The audience, horrified, seemed to be struck dumb, strangely fascinated… Vaslav was like one of those irresistible and untamable creatures, like a tiger escaped from the jungle, capable of destroying us in an instant.
Romola Nijinsky, Nijinsky, English translation by Samuel Young.
On the evening of 19 May 1909, the Théâtre du Châtelet was filled to capacity. Parisians flocked to the first public performance of the “Russian Season” in Paris. The theatre’s administrator, Gabriel Astruc, had invited the Ballets Russes company of Sergei Diaghilev. The curtain rose on Le Pavillon d’Armide, a one-act choreographic drama by Alexandre Benois, choreographed by Michael Fokine, with music composed by Nikolai Tcherepnin. And nothing went as planned: barely twenty years old, Vaslav Nijinsky seemed to be the new Auguste Vestris when, instead of returning to the wings, he executed one of the fabulous leaps that only he could execute. Nijinsky instantly became a star, sparking the curiosity of the audience. This boundless admiration would be short-lived, as his career was meteoric. But a star was born. Ten years later, the “god of dance” was living a reclusive life, in the company of his wife, Romola, in the Villa Guardamunt in Saint-Moritz, Switzerland: he needed rest. It was during the winter of 1918–1919 that Vaslav Nijinsky began writing what is now known as The Diary of Nijinsky: four notebooks conceived and thought of as “a great book on feeling.” In this moving autobiographical account, the author battles between meaning and intellect.
Olivier Py has seized upon this literary work to adapt and stage, in a short form in the Grand Foyer, La Bal(l)ade de Nijinski: a play performed by Bertrand de Roffignac, with piano accompaniment by Guilhem Fabre.
