Imperial Dancer: Mathilde Kschessinska and the Romanovs (14 page)

That season Mathilde achieved her long-held ambition to dance
Esmeralda
. The story is based on Victor Hugo’s
Notre Dame de Paris
.
A young gypsy marries the poet Gringoire out of pity then falls in love with Phoebus, a dashing young officer who woos her even though he is betrothed to another. Eventually Phoebus is stabbed and Esmeralda is sentenced to death for a murder she did not commit. Like many of the old Maryinsky ballets the cast included livestock – this time a little goat, Djali, which Mathilde trained herself. Djali became so tame that she lived in Mathilde’s house. When
Esmeralda
was not in the repertoire the goat lived at Strelna.

Esmeralda became arguably Mathilde’s greatest dramatic role. She took great trouble to prepare, receiving only her closest friends until teatime, when she rested and began to get into character. In the jealousy scene, when Esmeralda dances with Phoebus in front of his fiancée, Mathilde was incomparable. It was as if all the hurt and despair she had felt over her lost love were poured out. In fact Mathilde Kschessinska, not Esmeralda, was the heroine of this ballet and no one was allowed to forget it. ‘Petipa’s valuable advice helped me greatly to prepare for this difficult role,’ she said.
²¹
Mathilde allowed no other dancer to perform it before the Revolution.

The competition with Legnani reached its climax in 1900 when Petipa, who realised that his position had been shaken by the departure of Vsevolozsky, created
Les Saisons
. It was performed at the Hermitage Theatre in the Tsar’s Winter Palace on 7 February 1900 in the presence of the Imperial family.

The Hermitage was the Tsar’s private theatre, built by Quarenghi for Catherine the Great in 1785 and approached from the picture gallery by a Venetian bridge over the Winter Canal. The seats in the semi-circular auditorium were upholstered in dark red velvet, statues of Apollo and the Nine Muses graced niches in white walls flanked by pink marble columns. Only members of the Imperial family and the court attended performances there, which were given, sometimes twice weekly, between Epiphany and the first day of Lent. There was no Imperial box, the Tsar sat in an armchair in the front row and the deep, spacious stage projected almost as far as his seat. Only soloists performed, taking the parts of the
corps de ballet
when necessary. Each dancer received a present from the Tsar. Small ballets and short
divertissements
were given, with specially made costumes and scenery. Afterwards supper was served in the magnificent picture gallery of the Hermitage Museum, where in the polished marble halls with huge malachite and lapis lazuli vases the guests sat on white and gold Empire-style chairs at small round tables covered with a white
tablecloth and laid with silver cutlery, crystal glasses and decorated with flowers. Grand Duke Vladimir and other members of the Imperial family were usually present and the artists joined the guests once they had changed.

Les Saisons
featured Kschessinska as the Ear of Corn (Harvest Time), Olga Preobrajenska as the Rose of Summer, the recently graduated Anna Pavlova as Winter’s Frost, and Marie Petipa as a Bacchante. The male dancers included Nicolai Legat, Alexander Gorsky and Pavel Gerdt. Wearing a short gold tunic, Mathilde performed a ‘masterly
variation
and flaunted herself in the
adagio
’, one of Petipa’s masterpieces of choreography. Legnani, on the other hand, appearing in her new ballet at the Maryinsky, wore an old-fashioned long dress copied from a costume of the legendary Marie Camargo, with heeled slippers. One critic called the performance ‘very strange’. The contest for Queen of the Maryinsky was unequal and the critics vied with each other saying how unfavourable Legnani’s performance had been. Petipa had placed his money on the all-powerful Kschessinska, the ideal vehicle for his ‘typically academic, technically demanding
variations
’.
²²

On 10 February Mathilde performed at the Hermitage Theatre again, this time in
Arlequinade
, based on the Italian
Commedia dell’Arte
, in which she danced Columbine. This was again created for her by Petipa but it was not one of her more successful roles. ‘Kschessinska was not Columbine’, wrote Vera Krasovskaya,
²³
and she soon passed the role on.

In 1900 Mathilde Kschessinska celebrated ten years on the Imperial stage. It was normal for an artist to be given a benefit performance either after twenty years’ service or as a farewell performance on retirement. A benefit was a form of bonus, usually granted to higher-ranking dancers and senior teachers, and there was one shared by the
corps de ballet
every December. Seats were allocated according to the size of the donation and usually distributed by a committee of the artist’s admirers. Not only was the recipient loaded with expensive presents but he or she also received a share of the box office takings. For a dancer like Mathilde, who commanded enormous influence and social prestige, the rewards could be great. She decided to ask for a benefit after only ten years. Mathilde offered no justification for this decision, which can be attributed either to greed or to a desire to assert her power in the theatre.

For this favour Mathilde needed special permission from the Tsar. Going over Volkonsky’s head she obtained an audience with Baron Frederiks, Minister of the Imperial Court, who held an important
cabinet post with charge of the entire Imperial household and reported directly to the Tsar.

Taking great care over her choice of clothes and piling on the flattery, Mathilde told him that she owed him her success in performing the thirty-two
fouettés
because, as her head flicked round, she focused on his row of decorations glittering in the footlights from the front row of the stalls. Suitably flattered, Frederiks promised to speak to the Tsar, even though Mathilde’s request was a flagrant breach of the rules. ‘Of course I received it [permission], and again this was agreed by my unforgettable Nicky.’
²⁴

The performance took place on 13 February 1900 because Mathilde considered thirteen to be her lucky number. The two ballets chosen were
Les Saisons
and
Arlequinade
. According to Prince Volkonsky, Mathilde had not originally intended to perform these two ballets. Then she heard that Pierina Legnani had decided to revive an old ballet,
La Bayadère
, for her own benefit night. About two weeks later Mathilde told Prince Volkonsky that she had been looking for a long time for something suitable for her benefit performance and had finally picked
La Bayadère
. ‘I sent for Legnani and told her, quite candidly, how matters stood,’
²⁵
he said. After Legnani had accepted the offer of another ballet it seems that Mathilde changed her mind.

The incorrigible Mathilde even organised the Tsar’s present. This was usually a gold or silver jewel, sometimes studded with precious stones and always with a crown or Imperial Eagle. (Male dancers received a gold watch.) Not wanting something that she would find unattractive to wear, Mathilde asked Sergei to explain this to the Tsar. On her benefit night Mathilde therefore received a huge cabochon sapphire with a diamond-studded serpent coiled around it, which was designed to be worn as a brooch. Sergei told her later that the serpent, the symbol of wisdom, had been chosen by the Emperor and Empress together. This may or may not be true. Nicholas loved symbols and, as one writer has pointed out, it could also have been a snake,
²⁶
which the Empress certainly might have considered more appropriate.

At the end of
Les Saisons
Mathilde magnanimously led forward the young dancer who had received the most applause, and let her take a bow. The girl’s name was Anna Pavlova. Afterwards Mathilde received sixty-three bouquets, which were transported to her house on open carts. All the cards were carefully removed and she was able to identify all the senders except one. Grand Duke Sergei gave a wonderful gift, although she omitted to say what it was, and there were many other
valuable presents. Later a crowd gathered around the stage door to watch Kschessinska leave. As soon as she appeared someone produced a chair on which they carried her triumphantly to a waiting carriage.

The Tsar had attended both performances at the Hermitage, as well as Mathilde’s benefit night. He confined the remarks in his diary to ‘remarkably good’ (10 February) and ‘really very beautiful’ (13 February).
²⁷

A few days later Mathilde gave a dinner party at her house. The guests included several Grand Dukes as well as artists from the Imperial Ballet. The dining-room was too small to accommodate everyone so the table was laid in the hall, which was decorated with flowers and greenery. Mathilde sat in the centre along one side with Grand Duke Cyril opposite. On her right was Grand Duke Boris, and on her left their younger brother Grand Duke Andrei, who she had not previously met. Sergei was at the head of the table, with the ballet artists in between. From the seating plan it seems that Mathilde was setting her cap at the handsome Cyril. He, however, was already in love with his cousin Victoria Melita, wife of the Empress’s brother Grand Duke Ernest Ludwig of Hesse.

Yet that night it was the shy young Grand Duke Andrei who captured Mathilde’s heart. During dinner he awkwardly spilt a glass of red wine over her Paris gown. Far from thinking the ruined dress a disaster, the superstitious Mathilde saw it as a happy omen as she went upstairs to change.

Mathilde had two houses, a casket full of expensive jewels and a Grand Ducal lover. The Tsar had shown that he was willing to bend the rules of the Imperial Theatre every time she asked. Yet it was not enough. Mathilde did not love Sergei as she had once loved Nicholas. She now saw her chance. After dinner there was dancing and, despite the presence of Sergei Michaelovich, Andrei found himself the object of the witty, sophisticated ballerina’s attentions. He soon became captivated.

That evening was to change Mathilde’s life.

Six

M
ÉNAGE À
T
ROIS

G
rand Duke Andrei was twenty to Mathilde’s twenty-seven. ‘Tall, handsome and … fun-loving’, this exceptionally attractive young man was born at Tsarskoe Selo on 14 May 1879, the third of Grand Duke Vladimir’s four surviving children (his sister Elena was born in 1882). As Grand Duke Vladimir was President of the Russian Academy of Arts from 1876, the children had Léon Bakst as a drawing master. Andrei had grown up in the opulent Vladimir Palace and was now studying at the Michaelovsky Artillery School with a view to following the traditional military career.
¹

Mathilde and Andrei began to see more of each other. She resumed writing her diary, which had been abandoned after Nicholas left. Mathilde later recalled experiencing similar sensations to those when she met the Tsarevich so many years before. Life now took on a new meaning as during the spring their feelings gradually turned from friendship to something deeper.

On 7 July Mathilde danced in a gala at Peterhof, receiving a medal studded with turquoises from the Shah of Persia. She then prepared for the summer season at Krasnoe Selo. This would provide another chance to see Andrei.

That year Thomas Nijinsky (whose son Vaslav was studying at the Theatre School) was invited to dance at the Krasnoe Selo theatre. He had been dancing at the Folies-Bergères in Paris, where his partner was none other than Mathilde’s former rival Maria Labunskaya, whose flamboyant dancing made her popular with audiences. In Paris Maria had helped to choose a dress for Thomas’s daughter Bronislava to wear for the entrance examination at the Theatre School. All the school’s teachers, plus the prima ballerinas from the company, presided over these auditions. One of the examiners that season, ironically, was Mathilde Kschessinska.

Maria Labunskaya felt that the invitation to dance before the Tsar at Krasnoe Selo was a great honour, and also a ‘pardon’ after her
banishment in 1892.
²
With Mathilde also present it could only have been interesting.

Mathilde was teased by her friends when Andrei attended rehearsals. The actress Maria Pototzka asked how long she had been attracted to children. He visited the dacha, sometimes only arriving at 1 o’clock in the morning after the manoeuvres. One of the younger dancers said she heard Andrei referred to as ‘hot stuff’.
³

Because of the difference in their ages, not to mention Mathilde’s reputation, there was some hostility within Andrei’s family. The main focus of this opposition was his mother.

Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna (‘Miechen’ to the Imperial family) was a formidable woman. By turns charming, autocratic and majestic she kept her sons firmly under her thumb. By 1900 Nicholas and Alexandra had three daughters, Olga, Tatiana and Maria, but daughters could not succeed to the throne. Only Nicholas’s unmarried brother Michael stood between Miechen’s family and the crown. (Grand Duke George, Nicholas’s companion on the 1890 Far Eastern trip, had died unmarried in 1899.) It was something Miechen never allowed herself to forget. She was determined that her three sons would make good, suitable marriages. These plans certainly did not include her youngest son forming a liaison with the now notorious Mathilde Kschessinska.

Miechen’s court was the magnificent Vladimir Palace on the Dvortsovaya Embankment, just along the River Neva from the Winter Palace. From his study window Grand Duke Vladimir could see the SS Peter and Paul Fortress and the cathedral which served as a burial place for the Romanovs. At the top of the white marble Renaissance staircase there was an opulent suite of state rooms, an exotic Moorish boudoir, three libraries, a winter garden, a gothic dining-room and two large banqueting halls. As befitted a renowned gourmet, the wine cellars were extensive and the palace even had its own Russian
banya
(sauna).