Ο Ρώσος κριτικός Τέχνης Sergei Diaghilev έχει σήμερα την τιμητική του, αφού η Google του αφιερώνει το σημερινό της doodle, με αφορμή τα 145 χρόνια από τη γέννησή του.
Sergei Diaghilev was a gay impresario. First aspiring to be a composer (it
seems that he was terrible) and then a painter (he had neither vision nor
aptitude), he finally found his true calling and became an impresario in 1895.
In 1909, despite a complete lack of dance training, he created the Ballets
Russes, which took Europe by storm in the 1910s. Gay French poet and playwright
Jean Cocteau had his first theatrical employment with the Ballets Russes,
working with gay French composer Erik Satie on the 1917 ballet Parade.
In Russia he is also known as the mastermind behind the World of Art - a
group of artists, a series of regular exhibits, and a journal. Diaghilev
organized and promoted the World of Art group during his liaison with his
cousin, the painter Dmitry (Dima) Filosofov, who was his first lover. Their
relation lasted from 1890 to 1905.
Filosofov eventually left Diaghilev, and the latter's meeting with the
dancer Vaslav Nijinsky then 19 years old, sealed both men's fates. In their
five year love relation, Diaghilev placed Nijinsky at the center of such
masterpieces as Stravinsky's Petrushka and Rite of Spring,
Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun, and Ravel's Daphnis and Cloe.
Their relationship lasted to 1912.
Diaghilev's third lover - as well as choreographer and principal dancer -
was Leonide Massine. Their relation lasted from 1914 to1921. Although Diaghilev
lost all three of these lovers to women, he kept on trying. In his 50s, he had
relationships with several young men - all dancers or in the arts; among them
were gay British dancer Anton Dolin and gay Russian dancer Sergei Lifar
(1905-?). A biography of Diaghilev by Douglas Turnbaugh is forthcoming.
Sergei Diaghilev was a crucial figure in the istory of
the arts i the 20th century, a dinamic and dominant personality. Appointed
assistant to the princely director of the Imperial Theatre, he was opposed in
his aims for it by the conservative old guard. Czar Nicholas II was rather
sympathetic, but he was a weak man; support failed and Diaghilev went abroad.
It is hardly impossible to do justice to all that he
accomplished, and difficult to define in essence, for it touched the arts at so
many points, while his genius was very individual. In one vay a great improvvisatore, in another he was a masterful entrepreneur; he was a
marvellous talent-spotter, who gave himself to the task of educatingwhat he had
discovered.
Even here what he did was more subtle; ordinary people
thought that he was imposing himself on his creations - Nijinsky, Massine,
Lifar - but not so: he imposed upon them the task of realizing themselves, of fulfilling their own gifts.
Even in his love-life there was this paradox, He was
in love successfully with each of these creations of his; but he was in love
with them for the purpose of their art.
He was both ruthless and tender-hearted, but the ruthlessness was that of the
artist: when each had achieved his fulfillment in art, and had nothing to
offer, Diaghilev passed on to the next who had. This led to some heartaches
and- in the case of Nijinsky - tragedy.
Love affairs between men were familiar enough in
aristocratic circles in Russia, without the complexes aroused in Western
society. At ninetten Diagilev began his long fifteen-year relationship vith
Filosofov, both of them distinguished, tall, handsome.It was from him, the
feminine partner, that Diaghilev gained his introduction to the arts. The
partnership broke down over a student in whom both were interested.
Vaslav Nijinsky was aleady considered a phenomenon at
the Imperial Ballet school before he was taken up by Diaghilev, who fell in
love with the marvellous dancer, but this was a necessary condition of all the
work he was prepared to put into him. Nijinsky was backward and ineducated; he
was naturally responsive to music, but he knew nothing aboutpictures, visual
art, scenic effects.
Diaghilev lived with him, took him everywhere, to
picture galleries, museums, saw to his reading, his diet and well-being. In the
course of it he possessed him, and walled him off the world; but Nijinsky
needed to be possessed.
Of this relationship it has been said, "their
union could produce no children, but it would give birth to marterpieces - and
change the history of the dance, of music, and of painting throughout the
world". After all, anyone can produce children - all too easily come by;
animals have no difficulty in proliferating.
On a journey without Diaghilev to dance in South
America, he was captured by a woman in love with him and who married him.
Though he carried on for some years, he could not carry the burden of dancing
and choreography without diaghilev. He never danced again after the age of
twenty-nine; he lived to be older than Diaghilev, but spent the last thirty
years of his life in an asylum.
Diaghilev was already in love with Massine before he
lost Nijinsky - one thing does not exclude another - but his relationship with
Massine was essentially with the choreographer. Massine had a mind of his own
and new ideas to offer; this meant happier times for Diaghilev with him, but it
also meant more active conflict. The relationship lasted for seven years. Then
Massine married and was at once dismissed from the company. He too tried to
come back, after failing on his own: he was not accepted.
Serge Lifar, in his reminiscences, tells what it was
like to be loved by Diaghilev. Lifar had a fixation on Diaghilev and hoped to
attract his attention. Lifar worked out of hours to improve his dancing, buth
when Diaghilev spoke to him he was petrified. He was already in love with the
master. Slim and beautiful, an easy temperament, Lifar was taken up and made
the favourite he had always hoped to be.
A. L. Rowse: Homosexuals in history
