The Genius & Madness of Nijinsky

This month as promised I wanted to celebrate Nijinsky's 135/134th birthday on the 12th, with an exploration of his life and what makes him so unique in the history of ballet. Last month was Anna Pavlova: and there are perhaps few opposites as extreme as these two in the way they struck the dance world. First of all let's remember who was Vaslav Nijinsky, a name that has become synonymous with male ballet dancing from the beginning of the past century - yes, time goes by fast! - a name that has not been equaled in prestige since, in spite of all the giants who emerged later on in the century, Nureyev & Baryshnikov among many others. Nijinsky was arguably the greatest male ballet dancer of the 20th century. But his significance is much vaster than that, and to understand it, we must delve deeper into who Nijinsky was as an artist, and what sort of audiences were mesmerized by his technique & stage presence. There is a fascinating element in Nijinsky's personality perhaps, born of contrast: in everyday life & interactions with others he was bland and unremarkable; but it was when he stepped on the stage that he became truly alive, a creature of inexplicable, breathtaking, and dazzling energy & virtuosity, capable of taking on any roles that were given him, becoming truly a different person, a different being. This is certainly one of the reasons why he amazed those who saw him and still does to this day: he epitomizes the character of the artist-genius, who lives but for his art, who is unable to realize himself in anything else, to whom life is bland without his passion, his talent, his reason for existence. Artist-genius and even artist-genius-madman, which adds up to the fascination all around his life, for madness has been associated with great art since art itself began. That he spent the last years of his life institutionalized contributes to dramatize even more the life of someone who from the start was destined to a dramatic existence, like perhaps every dancer but especially in his time when dance was not yet what it is now, his path strikes us as unique in the context of his times.

Nijinsky is regarded as the greatest male dancer of the early 20th century, in spite of his shortened career.

Vaslav Nijinsky was born in Kiev in the then Russian Empire from Polish parents, both touring dancers. He had an older brother and a younger sister, Bronislava, who became a celebrated dancer in her own right. Nijinsky's first appearance was in a production of Hopak in Odessa when he was four or five years old. Both his parents were part of touring companies until one of them disbanded when Vaslav was still a child. The father attempted to form his own company but failed. After some family tragedies Nijinsky's mother succeeded through the help of a friend who taught at the Imperial Ballet School, to get her son into the school; and in the year 1900, he entered the prestigious establishment, where he studied under Pavel Gerdt among others, who had been Anna Pavlova's teacher. He was soon singled out for his exceptional dancing abilities, which already elicited general fascination and also the resentment of his classmates, who teased him for being Polish, and once deliberately harmed him. There was also controversy as to his remaining into the school due to poor results in general, with the exception of dance, of course, and a few subjects which interested him. He was finally ejected from the school in 1903 for misdemeanour, and readmitted after a sound beating.

It was in 1904 at the age of 14 that Nijinsky's perhaps first important breakthrough happened: the choreographer Marius Petipa chose him to perform in what was to be his last work, the ballet La Romance d'un Bouton de Rose et d'un Papillon. After that, he gradually rose to prominence in various roles with the school, even trying his hand at choreography, until he was admitted in the company as a coryphée, which was untypical for a first position. He had been offered a place in the company before he had even graduated, but had declined in order to continue his studies. Now that he was a part of the company, he performed in countless roles in ballets such as the Persian Market, Le Pavillon d'Armide, a ballet sequence choreographed by Mikhail Fokine in Mozart's Don Giovanni, La Fille Mal Gardée and of course The Nutcracker.

Nijinsky in Mikhail Fokine's Le Festin. "When those two came on, good Lord! I have never seen such a public. You would have thought their seats were on fire." said the company's courier of Nijinsky & Karsavina after the performance.

Then in the winter of 1908 everything changed for Nijinsky. The Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev toured all over the world with his company, to which he later gave the more impressive name of Ballets Russes. It was the beginning of a partnership that transcended art & profession and even rose into the realm of legend, as the two names are now inextricably & forever linked when mentioning Russian ballet. Most of the photos and even some footage we have of Nijinsky dancing, are of his roles in Diaghilev's ballets, and it is during his partnership with him that he truly became the international star which he's remembered as to this day. Scheherazade, Le Spectre de la Rose, Petruschka, Giselle, The Rite of Spring, The Afternoon of a Faun, all date from that time when Nijinsky amazed the world with his incredible versatility, his unprecedented technical prowess, most of all his jumps and his turns - he gave audiences the impression that he was flying on stage - and became a legend for decades to come. Le Spectre de la Rose, choreographed specifically for him by Fokine, was created to highlight his amazing ability to jump high & fast, and the choreography remains a challenge for contemporary artists, because of the energy it requires, giving almost no pause to the male dancer while being reasonably taxing on the ballerina. Petruschka, on the other hand, the story of the puppet with a soul, allowed Nijinsky to display his extraordinary mime & acting skill which was a twin talent to his technical virtuosity.

Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), Russian impresario & founder of the Ballet Russes, probably the one most important figure in Nijinsky's life.

It was a trio which achieved worldwide fame at the start of the century and is still celebrated today: Diaghilev, Nijinsky, and Stravinsky, who created the music for these stunning new prototypes of Russian ballet, that put together so much talent in all participating fields. Nijinsky's partnership with Tamara Karsavina also became legendary. But relations between Diaghilev and Nijinsky began a steady degradation first when Nijinsky started choreographing his own ballets, and then after his marriage to Romola de Pulszky, which Diaghilev regarded as a betrayal. As a dancer in Diaghilev's company, Nijinsky interpreted the impresario's roles but was subject to his rule: Diaghilev had always been the first choreographer in his company. Now that roles started changing and Nijinsky's ballets became an important constituting part of the company's repertoire, there was born resentment & jealousy between the two artists, who had formerly been lovers. Nijinsky was finally dismissed from the Ballets Russes, on the grounds that he had not attended a performance because of his wife's pregnancy. Diaghilev re-hired Fokine as a choreographer on the condition that no ballets of Nijinsky would be performed by the company. Diaghilev's decision, which was nefarious enough to the Ballets Russes which lost their most celebrated and crowd-pulling dancer, was even more damaging to Nijinsky: without an exemption from military service that was normally granted dancers, his only two offers were from the Paris Opera or London performing as part of a mixed bill at the Palace Theatre. But whatever he did he would not any longer enjoy the opportunity of choreographing and producing full-scale works which the Imperial Ballet and Ballet Russes had given him.

The last years of Nijinsky's life, after his marriage, his expulsion from the Ballets Russes and the start of his slow, tragic descent into the madness which had ever threatened all his life, is a somber & sad story, which it would perhaps be useless to narrate in detail in this blog; suffice it to say that his abilities & image suffered a steady decline through the years. After he founded his new company, which his sister Bronia eagerly joined, partly out of concern that her brother wouldn't be able to manage it himself without his former supporters, there was friction between Bronia and Romola, Nijinsky's wife, who resented the siblings' close artistic relationship. The new company only had three experienced dancers, Nijinsky, his sister and her husband; to add to that limitation, Fokine refused the use of his ballets: and although Diaghilev came to the opening night Nijinsky was growing ever more "nervous & distraught." There were complications later on due to his declining health which occasioned him heavy financial losses. And then, his family's curse fell back on him. He started showing ever more pronounced signs of mental unbalance, confusion, and schizophrenia. It is said that during Nijinsky's last performance in 1917 for a benefit concert for the Red Cross in Montevideo, the pianist Arthur Rubinstein wept when he saw the dancer's confusion. His last years were spent in and out of psychiatric hospitals and asylums, and his diary in the years directly previous expresses an increasing fear of hospitalization. He died of kidney failure at a clinic in London on April 8, 1950.

Nijinsky & Tamara Karsavina in Le Spectre de la Rose: a legendary pair.

Diaghilev & Nijinsky in Nice.

Thus ends the tale of History's most fascinating dancer, perhaps the first male dancer ever to have become a legend on the international stage. Through the decades following his death, with stars such as Nureyev and Baryshnikov taking over the stage, his name was never quite equaled in the face of these posthumous rivals, although their technical prowess was probably almost as great, perhaps even more, in consideration of the fact that Nijinsky was the first of his kind. It is difficult to measure the true extent of his abilities by the footages we have of him dancing, for in comparison with those we have of the above mentioned dancers they are extremely short and low-definition; and in assessing the technical skill of an artist one must always take into consideration the context of the times, remembering that audiences have ever been more impressionable in earlier times due to the fact that true virtuosi were less commonly produced by schools than they are now, in our times when technical excellence is so sought after, and has become necessary for breakthrough in the artistic world. It is very probable that in the eyes of a contemporary audience Nijinsky's skill would merely be considered average, although the originality of his dancing would certainly have astonished and perhaps even puzzled audiences. The short ballet Le Spectre de la Rose, choreographed on Weber's Invitation to the Dance, specifically created by Mikhail Fokine to highlight Nijinsky's unique abilities, is still a challenge to perform for contemporary male dancers, even though splendid interpretations by Nureyev, Baryshnikov, Paris Opera Ballet and Bolshoi dancers among many others, exist today, because of the astonishing energy required to perform the jumps and turns with almost no pause for breath.

There is no point in trying to assess Nijinsky's extraordinary abilities in a contemporary context, or trying to compare him with his successors on the international stage. Accounts of the time show that he was quite unique in more than a virtuosic sense: in fact he was much more than a virtuoso. He was a pioneer of virtuosity, who became a legend before excellence in the art form had even been made a rule for success. He dazzled audiences with his seemingly superhuman agility & energy, and hypnotized onlookers with his leaps & jumps. He was a dedicated artist, with all the sacrifices that this implies, and of which he had his ample share. His life was dysfunctional from beginning to end, and concluded itself tragically, while his daily existence offstage was unremarkable and spent in relative isolation from his peers. But when he stepped on the stage he became a supernatural creature who mesmerized ordinary mortals in the seats with the magic of his leaps, jumps, turns, impersonations; only on the stage did he truly come to life, at the sacrifice of his life offstage - and the stages of all times are still haunted by the ghost of his Faun, his Rose, his Petruschka, his Albrecht, which remind dancers of today of the step between being a star and being a legend.

In Giselle.