Vaslav Nijinsky short biography. Nijinsky Vaclav Fomich - biography

", "The Afternoon of a Faun", "Games" and "Till Eulenspiegel".

Vaslav Nijinsky
Vaslav Nijinsky as Vayu in Nikolai Legat's updated production of the ballet Talisman by Marius Petipa, St. Petersburg, 1910
Birth name	Vaslav Fomich Nijinsky
Date of Birth	March 12(1889-03-12 )
Place of Birth	Kyiv, Russian Empire
Date of death	April 8(1950-04-08 ) (61 years old)
A place of death	London, Great Britain
Citizenship	Russian empire Russian empire
Profession
Theater	Mariinskii Opera House
Awards
IMDb	ID 1166661
Vaslav Nijinsky at Wikimedia Commons

Biography

Born in Kyiv, the second son in a family of Polish ballet dancers - the first number of Tomas Nijinsky and soloist Eleonora Bereda. Eleanor was 33 and five years older than her husband. Vaclav was baptized into Catholicism in Warsaw. Two years later, their third child was born - daughter Bronislava. From 1882 to 1894, the parents toured as part of Joseph Setov's ballet troupe. The father introduced all the children to dancing from early childhood. Vaclav performed on stage for the first time when he was five years old, dancing the hopak as an entreprise at the Odessa Theater.

After Josef Setov's death in 1894, his troupe disbanded. Nijinsky the father tried to create his own troupe, but soon went bankrupt, and years of difficult wanderings and odd jobs began. Vaclav probably helped his father by performing at holidays with small numbers. It is known that he performed in Nizhny Novgorod at Christmas. In 1897, during a tour in Finland, Nijinsky the father fell in love with another, the young soloist Rumyantseva. Parents divorced. Eleanor and her three children went to St. Petersburg, where a friend of her youth, Polish dancer Stanislav Gillert, was a teacher at the St. Petersburg Ballet School. Gillert promised to help her.

The Nijinskys' eldest son, Stanislav (Stasik), fell out of a window as a child and since then was “a little out of this world,” and the gifted and well-prepared Vaclav was accepted into the ballet class quite easily. Two years later, his sister, Bronya, also entered the same school. At school, some oddities began to appear in Vaclav's character; once he even went to a mental health clinic for examination - apparently, some kind of hereditary disease was affecting him. However, his talent as a dancer was undeniable and quickly attracted the attention of his teacher, a once outstanding, but already slightly old-fashioned dancer, N. Legat.

Since March 1905, the school's innovative teacher, Mikhail Fokin, staged the important examination ballet for graduates. This was his first ballet as a choreographer - he chose Acis and Galatea. Fokine invited Nijinsky to play the role of the faun, although he was not a graduate. On Sunday, April 10, 1905, a demonstration performance took place at the Mariinsky Theater, reviews appeared in the newspapers, and they all noted the extraordinary talent of the young Nijinsky:

Graduate Nijinsky amazed everyone: the young artist is barely 15 years old and has two more years to spend at school. It is all the more pleasant to see such exceptional data. Lightness and elevation, together with remarkably smooth and beautiful movements- are amazing […] We can only wish that the 15-year-old artist does not remain a child prodigy, but continues to improve.

From 1906 to January 1911, Nijinsky performed at the Mariinsky Theater. He was fired from the Mariinsky Theater with a big scandal at the request of the imperial family, as he performed in the ballet “Giselle” in a costume that was considered indecent.

Almost immediately after graduating from college, Nijinsky was invited by S.P. Diaghilev to participate in the ballet season, where he gained enormous success. For his ability to jump high and elevate for a long time, he was called the bird-man, the second Vestris.

In Paris, the repertoire tested on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater was danced (“Pavilion of Armida”, 1907; “La Sylphides”, 1907; “Cleopatra”, 1909 (reworked from “Egyptian Nights" (1908)); “Giselle”, 1910; “Swan Lake ", 1911), as well as the divertissement "Feast" to the music of Russian composers, 1909; and parts in new ballets by Fokine, “Carnival” to the music of R. Schumann, 1910; “Scheherazade” by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, 1910; “Orientals” by A. Glazunov, 1910; The Vision of a Rose by C. M. Weber, 1911, which amazed Parisian audiences with a fantastic jump through a window; “Petrushka” by I. F. Stravinsky, 1911; “Blue (Blue) God” R. Ana, 1912; "Daphnis and Chloe" by M. Ravel, 1912.

Choreographer

Encouraged by Diaghilev, Nijinsky tried his hand as a choreographer and, secretly from Fokine, rehearsed his first ballet - “The Afternoon of a Faun” to the music of C. Debussy (1912). He based his choreography on profile poses borrowed from ancient Greek vase painting. Like Diaghilev, Nijinsky was fascinated by the rhythmoplastics and eurhythmics of Dalcroze, in the aesthetics of which he staged his next and most significant ballet, “The Rite of Spring” in 1913. The Rite of Spring, written by Stravinsky with a free use of dissonance, albeit relying on tonality, and choreographically built on complex combinations of rhythms, was one of the first expressionist ballets. The ballet was not immediately accepted, and its premiere ended in scandal, as did “The Afternoon of a Faun,” which shocked the public with its final erotic scene. In the same year, he performed the plotless ballet “Games” by C. Debussy. These productions by Nijinsky were characterized by anti-romanticism and opposition to the usual grace of the classical style.

The Parisian public was captivated by the artist's undoubted dramatic talent and his exotic appearance. Nijinsky turned out to be a brave and original-minded choreographer who opened new paths in plastic arts, returning male dance to its former priority and virtuosity. Nijinsky also owed his successes to Diaghilev, who believed and supported him in daring experiments.

Personal life

In his youth, Nijinsky had an intimate relationship with Prince Pavel Dmitrievich Lvov, and later with Diaghilev. In 1913, after the troupe left for a South American tour, he met a Hungarian aristocrat and his admirer on a ship Romola Pulskaya. Having gone ashore, on September 10, 1913, they got married secretly from everyone, including family members. Diaghilev, having learned about what had happened from a telegram from his servant Vasily, who was assigned to look after Nijinsky, flew into a rage and immediately expelled the dancer from the troupe - in fact, this put an end to his short, dizzying career. Being Diaghilev's favorite, Nijinsky did not sign any contracts with him and did not receive a salary, like other artists - Diaghilev simply paid all his expenses from his own pocket. It was this fact that allowed the impresario to get rid of the artist who had become objectionable without any delay.

Entreprise

After leaving Diaghilev, Nijinsky found himself in difficult conditions. It was necessary to earn a living. A dance genius, he did not have the ability to produce. He rejected the offer to head the Grand Opera ballet in Paris, deciding to create his own enterprise. It was possible to assemble a troupe of seventeen people (it included Bronislava’s sister and her husband, who also left Diaghilev) and concluded a contract with the London Palace Theater. The repertoire consisted of productions by Nijinsky and, in part, by M. Fokine (“The Phantom of the Rose,” “Carnival,” “La Sylphides,” which Nijinsky remade again). However, the tour was not successful and ended in financial collapse, which entailed breakdown and the beginning of the artist’s mental illness. Failures followed him.

Last premiere

Reburial of ashes

In 1953, his body was transported to Paris and buried in the Montmartre cemetery next to the graves of the legendary dancer G. Vestris and playwright T. Gautier, one of the creators of romantic ballet. On his gray stone tombstone sits a sad bronze jester.

The significance of Nijinsky's personality

• Critics [ Who?] called Nijinsky “the eighth wonder of the world,” highly appreciating his talent. His partners were Tamara Karsavina, Matilda Kshesinskaya, Anna Pavlova, Olga Spesivtseva. When he - the god of ballet - hovered in a jump above the stage, it seemed that a person was capable of becoming weightless.

He has refuted all the laws of balance and turned them upside down, he resembles a human figure painted on the ceiling, he easily feels in the air space...

Nijinsky had the rare ability of complete external and internal transformation:

I'm scared, I see greatest actor in the world.

Caught on the edge of bliss, Uncompromising, like a poet, Nijinsky with an unfeminine strength Spun an aerial pirouette.

Giving birth to mountain peaks, He, in spite of the spirit of heaviness, either unclenched like a spring, or hung, raising his wing.

It’s as if the soul was fearlessly released into the wild with His unrestrained role, His magical entrechat.

He looked into other distances, Called to himself an unearthly light, And this somersault-immortale

Rotates the Earth for many years.

• Nijinsky made a bold breakthrough into the future of ballet art, opened an established later style expressionism and fundamentally new possibilities of plastic art. His creative life was short (only ten years), but intense. Dedicated to the personality of Nijinsky famous ballet Maurice Béjart's 1971 "Nijinsky, God's Clown" with music by Pierre Henry and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

• Nijinsky was the idol of his time. His dance combined strength and lightness; he amazed the audience with his breathtaking jumps - many thought that the dancer was “hovering” in the air. He had a remarkable gift of transformation and extraordinary facial abilities. On stage he radiated powerful magnetism, although Everyday life he was timid and silent.

Awards

Memory

Image in art

In the theatre

• October 8 - “Nijinsky, God’s Clown”, ballet by Maurice Bejart based on the diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky (“ 20th century ballet", Brussels, in the role of Nijinsky - Jorge Donne).
• July 21 - “Vaclav”, a ballet by John Neumeier based on the script plan for an unrealized production by Vaslav Nijinsky using the music of J. S. Bach chosen by him ( Hamburg Ballet).
• 1993 - “Nijinsky” based on the play by Alexei Burykin (Theatrical agency “BOGIS”, in the role of Nijinsky Oleg Menshikov).
• 1999 - “Nijinsky, God’s Crazy Clown”, a play based on the play by Glen Blumstein (1986,

For twenty-nine years of his life, Vaslav Nijinsky belonged to this world. It included a road from Mokhovaya to Teatralnaya to the Imperial Theater School. The granite descent to the Neva, on the steps of which he cried when he was fired from the Mariinsky Theater. Paris, London and Nice, where he danced in Diaghilev's seasons. Diaghilev himself, who took away his love and freedom, but led him to worldwide fame. Three productions that marked the beginning of twentieth-century ballet.

Then there were thirty years of living in our own world of dreams and fantasies, about which we know almost nothing. Because every schizophrenic has his own.

His most hard-won role, perhaps, was Petrushka in Stravinsky’s ballet. The tragedy of a rag doll with a human soul was truly felt only in the 20th century. People gradually gained freedom, freeing themselves from the shackles of illusory and real world, where their parents still lived. But this liberation brought terrible loneliness, because the person was now responsible for his own life.

The theme of carnival, theater, booth, fair was in demand in artistic life Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. Dolls suffering like people. People turning into dolls. Both of them are wearing masks.

In 1905, Alexander Blok wrote the poem "Balaganchik".

Here is a booth open for cheerful and nice children. A girl and a boy are looking at ladies, kings and devils.

How nice it all started, what a good fairy tale could have come from this life.

Waking Sleeping Beauty

In 1890, the premiere of The Sleeping Beauty was triumphantly held on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater. It was a landmark production. For many contemporaries, the reign of Alexander III was associated with a golden age Russian Empire. Its territory has expanded significantly. Industry and trade developed. By 1893, the Franco-Russian alliance finally took shape.

By chance or not, all this found expression in the new ballet. The libretto was based on the old french fairy tale Charles Perrault. Prince Désiré (Dream) wakes up with a kiss the lovely Aurora - Russia, who was plunged into a centuries-old sleep by ill-wishers and envious people in the person of the fairy Carabosse. The spell breaks, melted by the power of love. Fairy-tale heroes and envoys from exotic countries bring their gifts - dances. Apotheosis.

"The Sleeping Beauty" was, perhaps, the last farewell to the era of classicism in ballet. The solemn music of Tchaikovsky and the pompous scenery of Levot and his comrades, the exquisite production of Petipa, combining the best of the French, Italian and Russian schools of ballet. It was another dream of a strong and rich Russia, reborn in defiance of enemies. This was a call to the heir to the throne (must be the Dream and Morning Dawn heir) to continue his father's work. It was a call to subjects to honor and glorify their kings.

But all this is in the Imperial Theater. Behind its walls, neither 32, nor even 64 fouettés, “twisted” by a ballet soloist, could help the matter. Behind the walls there was a completely different life, which the ballet theater had to see and accept.

This became possible in 1903, when Petipa resigned as chief choreographer of the Mariinsky Theater. He devoted more than half a century to the theater. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, ballet remained, perhaps, the only art form that had no relation to real life. It was a dried flower or a butterfly on a pin in the collection of an eccentric who, in the age of electricity and the automobile, wears a doublet and a powdered wig.

In the world of ballet the same thing happened as if in the world of architecture God gave long life Carla Rossi. Then in St. Petersburg by the beginning of the twentieth century there would not have been a single building in the eclectic or modern style, but continuous streets of Architect Rossi. Therefore, with the departure of Petipa, ballet began to catch up with its time by ten-mile strides.

At first, Nikolai Gorsky and Nikolai Legat tried to do this. Then a young dancer and choreographer Mikhail Fokin appeared. It seems that he became the real Prince Désiré (God be with them, with the French), who woke up the ballet Beauty. Everything was ready for production new play called "Russian Seasons" in Paris. The gentlemen actors gathered for rehearsal. The year was 1907.

Characters and performers

Mikhail Mikhailovich Fokin, 27 years old, dancer at the Mariinsky Theater, teacher at the Theater School, choreographer. He did not approve of “mothballs” ballet and was constantly looking for an outlet for his ebullient energy on the side. He read a lot, was fond of painting, and played music. I spent hours wandering around the Hermitage, dreaming of bringing it to life. theater stage paintings, statues, drawings on red-figure vases.

The dream came true when in 1906-1907. Fokine created The Vine, Eunice, Chopiniana, Egyptian Nights, The Swan (better known as The Dying Man) and The Pavilion of Armida. Thus, the ballet theater entered the era of eclecticism, when heroes and plots of all times and peoples appeared on the stage.

Artists Alexander Benois and Lev Bakst, ballerinas Anna Pavlova and Tamara Karsavina, and dancer Vaslav Nijinsky became like-minded people of Fokine.

Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev, 35 years old, gentleman, philanthropist, discoverer of talent, author of daring projects and in this sense - a fighter, a player. In 1898, the first art magazine in Russia, “World of Art,” began publishing. In 1905 he organized a grandiose historical and artistic exhibition of portraits of the 18th-19th centuries. To do this, he travels the length and breadth of Russia, collecting portraits of his ancestors from remote estates. In essence, Diaghilev opened the Russian 18th century to his contemporaries.

Then he organizes an exhibition at the Autumn Salon in Paris " Russian art from icon painting to the beginning of the twentieth century." Concerts of Russian music soon followed, introducing Europe to Glinka, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov. Another year later - the opera season. Paris heard Fyodor Chaliapin.

At the same time, the idea of ​​stage synthesis in ballet arose - combining the forces of dancers, musicians, choreographers and artists. What arose was what was later called the “Diaghilev seasons.”

Tamara Platonovna Karsavina, 22 years old, is not yet a ballerina at the Imperial Theaters, although she already dances ballerina roles. Talented, beautiful and smart. An ideal model for Fokine's historical productions. It was at this time that the passionately in love Fokin receives a refusal from her, and Karsavina remains a ghostly dream for him.

Vaslav Fomich Nijinsky, 17 years old. I just graduated from the Theater School and was accepted into the Mariinsky Theater troupe. In life, he is a clumsy and ugly young man with a vacant look and often with a half-open mouth. On stage - a graceful handsome man with radiant eyes, striking with the precision of his jumps and poses, “elevation and ballooning,” as they wrote in the reviews. A Pinocchio doll that becomes human at the first sounds of the overture.

And this hellish music sounds, The sad bow howls. The terrible devil grabbed the little one, and the cranberry juice flowed down.

Eternal slave

In his first season at the Mariinsky, Nijinsky danced in almost all ballets. Both classic and new ones staged by Fokin. He was a partner of Matilda Kshesinskaya, Anna Pavlova, Olga Preobrazhenskaya. He was a romantic youth in Chopinian, a slave of Cleopatra in Egyptian Nights, and a page of the sorceress Armida in Armida's Pavilion.

Somehow, quite naturally, the roles of slave and page followed him into real life. At first, a representative of the “other Petersburg” - Prince Pavel Dmitrievich Lvov - became his master and lover. In Nijinsky's life there appeared reckless drivers, fur coats, night restaurants, expensive gifts. And the feeling of being used and then abandoned by Parsley that remained forever.

Then there was Diaghilev, who saved him from the clutches of cynical bohemia, surrounded him with care and attention, but at the same time fenced him off from life with glass walls. Because Diaghilev always knew better what Nijinsky wanted.

Then there was Romola’s wife, who also knew everything better and by 1918 quite successfully “saved” her husband from the heartless world, driving him into a nightmare of madness.

But not one of them could boast that they knew the person who was nearby - Vaslav Nijinsky. Because Nijinsky became himself only in dance, and there he was alone, even if he passionately hugged his partner at that moment.

That's probably why he could dance so incredibly, because he didn't waste himself in everyday life, but only smiled and bowed by rote, answering sumptuous compliments in monosyllables. In some ways, both Diaghilev and Romola were right in believing that Vaclav was unable to take care of himself. Until now, they only cared about him.

He was born in 1889 into a family of dancers who traveled around Russia with a troupe of traveling actors. Bronislava was a year younger, Stanislav was a little older. While still a child, my older brother suffered a head injury, as a result of which he developed a mental illness. The family also remembered the father’s terrible outbursts of rage. So it is quite possible that Vaclav’s schizophrenia was hereditary.

The father started another family, and the mother decided to send Vaclav and Bronislava to the St. Petersburg Ballet School for government support. They took him only because he jumped beautifully, otherwise the data was unimportant.

From the very beginning of their training, ballet dancers were involved in performances. They were little devils, and tin soldiers, and pastoral shepherdesses. Once in the dance of the "fauns" they had to run and jump. When everyone had already landed, it turned out that one was still flying. The choreographer (and it was Fokine) staged a solo part for the jumping baby (Nijinsky). This was their first meeting.

At the school, Nijinsky was teased as a “Japanese” for his slanted eyes, harassed for his unsociability, but they did not offend him much. The teachers immediately made it clear who the main talent was. In high school, he read a lot, but for himself. Those around him remained in the dark about his mental abilities. It was the same with music lessons. He played music alone in an empty classroom, showing impenetrable stupidity in class. His favorite novel was The Idiot. Then Vaclav himself will be treated in Saint-Moritz, like Prince Myshkin.

Giselle Mania

The first season of the Russian Ballet in 1909 in Paris opened shortly after the end of the season at the Mariinsky. The performances were an unprecedented success. Everyone was shocked by "Polovtsian Dances" with the main archer - Fokine, "Cleopatra" with the monstrously seductive Ida Rubinstein, "La Sylphides" ("Chopiniana") with the airy Anna Pavlova and "Pavilion Armida", which revealed Nijinsky to the world.

Fokine's ballet reform also consisted of the fact that he revived male dance. Before him, dances were staged exclusively for ballerinas, and partners were needed only to support them at the right moment, to help them show their talent, beauty, and grace. The dancers began to be called “crutches.”

Fokin was not going to put up with this. Firstly, he himself wanted to dance, and the role of a “crutch” did not suit him at all. Secondly, he felt what ballet had lost by practically removing the dancer from the stage. The ballet has become cloying and fruity, completely sexless. It was possible to show the characters only by contrasting the female dance with an equal male dance.

In this sense, Nijinsky was ideal material for Fokine. From his body, superbly trained in Theater School, any shape could be molded. He could dance whatever the choreographer had in mind. And at the same time, with his own talent, spiritualize his every movement.

In Fokine's ballets there was no development of images and characters yet. They were snapshots of fictional situations. But there is as much passion and expression conveyed in dance as you like. Actually, this is what everything was built on. More passion, more dance, more complex movements, more virtuosity.

The old ballet was largely based on pantomime. This is how it was possible to convey, for example, a message about Scheherazade’s betrayal in sign language. “Listen (extend your hand to the Shah), just imagine (tap your forehead) that your queen (point to her and draw a crown above her head) made love (hug yourself with both arms) with a black man (make a fierce grimace and hold your hand in front of face down, depicting blackness)".

In Fokine’s ballet, the ruler of Persia, with his hand on the hilt of his sword, slowly approached his defeated opponent and turned the Negro’s body face up with his foot. And before that, they grappled in a deadly dance, and Nijinsky - the “Golden Negro” - expressed in this dance all the torment of love and despair.

Yes, he was a slave again and involuntarily began to think about the extent of responsibility that a person bears when making another his toy. These thoughts resulted in a new interpretation of the role of Albert in the ballet Giselle.

Previously, handsome Albert seduced a young peasant girl, “torn” her heart, but was generously forgiven. Nijinsky's Albert was not looking for pleasure, but for beauty. He did not want Giselle to die and did not imagine how everything would turn out. Albert was just able to discern the Other in the girl - a different, but kindred soul. That is why he is in such despair, that is why he is ready to punish himself and follow the Wilis (the creation of his mind) into the swamp of madness.

The interpretation was fully consistent with the spirit of the era, captured in Blok’s poems or in the image of the “witch’s lake” from Chekhov’s “The Seagull.” But it did not correspond to the spirit of the routine of the Imperial Mariinsky Theater. Therefore, having arrived in St. Petersburg after the Paris season of 1910 and danced “Giselle,” Nijinsky was fired from the theater for performing in an inappropriate costume. The costume, made according to Benoit's sketch, was considered inappropriate: tights and tights without fluffy panties, an integral part of the Alberts on the Russian stage in recent decades.

Now Nijinsky fell into serfdom from Diaghilev, Yuriev’s day of return to the imperial stage was taken away from him.

He will be saved from black wrath by the wave of a white hand. Look: the lights are approaching from the left... Do you see the torches? do you see the haze? It's probably the queen herself...

Blue God

There were many rumors about why Nijinsky was fired. One of them connected the dismissal with the intrigues of Diaghilev himself, who thus acquired a permanent artist. One way or another, now Vaclav belonged only to him. (Diaghilev once said to Karsavina: “Why didn’t you marry Fokin? Then you both would have belonged to me”).

It was possible to start a permanent troupe with a single star - Nijinsky. Everything had to work for him: Karsavina (still not breaking up with the Mariinsky), invited “stars” (negotiations with Pavlova and Kshesinskaya), a couple of character dancers, the art of Bakst and Benois, music of famous composers.

The first performance in 1911 again shocked the Parisian public. It was "The Phantom of the Rose" to the music of Carl von Weber's "Invitation to the Dance." It is based on a line from Théophile Gautier: “I am the ghost of the rose that you wore at the ball yesterday.”

Nijinsky had to dance not a person or even a flower, but the scent of a rose, which reminds the sleeping girl of yesterday's ball. Jean Cocteau, a regular at the Seasons, exclaimed that from now on he would associate the scent of roses with the last leap of Nijinsky, disappearing through the window. Probably, it was this ballet (not even a ballet, but an expanded pas de deux by Karsavina and Nijinsky) that allowed critics to correlate what they saw on stage with impressionism in painting.

The 1911 season could be called the most successful and fruitful. Fokine reached the peak of his activity as a choreographer. In addition to "The Specter of the Rose", the program included "Sadko" by Rimsky-Korsakov, "Narcissus" by Nikolai Tcherepnin, "Peri" by Paul Dukas and "Petrushka" by Igor Stravinsky. Ballets, as always, "from different lives": antiquity, East, Russian exoticism.

Somehow everything came together in “Petrushka”: both time and people. 20th century with its main theme freedom and unfreedom. "Eternal femininity" (Ballerina Karsavina), stupid masculinity (Arap Orlova), thirst for power (Magician Cecchetti) and " small man"(Nijinsky's Petrushka) made their choice. The fair dancer, in Stravinsky's words, "suddenly broke loose from the chain," allowed us to look into his soul. The soul of a doll that had become a man, in which there was so much pain, anger and despair.

The audience watched with fascination the tragedy of the doll, but no one compared it with the tragedy of Nijinsky himself. After the performance, he ran away from the praise to the dressing room and removed layer after layer of makeup from his face, looking past the mirror. But the “Magician” Diaghilev came. He said that it was necessary to unwind, and took Nijinsky to dinner in the Bois de Boulogne. Parsley turned into a doll again.

Soon they began rehearsals for "The Blue God", this time from Indian life. Almost all countries have already been covered by “plots”; soon they will have to repeat themselves.

A young lady named Romola Pulska was present at all the performances of the Seasons.

Oh no, why are you teasing me? This is a hellish retinue... The Queen walks among broad daylight, Entwined with garlands of roses...

Taming a wild beast

In 1912, Diaghilev said that Vaclav should try himself as a choreographer. He suggested thinking about Debussy’s symphonic prelude “The Afternoon of a Faun.” Fokin will not be able to deliver this. He will again organize bacchanalian dances. Moreover, for greater persuasiveness, he will demand to bring a flock of sheep.

Nijinsky asked that Debussy be played for him. And then he turned his head in profile and turned his hand with his palm facing outward. The man disappeared, a beast appeared, which itself became music. I wonder if Diaghilev realized that he was giving Nijinsky to the slaughter? There had never been such ballets before; they were ahead of their time, especially in Paris, which had not yet had time to enjoy the exoticism of the Russian Seasons.

The dance lasted only 12 minutes and showed a completely different aesthetic ballet theater. Where you can move in two-dimensional space. Where you can forget about eversion of your feet and step from heel to toe. Where you can move not in unison with the music, but in pauses. After all, the main thing is not this, but the afternoon heat, to which both the young faun and the nymphs, as if descended from the frieze of the temple, submit. And the veil lost by the nymph, and the vague desire directed by the faun to this fetish.

The ballet was booed, after which it was shown a second time. They booed even more. But there were also those who welcomed the appearance of the “newest” ballet. Among them is Auguste Rodin, who fiercely defended Nijinsky.

The next premiere of the 1912 season was Fokine's Daphnis and Chloe. The innocent shepherd rejected the claims of his unloved one and united with his chosen one in the apotheosis of the ancient dance. A herd of sheep walked across the stage.

This was the end of the Fokin era, which lasted so short. Ballet was catching up with its time by leaps and bounds.

Then “Games” appeared, staged by Nijinsky in the style of Gauguin, whom he loved very much. The ballet was about contemporary young people playing tennis, but as free as the islanders of Tahiti.

Then, in the 1913 season, it was Nijinsky’s turn to perform “The Rite of Spring” with music by Stravinsky and scenery by Nicholas Roerich. The pagan festival of the spring spell burst into the hall. Dances are divination, a prayer for the awakening of the forces of nature, a sacrifice of the Chosen One. The hall could not stand this energy. The power of archetypes turned out to be too heavy for spectators who were not ready to participate in the ritual. The ballet was interrupted several times, the raging spectators were forcibly removed and continued on. It was glory, only not during his lifetime, but posthumously.

And then Nijinsky was mortally tired and in this state went on tour with the troupe to South America. Romola Pulska was on the ship, but there was neither Diaghilev nor the sober-minded Karsavina. Romola attacked the object of her passion so energetically that an engagement was soon announced. They got married in Buenos Aires.

Then Romola began to free her husband from Diaghilev’s shackles, not realizing that Diaghilev, Ballet and Life were synonymous for him. In Rio de Janeiro, Nijinsky refused to perform in the next ballet, Diaghilev considered the contract to be broken. Now Nijinsky could only perform in music halls, which he did for some time. The path to St. Petersburg was prohibited for him as for a person evading military service.

Romola was not to blame. Or she was, but only as Albert in Giselle. She didn't think it would turn out like this. And when I realized what I had done, I focused all my energy on correcting the mistake. She gave birth to Vaclav two daughters, whom he loved very much... while he was getting to know them. She went to bow to Diaghilev, thinking that old impressions would stir up feelings in her husband’s soul, which was lost somewhere. She treated him with insulin shock.

Nijinsky died in 1950.

The girl and the boy cried, and the cheerful booth closed

Nijinsky's followers are divided into two kinds. The first (and the majority of them) dress the dancers in tights and, accompanied by heartbreaking music, force them to express the torments of love, longing, despair, etc. The second... Here you just need to see with your own eyes the productions of Martha Graham, Roland Petit or Maurice Bejart (especially those where he dances Jorge Donne) to understand the thin thread of continuity connecting them with Nijinsky, teetering on the brink of madness.

“God of dance”, “eighth wonder of the world”, “king of the air” - this is what his contemporaries called him. And here’s what he said about himself: “I want to dance, draw, play the piano, write poetry. I want to love everyone - that is the goal of my life. I love everybody. I don't want wars or borders. My home is wherever the world exists. I want to love, love. I am a man, God is in me, and I am in Him. I call Him, I seek Him. I am a seeker because I feel God. God is looking for me, and so we will find each other. God Nijinsky."

Vaslav Nijinsky was born in Kyiv on March 12, 1889. His father Tomas was an excellent dancer, a talented choreographer and had his own troupe; his mother Eleonora was the daughter of a cabinetmaker and studied at ballet school and was accepted into the Warsaw Theater troupe. After getting married, Tomas and Eleonora, together with their troupe, traveled around Russia, traveling the length and breadth of it, and during six years of travel they had three children - Stanislav, Vaclav and Bronislava.

When handsome Tomas started with one of his mistresses new family, Eleanor was forced to leave the troupe. Together with her children, she settled in St. Petersburg, deciding that in the capital it would be easiest to find the doctors needed by her eldest son Stanislav - at the age of six the boy fell out of a window, hit his head on the pavement, and his mental development stopped.

Left with virtually no means of support, alone in a strange city, Eleanor tried to find ways to survive, and first of all, she needed to somehow find a home for her children. Nine-year-old Vaclav's mother decided to take him to the Imperial Ballet School. Eleanor dreamed that upon completion of his studies, Vaclav would be able to enter the famous Mariinskii Opera House. In addition, the state took full responsibility for the maintenance of the students, and this was also important.

“Thanks to Tomas’s fame, the name of Nijinsky was known to the examiners,” writes Nijinsky biographer Richard Buckle, “but there could be no question of accepting students, taking into account any circumstances other than their merits. Vaclav gave the impression of a not very developed mama's boy. Fortunately, the teacher drew attention to him junior classes for boys Nikolai Legat. He asked Vaclav to take a few steps back and jump. The jump was phenomenal. The child was accepted into the school.”

His schoolmates did not like Vaclav. The boys despised him for being a Pole and laughed at his strange, either Mongolian or Tatar features faces, giving him the nickname “Japanese”. In addition, Vaclav was silent, withdrawn and thought too slowly. However, he did not put up with humiliation and always fought back against offenders, which is why he was often punished, but he never complained to anyone about injustice.

In his studies, Nijinsky showed great promise. He was the first in the dance class, the teachers were proud of him and could have graduated from school two years earlier if, in addition to dancing, Vaclav could pass exams in general subjects. But he barely coped with them and even failed the history exam. The teachers turned a blind eye to this - the Mariinsky Theater was already waiting for Nijinsky.

The career of the young artist began very successfully. He quickly became popular. In his first season at the Mariinsky Theater, he danced in almost all classical ballets and in new productions by Fokine. He was a partner of Matilda Kshesinskaya, Anna Pavlova, Olga Preobrazhenskaya. He was a romantic youth in Chopinian, a slave of Cleopatra in Egyptian Nights, a page in the Pavilion of Armida. In life he could not be called handsome, but on stage Nijinsky was transformed, grace appeared in his movements, his plasticity was bewitching. To the spectators in the hall he seemed seductively handsome.

However, for all his talent, Nijinsky was completely unsuited to life outside the stage, he did not know how and did not like to take care of his daily bread, and he certainly needed a patron - someone strong and enterprising who would take care of him. His first such patron was Prince Pavel Dmitrievich Lvov, a great lover of ballet and handsome young men. Soon Nijinsky was noticed by Sergei Diaghilev, who was planning to conquer Paris with Russian ballet, and invited the artist to his troupe.

The program for the 1909 season included ballets by Mikhail Fokine, and Nijinsky captivated the Parisian public. Then, returning home, he successfully danced on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater, performing all kinds of inserted pas de deux and dances, in which the directors played up his amazing jump in every possible way. In addition, Fokin prepared performances for the second Paris season. Nijinsky was assigned the roles of Harlequin in Carnival, the Slave in Scheherazade and Albert in Giselle, as well as two numbers in the divertissement, in which there were many technical difficulties. Success was guaranteed. And again Nijinsky returned to St. Petersburg as a winner. He was to perform the part of Albert in a production at the Mariinsky Theater. But then the scandal happened.

On January 25, 1911, Nijinsky appeared on stage in the same costume created according to the sketch Alexandra Benois, in which he danced in Paris. It was a copy of a historical fourteenth-century German costume with a tight-fitting leotard. This seemed indecent to Empress Maria Feodorovna. The theater management, frightened by the royal wrath, hastened to fire Nijinsky.

What was left for him but Diaghilev's enterprise? Russian viewers never saw him again. The scenes of cities all over the world changed - Paris, Dresden, Vienna, Monte Carlo, London, New York - everywhere Nijinsky was accompanied by stunning success. The costume story served as excellent advertising. And Diaghilev, not content with the brilliant performance of the ballet parts, decided to train his friend as a choreographer. Nijinsky's first production was the miniature "The Afternoon of a Faun" to music by Debussy.

This is how, according to the memoirs of dancer Serge Lifar, it began: “Sergei Pavlovich was sitting with Nijinsky in St. Mark’s Square in Venice, and then suddenly, instantly, the plastic-choreographic idea of ​​doing “Faun” came to his mind. Sergei Pavlovich immediately jumped up and began to show, near two large columns of the Venetian square, the angular, heavy sculpture of a Faun... Nijinsky’s first creative experience was painful and required an enormous expenditure of time and effort not only for Nijinsky, who was confused and helpless, but also for Bakst, and Diaghilev himself... Diaghilev was present during all the rehearsals - and there were more than a hundred of them! Nijinsky set each bar separately and after each bar he turned to Diaghilev and asked, “So, Sergei Pavlovich? Well, now what?”

The premiere resulted in a scandal. On May 22, 1912, the audience in the Chatelet theater almost came to blows. At the end of the miniature, the Faun, lying on the blanket of the runaway nymph, either really made an ambiguous gesture, or showed the audience that he was going to... This was no less daring for the Parisians than tight tights for the St. Petersburg court ladies. The press called Nijinsky’s “find” obscene, the great sculptor Auguste Rodin stood up for the aspiring choreographer. Rodin got it too...

However, the unusual plasticity proposed by Nijinsky seemed promising to Diaghilev, and he decided that the choreographer should stage Igor Stravinsky’s ballet “The Rite of Spring” - already a full-fledged performance. The rhythmic complexity of the music excited creative imagination, Nijinsky created an outlandishly new choreography, in which there were clumsy movements, closed figures, legs turned toes inward, elbows pressed to the body, heavy trampling into the ground. Music and plasticity merged together to reproduce the powerful desire of nature and primitive man to spontaneous renewal. And this premiere also turned out to be scandalous. Some viewers and critics have furious rejection, others have equally furious delight.

Although The Rite of Spring was performed only six times, this performance became one of the pinnacles of modern ballet theater, as well as the greatest stimulus for its further development. Immediately after the premiere of the ballet, Stravinsky wrote: “The commonality of our plans was not broken for a second.” And four years before his death, in 1966, the 84-year-old composer confirmed: “ The best incarnation“The Rite of Spring”, of all the ones I have seen, I consider Nijinsky’s production.”

During the 1913 season, Nijinsky also staged the ballet “Games” to music by Debussy. He himself called this work “a poem in dance,” and the programs included “ballet of 1930.” There was no scandal, but Debussy absolutely did not understand the choreography.

But the imperious Diaghilev overestimated his influence on Nijinsky. He was already burdened by his dependence on the entrepreneur. And at performances with Nijinsky’s participation, you could see an elegant blue-eyed blonde almost every evening. It was Romola Pulski, daughter of the famous Hungarian actress and the first director of the Hungarian national gallery. The girl fell in love with the dancer and firmly decided to become his wife.

Romola began taking dance lessons from Cecchetti and managed to join Diaghilev’s troupe. She waited for her time - and it came. On August 15, 1913, Diaghilev's troupe went on a tour to South America. Diaghilev was forced to let Nijinsky go alone because he was afraid to travel by sea. For the first time, Vaclav was left to his own devices.

Romola constantly tried to catch his eye and entertained him with conversations. Nijinsky was taciturn and reserved, and the girl had to try for two.

When the voyage was almost over, one of their mutual friends approached Romola and told her that Nijinsky had asked him to find out if she would agree to marry him. Then he himself declared his love in broken French. Of course, Romola immediately agreed. She understood that for Nijinsky this was an escape to freedom, but she hoped that she would cope with all the difficulties. On September 10, 1913, in Buenos Aires, Vaslav Nijinsky and Romola Pulski were married in the Catholic Church of the Archangel Michael.

When Diaghilev learned of his protégé's engagement, he flew into a rage and angrily ordered a telegram to be sent to Nijinsky, saying that the Russian Ballet no longer needed his services. Nijinsky accepted the resignation with pleasure. Now he was left to his own devices, and it seemed to him that he would be happy if he lived the way he wanted. Nijinsky believed that he would feel calmer having gotten rid of the suffocating tutelage of Diaghilev, who now seemed to him to be the devil who had taken his soul in exchange for fame and success.

But, having separated Nijinsky from Diaghilev, Romola excommunicated her husband from true art. She did everything she could, but independence was contraindicated for Nijinsky. He organized his own troupe and even signed a contract with the Palace Theater for eight weeks. But after three weeks of performances, the theater management terminated the contract. This unsuccessful enterprise left the Nijinsky family without money. And in June 1914, daughter Kira was born.

The Nijinskys decided to go to St. Petersburg. But on the way, in Budapest, they were caught by the First World War. Nijinsky was interned and lived as a prisoner of war in Budapest with his wife and daughter. By invitation Vienna theater in 1916 he returned to creative activity. Among his plans was the production of the ballet Till Eulenspiegel to the music of Richard Strauss. However, he managed to carry out this work only on tour in America, again in Diaghilev’s troupe, where he returned in the same 1916.

Gradually, Nijinsky began to feel more and more signs of severe mental illness. His last performance, the ballet “The Phantom of the Rose,” took place on September 26, 1917, and he danced his last dance in 1919 in Switzerland. In the same year, at the age of thirty, the creative life of the great dancer and choreographer ended. The next thirty years of my life were no longer associated with the ballet theater.

Diaghilev tried several times to revive Nijinsky's brain by influencing him with dance. So, on December 27, 1928, in Paris, he brought Nijinsky to the Opera for the ballet “Petrushka”, in which the dancer created one of his best parts. But Nijinsky remained indifferent. After Diaghilev's death, Romola repeated the experiment to revive Nijinsky's mind. In June 1939, she invited Serge Lifar to dance in front of her husband. Lifar danced until he was exhausted, but Nijinsky remained indifferent. Suddenly, some mysterious force lifted him up, and he took off in a jump, and then fell into unconsciousness again. Photographer Jean Manzon, present at this miracle, managed to capture the last leap of the mad god of dance Nijinsky.

Nijinsky died in early spring, on April 8, 1950, in London. He was buried in the Sainte-Marilebain cemetery, and three years later the dancer’s ashes were transported to Paris and buried in the Montmartre cemetery.

D. Truskinovskaya

Life story
During his brief, illustrious career as a ballet soloist, first at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg and then with the Russian Ballet under Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinsky performed leading roles in Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, performances that became ballets classics and included in the golden fund of Russian and world ballet. Abandoning traditional methods classical ballet, Nijinsky brought to brilliance the execution of jumps, during which he seemed to float above the stage. His unusually original and daring choreography and true talent as a dramatic actor opened new horizons for the art of ballet and won him a reputation as a brilliant choreographer and performer.
Nijinsky was born into a family of dancers in the city of Kyiv in Ukraine. He began dancing early, although he was a “clumsy and slow-thinking” child. At the age of three, he already went on the first tour in his life with the troupe in which his parents danced. When Nijinsky was 9 years old, his father left the family, deciding to exchange his wife and son for his mistress, who was already pregnant. His mother managed to convince Nijinsky that he should study ballet even more diligently, since a career in this art form could bring both fame and money. In the spring of 1907, Nijinsky graduated from the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg and became a soloist at the Mariinsky Theater. In 1909 he met the impresario Sergei Diaghilev. His performance in Paris with the Russian Ballet became a real sensation. In 1911, Nijinsky was expelled from the Mariinsky Theater troupe for not fully donning his stage costume when appearing on stage in a play. He was immediately offered a place in the Russian Ballet. As part of this troupe, Nijinsky performed his most famous ballet roles. In 1912, a scandal arose around his ballet "Afternoon of a Faun", where last scene Nijinsky portrayed a faun masturbating. Nijinsky was warned that he must change this scene. He was told that otherwise this ballet would be banned. He refused to change anything in the play and continued his performances, performing the now famous scene in its original version. No action was taken against him or this ballet.
In 1913, Nijinsky married Countess Romola de Pulski. His marriage offended Diaghilev so much that he immediately fired Nijinsky from his troupe. Nijinsky assembled his own ballet troupe and began to travel with her giving performances throughout Europe and America. This tour lasted about a year. Nijinsky was a brilliant dancer, but a bad businessman, and his troupe suffered financial failure. During the First World War, Nijinsky was captured and imprisoned in Austria-Hungary. He was accused of spying for Russia. After a long forced break, Nijinsky appeared on stage again only in 1916. In 1919, 29-year-old Nijinsky suffered a serious nervous illness. He stopped dancing. He was tormented by insomnia, persecution mania, schizophrenia and depression. Until his death from kidney disease in 1950, Nijinsky spent most of his last 30 years of life in a mental hospital in Switzerland.
Stormy love life Nijinsky made a worthy contribution to the emergence and development of his nervous diseases. In love he was passive, apparently saving all his energy for performing on stage. In 1908, Nijinsky, a naive and wonderful young man, struck up a close friendship with the 30-year-old Prince Pavel Dmitrievich Lvov. Tall, blue-eyed, handsome Lvov liked Nijinsky at their first meeting. The prince introduced Nijinsky to intoxicating pleasures nightlife and helped to acquire the first experience of homosexual relations. Lvov, however, was quite disappointed with the size of Nijinsky's penis. One of Nijinsky's biographers later wrote: "Nijinsky was small in that part, the large size of which usually leads to admiration." Despite the disappointment, the prince was kind to Nijinsky and even helped him arrange the first sexual meeting in the dancer’s life with a female prostitute. This sexual contact frightened Nijinsky and aroused a feeling of disgust in him. Lvov was generous and generous and managed to win the heart of his young lover. After a few months, however, he got tired of Nijinsky, whom he called another of his “toys,” and stopped contacting him. Before they parted, Lvov introduced Nijinsky to Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev was 30 years older than Nijinsky. He was a homosexual and did not try to hide it. The only sexual contact in Diaghilev’s life with a woman, his 18-year-old cousin, gave him a venereal disease. Diaghilev and Nijinsky became lovers. Diaghilev completely deprived Nijinsky of any independence. He controlled Nijinsky's professional and personal life. He insisted that Nijinsky should not sleep with women under any circumstances, claiming that this would negatively affect his performances. Diaghilev was so able to convince Nijinsky of the correctness of his words that Vaclav once refused the proposal of Isadora Duncan herself, whom he met in 1909 in Venice. Isadora stated when meeting with Nijinsky that she really wanted to have a child with him. Diaghilev also repeatedly invited Nijinsky to have group sex with him and another of his lovers, but Nijinsky constantly refused such offers. By the age of 23, he felt that he had become old enough to cease being just one of Diaghilev’s “boys”. In September 1913, when Nijinsky, together with the Russian Ballet, was sailing on a ship on a tour to South America, he was engaged to the 23-year-old coquette Romola de Pulski, the daughter of the Hungarian actress Emilia Marcus. Before this, Romola pursued Nijinsky for several months and even began studying ballet to be closer to him. According to Hungarian tradition, the engagement gave the bride the opportunity to have sex with her groom before the wedding. The sexual relationship between Nijinsky and Romola, however, did not begin until after their wedding, which took place in 1913. The reason for this was Nijinsky’s shyness, his timidity in relationships with women, the language barrier, and his desire to have a real Catholic wedding.
Upon learning of the engagement, Diaghilev was stung. He took revenge on Nijinsky by firing him from the Russian Ballet and refusing to answer his former lover's letters. Soon after his marriage, Nijinsky acquired another admirer, the Duchess Durcal, who fell so in love with him that she invited him to become her lover. With Romola's permission, Nijinsky entered into a sexual relationship with the duchess. He later regretted it, saying: "I'm sorry I did that. It wasn't fair to her. I didn't love her..."
When Nijinsky's mental state worsened, he and Romola began sleeping in separate rooms. Sometimes Nijinsky left his house at night and walked the streets in search of prostitutes. He only talked to them and masturbated. He did this in order to “protect himself from the danger of venereal disease.” In 1914 and 1920, Romola had two daughters from Nijinsky. Soon after the birth of his first daughter, Diaghilev again entered Nijinsky's life. Romola tried in every possible way to prevent this and even sued Diaghilev so that he would pay Nijinsky 500,000 francs for his performances in the Russian Ballet. Romola won the case, but Diaghilev never paid this amount. Romola pulled Nijinsky with all her might in one direction, and Diaghilev, not yielding to her in any way, pulled him in the exact opposite direction. Nijinsky, unable to dance and unable to give vent to his feelings, fell into a state of quiet insanity.

Vaslav Nijinsky