"The Young Man and Death"

Dear friends,

I have put together some excerpts from a chapter of my book that discuss one of my favorite Ballet Masterpieces "Le Jeune Homme et la Mort"

 (The Young Man and Death)

(Drawing by: Shulamit Hochberg)

If the princesses, knights and fairies – The main figures of the romantic era, would have seen "The Young Man and Death", they would probably been mesmerized by the long way that was made between the 19^th century fantasy ballets, to an art form that is so realistic a century later. They probably would have a real hard time relaxing from the shock…

The cooperation between some of the most superb artists of their time have brought to the world one of the most expressive neo-classical masterpieces – a work with obvious meanings regarding emotional extremism due to unrequited love - A kind of love that brings a man a total loss of control and practically suicide.

The Father of The Young Man

The father of the piece is the influential French choreographer Roland Petit (1924-2011). Trained  in the Paris Opera Ballet since the age of 8, Roland was a promising young soloist who performed most of the lead classical roles. At a relative young age he had felt artistically unfulfilled from only dancing classical works and so he formed his own ballet company with a vision of ballet world as being much more creative and much more extreme...

According to the tradition of artists cooperation, set in the days of "Les Ballet Russes" in the early 20^th century, this masterpiece was the fruit of cooperation between the Roland Petit, and Jean Cocteau – the novelist, director, poet and Multi-Artist. The latter was the writer of the ballet's libretto, which he described in five sentences:

"A young man is in love with a woman

He wants to tempt her, to get her

She refuses

She kicks him and leaves

He hangs himself"

With the use of the language of classical ballet,  Roland was suppose to dramatize a surreal, dark, and alienated atmosphere, a kind of drama that would reflect the general atmosphere that was present in post war world two, in Paris of 1946.

"The Youth"

The first performer of the ballet was Jean Babilée, a dancer who was known to have the highest leap since Vaslav Nisjinsky. The French-Jewish dancer (originally named Jean Guttman) began a tradition of acrobatic dancers performing this role. As a matter of fact, "The Young Man And Death", was always a kind of a "Modern Showcase Piece" for every classical dancer who wants to show his power in combining Contemporary and modern qualities.

Jean Babilée & Nathalie Philippart in the first production

The Music

Apart from the suicidal drama and the virtuoso choreography, one of the most important elements of this masterpiece is the music – John Sebastian Bach's "Passacaglia in C Minor". The score carries a basic tune in a very low and dark key that keeps repeating throughout the composition. No matter what happens around it musically, the basic dark tune remains constant in the background, in a way that matches the basic atmosphere of the piece.

The Ballet

A common element in Petit's ballets is the use of chairs. In his famous ballet adaptation to the opera "Carmen", we see the gypsies dancing in the streets with chairs – a symbol that implies that they are living in the streets. In "The Young Man and Death" the chairs are being kicked and tossed around by the youth as a symbol for his wildness and for his scattered home – his scattered soul. 

After all his longings, the youth got what he wished for – the door opens and there stands a woman with a horrifying yellow dress, long black gloves and a kind of deep look in her eyes that is matchless in its cruelty.

After a sexual and twisted interaction, the woman storms out of the room, not before she ties a rope from the ceiling, and upon the rope she points to the youth to make it of use...

And so, after a motional and emotional last storm, came the picture that shocked the world of dance: the youth wraps the rope around his head and drops the chair beneath his feet.

When the suffering body relinquishes the struggle, the curtain is expected to come down, But surprisingly enough, the decor actually rises up and in the background we see the streets of Paris. On the stage appears a horrifying figure, "Death", in a white and red dress, and orders the young man to come off the rope. "Death" takes off his mask and we see that it was actually the woman, who then puts its mask on the face of the youth, and sends him to wonder the streets of Paris…

Symbols and conclusions

At first glimpse, the ending of the ballet leaves us with a little sexist aftertaste – the woman caused the youth to end his life and apparently it was nothing but a fraud - she was "The Grim-Reaper". Yet, a deeper perspective might suggest a different conclusion - the possibility that the woman was in fact an hallucination - a perspective that is supported by artistic expressions like the costumes, the drama and even the title of the ballet – "The Young Man And Death". In French, the last word of the title (Mort) is feminine gender, which can imply that perhaps the youth's interaction was maybe with his beloved, but an in-depth perspective suggests that it was actually a dialogue - between the young man and death. …

The full article will be published in my book:

"The Romantic & Neo Classical BalletMasterpieces, Creators & Unforgettable Performers"

Hyperlink to the performance of the Paris Opera Ballet (2005)

Scheherazade (1910) - A New & Erotic Classical Ballet

"I may not know art, But i know what I like!"

"Scheherazade" 

After attending the concert of the Israeli Philharmonic playing the wonderful "Scheherazade" score by Nicolay Rimsky-Korsakov last Sunday, I felt an urge to shed some light on one of the most acknowledged and favorite ballet creations – "Scherazade" by the ground braking choreographer – Mikhail Fokine.

In the next essay I will give an interesting perspective of the evolution of classical ballet - regarding the elements of drama and expressiveness, which were greatly affected by Mikhail Fokine.

Until the late 18^th century, ballet performances were pretty much the art of gestures. For example,  Giacomo Casanova, The legendary "Womanizer", recalls his first experience of a ballet performance in Paris as being fairly strange – a man walking very slowly till the center of the stage, and then bows gracefully. Casanova was very surprised to see the crowd going wild about his gesture, and his friend explained to him that the dancer made the perfect gesture, and after that there is a need for nothing more...

In the romantic era from the 19^th century, with the rise of the first prima ballerina Marie Taglioni, there was an important evolution of the classical ballet in combining a story to the dance –The Pas de Action, which was pretty much Pantomime.  Some of the most popular Pas de Actions can be found in Marius Petipa's Ballets, such as the Tavern Scene from the classical ballet 

Marius Petipa
1818-1910

"Don-Quixote". 

Marius Petipa, The choreographer of Swan Lake, Nutcracker, La Bayadere and so many others classical ballets, was also the artistic director of the Imperial Ballet Theatre (A.K.A the Mariinsky / Kirov Theatre) in St.Petersburg, Russia, where Mikhail Fokine was born, raised and trained to ballet excellence. In fact, he was so talented, that when he graduated from the Imperial Ballet Academy (A.K.A Vaganova Academy) in 1898, Marius Petipa wrote a very strict and harsh letter to force the management of the theatre to make young Fokine to be a Soloist, without being a Coryphée  first, earning 66 Rubbles instead of 50 (Big difference in those days).

On the other hand, Fokine had some burning artistic issues with Petipa's work and classical ballet in general.– In a famous letter that he wrote at the year 1904 to the management of the theatre, he asked the following questions:

"Why in an Egyptian ballet were the dancers and costume and the supers in the dress of the period? Why did a certain dancer execute such and such difficult steps, what were they intend to express, for surely if dancing was not expressiveness it became acrobatic, mechanical and meaningless? Why in a ballet was a psychological feeling always by a fixed gesture or series of gestures which neither described nor symbolized anything? Why must the arms be always rounded, the back straight and the feet always turned out with the heels to the front? Why was ballet technique limited to the movement of the lower limbs and a few conventional positions of the arms, when the entire body should be expressive to the last muscle? Why did a dancer rise sur les pointes not to convey the impression that she was rising from the ground, but in order to astonish the audience with their strength and endurance? Why was the style of a dance always inharmonious with that of the theme, its costume, and its period?"

But to each question he received the stereotyped answer: 

"Because it is Tradition". 


 (Beaumont. C.W., (1981). Mikhail Fokine and His Ballets. Dance Horizons, pp.22)

Mikhail Fokine
1880-1942

These ground braking ideas of escaping the traditional limitations but maintaining the basic language and technique of classical ballet were the cornerstones of all his famous creations. In some of the most essential masterpieces of the ballet repertoire that were choreographed by Fokine - "Dying Swan" (1905), "Firebird" (1909), "Petrushka" (1911), and many others, you can obviously notice the breakthroughs that were the basis vision of his letter from 1904. One of the most acknowledged and special ballets is Fokine's "Scheherazade"(1910).

The story for the ballet is the actually the prologue for the classic "One thousand and one night tales", in which Sultan Sharyar is betrayed by his beloved mistress Zobeida, and being so hurt by that, he decides to wed a new woman every night, and then to throw her into a deep hole. After about 300 women, Scheherazade comes to the sultan and on their first night together, she tells him the most magnificent story, but without its ending, and says that she will continue tomorrow night. The same goes for the next thousand nights and thousand stories, and during that they fell in love and made a family together.

In the prologue, the sultan, being suspicious of Zobeida, tells her that he is going on a hunting venture for several weeks and comes back earlier than expected, just to find that the mistresses have freed the slaves from the dungeon and a huge orgy is going on - - And in the midst of it all, the Golden Slave and Zobeida, the true and secret lovers, are having a deep and sensual erotic duet.

Now, after reviewing all the historical ideas by, we can enjoy the Grand Pas De Deux of Scheherazade in a much deeper level - through Fokine's revolutionary artistic elements:   

Costumes – Where is the ballerina's Tutu's and Point shoes? Where are the man tradiaional ballet tights – they have no room being in a Sultan's Harmon…

Choreography – It is of course very noticeable that Zobeida's feet are almost never turned-out in the dance but actually are kept parallel most of the time. Moreover – how does a Russian choreographer in the year 1910, comes up with so many seemingly oriental gestures for the arms, hands and literally the entire body? To get the inspiration for these gestures and elements, in days much prior to the invention of the VCR, Mikhail Fokine used to go to the Russian Museum in order to study sculptures and paintings of Hindu idols, and the same ideas he choreographed for the Ballerina. 

Another brilliant chorographical element is found in the golden slave's virtuoso elements (that were originally made for the phenomenal Vaslav Nijinsky). Literally almost all the amazing pirouettes and high jumps the that he executes, ends with the dancer crouching on the floor – looking at his beloved from below – just like a slave… 

One of Fokine's most revolutionary principals regarded the use of the Corp de ballet – literally using their energy as a group. When in "Petrushka" the group acts as a crowd in a festival and in "Les Sylphides" (1909) the group acts as the ethereal inspiration for the soloists, in the Grand Pas Des Deux of "Scheherazade" we see the entire Corp de ballet in the background are slaves and mistress that creates the most erotic atmosphere with the use of gestures that appear as a somewhat huge pack of sea anemones. Baring in mind that about half a century prior to the premier of this creation it was illegal to kiss a girl in public in most of Europe, it is easy to understand why this ballet was also referred to as "The Oriental Orgy"…

Enjoy the video Hyper-linked at the picture below my dear friends… and feel free to comment J

"Scheherazade" Grand Pas De Deux performed by Ilze Liepa and Victor Yeremenko (2002) 

Fokine's Diary

 The Pas De Deux is  taken from this amazing compiliation