“We Need Him”

“Diaghilev”
Dancers of the Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Theatre (New Stage)
Moscow, Russia
June 24, 2025 (video)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

The man in need whom Sergei Lifar wrote about in 1939 was Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), impresario of the Ballets Russes and a revolutionist of ballet. Diaghilev’s burning passion to discover and promote creative beauty is unequaled. He shaped the perception of Russian culture in the West and, like a virus, changed the DNA of twentieth-century art. Without him, Vaslav Nijinsky, Tamara Karsavina, Ida Rubinstein, Feodor Chaliapin, and Igor Stravinsky wouldn’t have become known to the world, and the careers of choreographers, such as Michel Fokine, Bronislava Nijinska, Léonide Massine, and George Balanchine, might have taken another path. Ten years after Diaghilev’s death, no one had filled the void he had left behind.

Ninety-six years later, a new Diaghilev has yet to be found, but—as Russia and the West separated again—the need for a bridge-building spirit and culture that unites people across borders is more pressing than ever. That’s why Russia launched the cultural search festival We Need Diaghilev last year, which features various expositions, lectures, and performances at Russian and foreign venues.
As part of the festival, the ballet Diaghilev premiered on June 24th at the Bolshoi Theatre’s new stage. It was initiated and produced by the Bolshoi’s principal, Denis Rodkin, who also danced the title role. Top-tier dancers of the Bolshoi joined him on stage. Alessandro Kaggedzhi, an Englishman with Italian roots who graduated from the Moscow State Academy of Arts in 2015, worked for several years as a dancer in Kazan and is now a soloist for the Ural Opera Ballet in Yekaterinburg was in charge of the choreography. Sergei Glazkov served as director. The production is not—or not yet—part of the Bolshoi’s repertory and was scheduled for only two performances.
I was able to watch a video of the dress rehearsal.

Diaghilev isn’t a biographical ballet, but reveals the impresario’s personality as he directs the creation of Daphnis et Chloé for the Ballets Russes season in 1912. Ekaterina Antonova wrote the two-act libretto; the score combines music by Ravel and Debussy, which the Bolshoi Orchestra played under the baton of Pavel Sorokin.

When exactly the idea for Daphnis et Chloé was born is disputed, but it must have been latent in Diaghilev, who was lying on the floor of a foggy, dark rehearsal room (set design by Igor Chapurin). A gently pulsating spotlight seemed to shower him with inspiration from above (lighting by Konstantin Binkin). Yet the music that accompanied him sounded brooding like a murky-water version of Debussy’s La Mer. Diaghilev seemed unaware of the gypsy woman (Anastasia Meskova) standing next to him and whose outstretched arm made his chest magically rise. Did he obey her guidance involuntarily, reacting to or copying her movements? Or was she the midwife of a germinating stage project?
For a moment, inspiration struck Diaghilev. His arms reached out as if trying to catch fleeting thoughts, but then he stood brooding again. The new idea eluded him as if carried away by dark currents. Again, the gypsy woman intervened, this time more forcefully. Diaghilev stumbled as if pummeled by her energy, briefly fought back, but then circled her like a longeing horse. Her prophecy (or rather curse) of his death by water floored him. (The idea of going on a boat upset Diaghilev because a Parisian fortuneteller told him that if he made another sea voyage, he would drown.). Resolved to push forward, he headed to a rehearsal, swarmed by a bunch of top-hatted men who looked like facets of himself.

One after the other, the artists appeared at the studio. Grace incarnate, Tamara Karsavina (Eleonora Sevenard), was courteously received. The nimble feet of Michel Fokine (Semyon Chudin), who wore a light-yellow jacket, a shirt of the same color, and waist-high black pants, didn’t stop to whizz across the floor. Vaslav Nijinsky (Dmitry Smilevsky) was pulled out from a trunk by the top-hatted men like a Petrushka puppet, his limp body bent forward, his arms dangling. Poses of the faun mingled with his soft and elegant jumps. Léon Bakst (Denis Savin) and Maurice Ravel (Vyacheslav Lopatin) immediately found common ground, working hand in glove. All gathered around Diaghilev, whose walking cane circled above their bent backs like a radar scanning possibilities for realizing his vision.
Work continued when the troupe hit Paris. Fokine, Bakst, and Ravel were each busy, their idiosyncrasies sometimes reminiscent of the caricatures of the Legat brothers. Bakst, sporting a Basque beret, was too immersed in designing a black and white Rorschach-like backdrop to notice the surrounding paparazzi. Ravel, also ignorant of the media hype, rhythmized the bars of his composition, while Fokine’s crisp fouettés brought the photographers to their knees. A sense of speechlessness spread given the jumps and turns of Karsavina and Nijinsky. Suddenly, Paris looked gray in comparison.

But behind the scenes, trouble was brewing. Fokine and Nijinsky quarreled as Nijinsky was absorbed by his own choreography for L’après-midi d’un faune, Karsavina tried to calm the romantic aspirations of Fokine without risking their creative union, and Nijinsky delivered the straw to break the camel’s back when he refused Bakst’s costume for Daphnis. Neither Karsavina nor Fokine could prevent Diaghilev from intervening harshly. The cockfight-like quarrel between Fokine and Diaghilev seemed to forebode Fokine’s breakup with the company. Diaghilev hovered above the crouching Nijinsky like an avenging angel, walked around him in threatening silence, then stomped off noisily.
Nijinsky was broken, his steps uncertain, the jumps frenzied, and his yearning arms stretched out in vain. The multiple hands that groped him from behind a mirror (among them maybe Diaghilev’s) seemed to symbolize his lack of freedom. Suddenly, the studio looked like a prison. A white scarf forgotten by Karsavina eventually calmed Nijinsky. He fell asleep but was rudely woken by the bang of Diaghilev’s cane on the floor. Diaghilev’s feeling of omnipotence seemed unrewarding though. Alone, he looked edgy and frenzied like a narcissist fixed on forcing will. Only the reappearance of the gypsy woman slowed him down.
Pushed by the throbbing percussion of Ravel’s Boléro, the works of Fokine, Ravel, and Bakst for Daphnis et Chloé merged at the last minute. The corps performed like clockwork at the premiere, but when Chloé (Karsavina) and Daphnis (Nijinsky) entered—and Nijinsky, after all, wearing Bakst’s initial costume—Diaghilev couldn’t help but join them on stage. Arms folded, he slowly walked between them as if to cut their loving gazes. Was there a whiff of jealousy? Or was he simply obsessed with giving their pas de deux final touches?
In any case, Daphnis et Chloé was a success, and Diaghilev was the center of adulation. But once the curtain was down, he was alone again and driven by only one ambition: to get hold of another creative idea. His gaze was stern, his jumps were rushed, and the battery was low. Maybe the top-hatted men who appeared out of the darkness dressed him for taking up another project. Or maybe he was on his final path.

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