Australia Dancing - Scuola di ballo

Scuola di ballo

Barba, Raoul: Scene from 'Scuola di ballo', Ballets Russes, 1930s

In creating Scuola di ballo (The school of dance) for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in 1933, Leonide Massine drew, as he had sixteen years earlier in creating Les Femmes de bonne humeur for the Diaghilev company, on the work of the eighteenth century Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni. Scuola di ballo depicted the underhand attempts by Rigadon, the professor of a dance school, to trick the impresario Fabrizio into sponsoring the school's worst student – the beautiful but untalented Felicita. The single act ballet premiered in Monte Carlo on April 25, 1933, with music by Luigi Boccherini, orchestrated by Jean Francaix, and scenery and costumes by Count Etienne de Beaumont.

Scuola di ballo contributed to that distinctive stream of Massine's choreography that drew on the commedia dell'arte tradition, and featured Massine's masterly depiction of characterisation through movement and gesture. This choreographic style also, as pointed out by Vicente Garcia-Marquez, drew on eighteenth century Italian opera - with 'dramatic conflict carried out by expressive gesture (corresponding to the recitatives), while the dance numbers (corresponding to arias) expressed the emotional result'. Massine's demand on the dancers to imbue their roles with individual gestural expression resulted in a trademark air of spontaneity. The comedy of Felicita's clumsy dancing was offset by the virtuosity of the best students, and divertissements such as romantic duets added a layer of emotional depth to the farce. Classroom ballets are renowned for their appeal, and the work was immediately popular - although perhaps overshadowed by Massine's most renowned crowd pleaser in this style - Le Beau Danube.

The Australian premiere of Scuola di Ballo took place on November 21, 1936 in Melbourne during the Monte Carlo Russian Ballet tour. On opening night, Leon Woizikowsky performed as Rigadon, as he had for the original 1933 performance. Helene Kirsova danced as Rosine (the talented new comer), Nina Raievska as Felicita (the bad pupil), and Marija Korjinska as Josephine (the star pupil). The work was performed by all three Ballets Russes companies touring Australia between 1936 and 1940. In performances by the Covent Garden Russian Ballet in 1938-1939, Tatiana Riabouchinska and Edouard Borovansky performed in the roles originally created on them, with Riabouchinska as Rosine and Borovansky as Fabrizio.

Bibliography:

Vicente Garcia-Marquez, The Ballets Russes: Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo 1932-1952 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990);

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