The Rite of
Spring has become a strange sort of phenomenon – a cultural icon for
modernism (and modernity) that persists in defiance of its age. That
a lavish pre-war Parisian ballet spectacle could remain modern in the popular
imagination is partly an exhibit of the often-maligned museum culture of
classical music, but it also is a sign of the music’s incredible staying power;
that a work depicting scenes from the earliest pre-history would be so
associated with modernity is perhaps a fitting irony.
The piece is a relatively early one in Stravinsky’s output,
and combines several of his enthusiasms: a preoccupation with his native
culture (then an expat living in Switzerland), a fauvism in vogue at the time,
and an interest in machines and the mechanical. The scenario
Stravinsky dreamed up (quite literally, in one account) involved ancient pagan
rites culminating in a scene of human sacrifice. Historical detail
from Russian painter and folklore guru Nicolai Roerich (who also designed The Rite’s original sets and
costumes) created a thoroughly researched scenario steeped in the tradition of
pre-Christian Russia, though notably the climactic sacrifice remained
Stravinsky’s invention.
The drama of The
Rite is organized around two acts. In the first, we are treated to a
series of scenes likely co-opted from the summer solstice festival Kupala:
a crone performing auguries for young men, a game of wife-abduction,
competition between rival teams – all of which is interrupted by the entrance
of “The Oldest and Wisest One,” a patriarch who bestows his “kiss upon the earth,”
after which the people begin a wild stomping dance.
The second act begins with maidens performing midnight rituals on a sacred hillock. One of the girls is singled out as “The Chosen One,” and glorified in dance. The elders enter to witness her sacrifice, whereupon the victim dances her final, fatal dance.
The second act begins with maidens performing midnight rituals on a sacred hillock. One of the girls is singled out as “The Chosen One,” and glorified in dance. The elders enter to witness her sacrifice, whereupon the victim dances her final, fatal dance.
The premiere was a riotous affair, complete with
undercurrents of class warfare, the hubbub at times completely drowning out the
music. “Things got as far as fighting,” Stravinsky dryly
recounted. An opening night disaster soon became central to its
fame, as the succés de
scandale par excellence. It inspired copycat spectacles,
notably Bartok’s The Miraculous
Mandarin (promptly banned after its premiere), and Jean
Cocteau’s Parades, a ballet
presenting the street entertainment outside the hall as the main
attraction. For the latter, the centrality of scandal is attested to
by Cocteau’s unwillingness to leave such things to chance – the obligatory
opening night riot he instigated with hired help.
While much of the scandal to which The Rite owed its initial success benefited from Diaghilev's
cynical promotion and Nijinsky's shocking choreography, Stravinsky's musical
score is no less impressive in this regard. Not only Stravinsky's penchant
for dissonant harmonies and violent, jagged rhythms, extreme even in an era of
shocking and dissonant scores, but also in thematic and structural elements: Formal
ideas based on non sequitur and absence of transition, anticipating the short
attention span of mass media culture. A new
kind of theatre – rather than depict a pagan ritual, the ballet became ritual – separating lines
between reality and fiction. And
disturbingly, the application of the highest technical sophistication in
service of violence and savagery.
And violence, if anything, is the unifying theme here. Violence against the eyes, with a
choreography deliberately designed to subvert norms of beauty in dance. Against the ears, not only the harsh
dissonance, but in ordinary harmonies contextualized to seem dissonant (the opening
duet a prime example). Violence against
even the poor bassoonist, who must open the piece in an exposed solo at the very
top of the instrument’s range. Then
there is the physical violence of the scenario, made all the worse for the
scenario itself being an act of violence perpetrated on the traditions on which
it is based, barbarizing them with an imposed and utterly ahistorical scene of
human sacrifice. It is almost too
perfect that the first performance should itself be met with violence, the
pandemonium in the theater a perfect reflection of the mayhem on stage.