stupidity. A glance at the portrait of him which we publish will convince the reader that we do not state his case extravagantly. These soldiers have a single head and bust between them, but possess three pairs of legs and arms. As they march onto the stage they produce a rather comic impression of rhythmic discipline. Some marionettes are short and round, others long and thin. A stag is so rarefied that nothing is left of him but a silhouette, cut out in a sheet of silver. The theme of the play is taken from a Swiss legend, somewhat modernized by allusions to the psycho-analysts and the Dadaists.

In Paris modernist plays only have access to the unofficial playhouses and the little theatres. But in Vienna, on the contrary, the most extreme novelties of German expressionism are presented at the Burgtheater, which corresponds in size and importance to the Comédie Française.

One of the most characteristic plays of the modern movement was given at the Burgtheater during the past year — Spiegelmensch, The Man - Mirror by Franz Werfel—a magical trilogy in three parts and nineteen scenes. This profoundly human and original drama, written in powerful, poetic language, at its first production provoked a storm of criticism. But its real beauty, brought out by remarkable settings, has ended by making its inevitable impression.

Another group of more modern poets, representatives of Dadaism in Russia, is known under its trademark: 410.

Ilia Zdanevitch, the theorist of this movement, has recently come to Paris. After living long at Tiflis, in the Caucasus, where he was a professor in his "University of 410", and after numerous adventures, he went to Constantinople. Always eager for new sensations, he lived for eight months in the Mosque of Santa Sophia, in the rooms which the Turks have put aside for the insane. He told me the story of a beggar who played the flute for the fleas and set them dancing. During the day, Zdanevitch would walk forth, impeccably dressed, and mingle with the smartest life of Constantinople.

The poetic idea of Zdanevitch is to create a poetry of sound. According to him, pure sounds have a character distinct and sufficient to express sensations.

Is it the naming of things which gives them reality? Does the myth create religion? Does the insistent repetition of a word make its efficacy? Is it advertising, that modern myth, which has created the new religion, commerce? One is tempted to ask whether a word like "Odol," "Venice," "D'Annunzio" or "Gillette" put forward insistently, suffices to create an idea, a mysticism by visual image. These are problems which have been brought up by a recent trial.

Who does not know the novelist Alexandre Dumas, senior? Who has not heard of The Count of Monte Cristo or of The Three Musketeers? One cannot think of these novels without evoking the image of the Pere Dumas in his chubby self-satisfaction—working incessantly and gaining a phenomenal success. As we cannot think of the philosophy of Nietzsche without remembering his large mustache, or of Oscar Wilde without remembering his downfall and imprisonment.

But Alexandre Dumas, who gained fame as the author of these most popular novels, did not write them. It is beyond discussion, proved by legal papers, recognized by the courts: Alexandre Dumas did not write his greatest novels.

It was Auguste Maquet, an obscure professor of history, who died unknown in 1888, who wrote them and sold them to Dumas. The latter signed them, exploited them and made them famous.

M. Gustave Simon, testamentary executor of Victor Hugo, a distinguished historian, has written The Story of a Collaboration, in which we learn that the best part of Dumas' work was written by another. The heiress of poor Maquet, his niece, is making efforts to bring him at least posthumously his share of the glory, and has brought suit against the heirs of Dumas, who died in 1874. By the terms of an agreement made in 1846, Maquet ceded his rights to his collaborator for 145,000 francs. But the good Dumas, though prompt to recognize his debts, was less prompt in paying them. A lucky bankruptcy saved him. Poor Maquet got nothing.

The courts, judging that the agreement was still binding by which Maquet had renounced the right to sign his works, have decided that his name shall not appear by the side of Dumas'. But, noting that Maquet did not abandon all his rights, they decreed that his niece be given half the author's rights which Dumas' heirs have been receiving all these years.