Imperial Dancer: Mathilde Kschessinska and the Romanovs (24 page)

At the end of the season in mid-June Mathilde and Andrei left for Ostend, where a photographer snapped them in bathing costumes paddling in the sea with Vova and Mathilde tried out a bathing machine. For Vova’s sixth birthday the hotel provided a cake.

Mathilde returned to Russia in time to dance with Nijinsky at Krasnoe Selo. She was very keen to dance with him again, recalled Nijinsky’s sister, and was especially friendly. Rehearsals were supervised by Claudia Kulichevskaya but usually it was Mathilde who dictated the programme. During rehearsals it was customary for the Grand Dukes to ensure there were plenty of refreshments on hand for the artists. Afterwards the dancers went boating on the lake or drove into the nearby countryside. Mathilde occasionally joined Vaslav and Bronislava for lunch in the restaurant opposite the theatre and at 5 o’clock invited some of the artists to a light meal, sharing a table with Boris, Sergei and Andrei before hurrying back for the evening’s performance. Nijinsky was especially fond of Andrei’s little fox terrier Apelsin. Later Mathilde was joined for supper by Valerian Svetlov and Sergei’s cousin Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich (‘Nicholasha’), a career soldier. While the special train waited to take them all back to St Petersburg these lively suppers often went on for several hours.

By now Mathilde was so impressed by Nijinsky’s dancing that she decided to have him as her partner whenever possible and in gratitude he presented her with a Fabergé icon. As a result Legat’s jealousy increased, but Mathilde took him to Warsaw at the beginning of 1909 to dance
La Fille mal Gardée
.

Nicolai Legat was appointed Second Ballet Master at the end of 1905 and took over Johansson’s ‘class of perfection’. Class began at 10.30 in the morning, as Legat recalled many years later:

There in the front row, is the inimitable Mathilde Kschessinska, not only my pupil but also my close friend. Unequalled grace and brilliance were outstanding features of her dancing. How many glorious
pas-de-deux
we did together on the Maryinsky stage, and how we took the Paris Grand Opéra by storm! And how delighted she was when, first of our Russian ballerinas, she did the famous thirty-two
fouettés
!

To Legat she was always Mala; she called him Kolinka.
³⁷

Diaghilev was planning a return to Paris in the spring of 1909. This time he intended to bring the Imperial Ballet as well.

Through the intercession of Grand Duke Vladimir, Diaghilev had obtained a subsidy of 100,000 roubles from the Tsar, the loan of costumes and sets from the Maryinsky and the use of the Hermitage Theatre for rehearsals. Casting was already under way.

Kschessinska’s fame in Russia and, above all, her influence at Court, persuaded Diaghilev that she had to be included, even though he associated her with the old order. Here he ran up against opposition from the choreographer, Fokine, who considered Mathilde’s dancing old-fashioned and quite unsuitable for his new modern ballets. He reluctantly agreed to allow her to dance
Le Pavillon d’Armide
, the ballet she had pulled out of previously. Mathilde was angry when she learnt that Armida was to be her only role. ‘A stormy interview took place, in which not only arguments, but missiles too were exchanged.’
³⁸
When Mathilde did not get her own way she refused to take part. She may have considered it beneath her to dance Fokine’s new ballets or to associate herself in any way with Diaghilev. A few days later Diaghilev learnt that the Tsar had cancelled the promised subsidy.

Mathilde recalled events differently. She said that Diaghilev needed her help to obtain the patronage of Grand Duke Vladimir (who had been Chairman of Diaghilev’s Patronage Committee since 1906 and had already supported his previous season) and he also needed her support to acquire a State subsidy of 25,000 roubles. In spite of her efforts Grand Duke Vladimir did not reply. (Yet Vladimir had already obtained the promise of the 100,000 rouble subsidy.) At this point she decided not to
participate in the season. ‘I could not intercede on behalf of a project in which I was no longer taking part,’ she wrote. ‘I therefore asked that my requests for a subsidy should not be followed up.’
³⁹

In the middle of all this, on 4 February 1909, Grand Duke Vladimir died suddenly. This was a real blow to Mathilde. Not only was he Andrei’s father, but his death robbed her of a much-loved friend and a powerful voice in the Imperial family. It also left her at the mercy of Vladimir’s widow, the formidable Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna (Miechen), who disapproved of her son’s relations with Mathilde. She had also disapproved of her friendship with Vladimir. One writer went as far as to say that Miechen knew of her husband’s intimate relations with the ballerina and convulsed as if in pain when she saw Mathilde wearing a beautifully tailored black mourning dress. The Grand Duchess ‘courteously returned’ a bundle of letters from Mathilde discovered in her husband’s writing desk.
⁴⁰

Meanwhile, Mathilde’s battle with Diaghilev continued. Some officials and members of the company thought that the great Petipa ballets should be shown in Paris. Others disagreed. Word then reached Mathilde that Grand Duke Boris planned to intercede with the Tsar on behalf of Diaghilev in an attempt to regain the use of the Hermitage Theatre for rehearsals and the promised sets and costumes from the Maryinsky. She persuaded Andrei to write to Nicholas. ‘We very much hope that you will not take the bait,’ Andrei wrote on 18 March. ‘It would only be conniving at a most unsavoury business which sullies the memory of dear Father.’
⁴¹

The permission was withheld. It is possible that Andrei was motivated by jealousy, either of Diaghilev’s influence with his late father or his former friendship with Mathilde, or that he just disliked the modern decadent ballets Diaghilev wanted to show in Paris. Grand Duke Sergei (now Diaghilev’s enemy) spitefully hoped that the Emperor ‘would send the ballet company of the Imperial Theatre to Paris with Kschessinska at the head’,
⁴²
thus ruining Diaghilev’s plans.

Against what seemed like insurmountable odds Diaghilev secured guarantors on a reduced budget, with the French impresario Gabriel Astruc again handling the administrative side. With Pavlova’s 1908 tour of Europe sponsored by the Imperial Theatres management (and travelling as the Imperial Ballet from the Maryinsky Theatre), Mathilde decided to accept the ‘invitation’ to appear for another season at the Paris Opéra.

Diaghilev’s company opened at the Châtelet Theatre on 19 May. Among the dancers was Joseph Kschessinsky. Since 1905 he had been
chairman of the Hunting Society The Northerner, and was in charge of the Tsar’s hunting lodges. In 1909 he joined Diaghilev in Paris, where he danced
Le Festin
, a suite of national dances which he had partly choreographed. Performing the mazurka with him was Celina Sprechinska, who had graduated from the Imperial Theatre School and on 10 June 1906 became Joseph’s second wife. Sima (by now divorced from Constantine Greaves) was also with Diaghilev’s company.
⁴³

This time Mathilde’s arrival had been announced well in advance. On 5 June she and Legat danced
Coppelia
but Mathilde soon realised that with Diaghilev’s company performing at the Châtelet she needed a big success. She therefore used her considerable charm and secured the Directors’ permission to insert her
variation
from
Pharaoh’s Daughter
into the ballet. When the theatre echoed with the almost unprecedented cries for an encore Mathilde was triumphant.

She stayed on in Paris. On 26 June there was to be a charity gala in aid of earthquake victims. Pavlova would be dancing and Mathilde did not intend to leave her a clear field. Mathilde therefore announced that she was postponing her departure in order to dance in the gala. She had hoped to be partnered by Nijinsky (as, indeed, had Pavlova) but a fight was avoided when he contracted typhoid. Kschessinska summoned Legat, while Pavlova announced she would dance with Michael Mordkin.

In
La Vie Parisienne
a gossip columnist teased Kschessinska for delaying her departure. The article, apparently inspired by one of Diaghilev’s friends, made fun of Mathilde’s well-known influence at the Russian court, as well as the fact that it had been announced in all the newspapers that her departure was ‘postponed’, as if she had been taking part in the Russian season at the Châtelet Theatre. ‘The truth is she came to Paris just to see the end of it – at her own expense,’ the article alleged. ‘It is fatal not to be in time!’
⁴⁴

The gala opened with the farandole from Bizet’s
L’Arlésienne
, which Mathilde danced with the Opéra
corps de ballet
. As a member, albeit temporary, of the Opéra company, Mathilde insisted on her right to dance her
pas-de-deux
with Legat last on the programme. Someone then claimed that Pavlova and Mordkin were not ready, so Mathilde and Legat were asked to appear first so that the performance could continue smoothly. Mathilde refused, saying this would be wrong, but noticed that Pavlova and Mordkin were ready when they came on stage soon afterwards. She blamed the intrigue on Victor Dandré (Pavlova’s manager and current ‘protector’) and General Nicholas Bezobrazov,
Privy Councillor, connoisseur of ballet and critic for the
St Petersburg Gazette
. ‘These two men had been behind a great deal of the trouble I suffered in St Petersburg,’ claimed Mathilde.
⁴⁵

Once again Mathilde did not overlook the Paris social scene. She hired a small car with a young chauffeur and drove out to the Boulogne Woods, had her photograph taken by the Bagatelle, a picturesque old folly in the Bois de Boulogne, and lunched frequently with Mme Juliette Adam at l’Abbaye de Gif. Among the prominent artistic and literary figures Mathilde met were Sarah Bernhardt and Eleanora Duse.

Mathilde’s success was moderate compared with that of Diaghilev’s company at the Châtelet. Paris had never seen anything like it. The exotic costumes and stage sets by Léon Bakst and Alexandre Benois, not to mention the prowess of Nijinsky, left the audiences spellbound. When Nijinsky and Karsavina danced
L’Oiseau de feu
on the first night the audience leapt to its feet in appreciation. (This was not
The Firebird
we know today, but Petipa’s ‘Blue Bird’
pas-de-deux
from
The Sleeping Beauty
, with exotic costumes.) Karsavina said that the piece had been intended for Mathilde. True or not, the success must have been irritating for Kschessinska.

Astruc now sought to become the sole presenter of the Russian Ballet in the west. He approached his connections in St Petersburg to sound them out and ascertain the position. Mathilde’s relations with Diaghilev were naturally somewhat strained. On 2 August 1909 Astruc asked ‘when she would be free to review the events of the previous season’. He added, ‘I have learned that Monsieur Diaghilev has just negotiated a season at the Paris Opéra for the coming year. Are you aware of this and does it interest you?’
⁴⁶

Mathilde lost this battle with Fokine and Diaghilev. Although
Le Figaro
optimistically reported that in 1910 Kschessinska would ‘come … with the approval of the Imperial Court and accompanied by all her colleagues, the two hundred
danseuses
of the Maryinsky Theatre’,
⁴⁷
the visit did not materialise. Mathilde could not secure Nijinsky as a partner and her ego was consequently wounded. As early as June 1909 one of the Opéra officials stated privately: ‘There will be no
official
Russian season next year in Paris. This is at the
express
wish of the Russian Court and the Grand Dukes.’
⁴⁸

Nine

‘T
HE
B
LACK-EYED
S
HE
-D
EVIL OF THE
B
ALLET
’

A
lthough Mathilde still kept Sergei dangling on a string, it was ‘Andrei the Gigolo, the lover of my brother’s mistress’
¹
, as Grand Duke Nicholas Michaelovich called him, who accompanied her to Paris. He had his own room at Strelna and when Mathilde went away it was noticeable that she was always accompanied by Andrei, never by Sergei. Andrei showered her with presents. One Easter, for example, Mathilde received a straw egg containing a number of small parcels. Some were simple trinkets, others were wonderful things from Fabergé, including a pair of diamond shoe buckles.

It has generally been assumed that Sergei accepted this
ménage à trois
, happily vacating the bedroom for Andrei and paying Mathilde’s bills when called upon. This may not always have been the case.

In 1908 Countess Barbara Vorontzov-Dashkov gave birth to a son, Alexander, in Switzerland. However, the baby’s father was not her husband Count Ivan Vorontzov-Dashkov (son of the former Minister of the Court), by whom she had three children. He had died in 1898. The father of Alexander seems to have been Grand Duke Sergei Michaelovich. Little Alexander was adopted by Sophia von Dehn, whose grandmother was a daughter of Tsar Nicholas I. Sophia brought up Alexander in Italy, where her husband Dimitri was naval attaché from 1906 to 1911. Alexander married twice and died in America in 1979.
²