le sacre du printemps

The ballet which shocked the world into the 20th century

synopsis

After a confusion of rustic pipes, hailing the arrival of spring, the curtain rises to reveal a gathering of an ancient, Slavonic tribe at the bottom of a sacred hill. A village celebration is in progress: a witch tells the future, there is a "marriage by capture", round dances and games. A grand procession of the "oldest-wisest" members of the village is followed by the more solemn rite of the "adoration of the earth" in which the Sage devoutly kisses the hill, which has already begun to flower.

In part II, after a mysterious introduction, a dance of virgins begins at the foot of the hill. One among them is selected to be the sacrifice and glorified by the tribe. Clad in a bearskin, to show that the bear was man's ancestor, she dances herself to death at the foot of the hill as the wise men dedicate her sacrifice to the god Yarillo.

the riotous premiere

It is one of the astounding ironies of music history that, at the premiere of Le sacre, the orchestra was barely audible. On that chaotic evening, Pierre Monteux valiantly conducted to the finish, amidst the public din, but the initial derisive snickers finally ballooned into a guerre à mort, transforming Paris's Théâtre des Champs-Élysées into a scene of pandemonium never previously experienced by the Ballets Russes and resident noblesse.

According to one eye-witness, the audience - driven berserk by Nijinsky's "perverse" choreography - raged uncontrollably over what it felt a blasphemous effort to destroy music. Nijinsky's future wife witnessed an elegantly attired lady slap a young man hissing nearby, this effrontery provoking him to exchange cards with her escort. As the ballet concluded with the Sacrificial Dance - tremorous paroxysms seizing the hitherto immobile Chosen Victim - alarm echoed through the gallery: "Un docteur, ... un dentiste, ... deux docteurs."

Nijinsky, straddling an offstage chair, continuously bellowed out ("like a coxswain," Stravinsky recalled) a barrage of counts to maintain the dancers' metrical synchronization, while the impressario Diaghilev, fearing public panic, ordered electricians to turn the houselights on and off. Jean Cocteau noted that Diaghilev, Stravinsky, and Nijinsky, huddled together in the Bois de Boulogne during the early hours of the morning, wept at the debacle.

Probably the earliest and therefore most accurate account of the work's premiere can be found in Stravinsky's 1936 autobiography:

"...the Sacre du printemps was given on May 28 at the evening performance. The complexity of my score had demanded a great number of rehearsals, which Monteux had conducted with his usual skill and attention.

As for the actual performance, I am not in a position to judge, as I left the auditorium to stand in the wings 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 counter-demonstrations and very quickly developing into a terrific uproar.

During the whole performance I was at Nijinsky's side in the wings. He was standing on a chair, screaming "sixteen, seventeen, eighteen" - they had their own method of counting to keep time. Naturally, the poor dancers could hear nothing by reason of the row in the auditorium and the sound of their own dance steps. I had to hold Nijinsky by his clothes, for he was furious, and ready to dash on stage at any moment and create a scandal. Diaghilev kept ordering the electricians to turn the lights on or off, hoping in that way to put a stop to the noise. That is all I can remember about that first performance.

Oddly enough, at the dress rehearsal, to which we had, as usual, invited a number of actors, painters, musicians, writers, and the most cultured representatives of society, everything had gone off peacefully, and I was very far from expecting such an outburst."