Until July 1914, the company continued its wanderings through South America and Europe, and Olga Khokhlova added to her stock of roles, appearing (in addition to the productions mentioned above) in Le Dieu bleu, Carnaval, Daphnis et Chloé, and in the premieres of Khovanshchina, Les Papillons, Le Coq d’or, Le Rossignol, La Légende de Joseph, Midas, Prince Igor, and Nuit de mai. In the summer of 1914, she went home to Russia but left again in November 1915 for Switzerland, where the troupe had taken refuge. This last departure from Russia was decisive both in a personal sense---she would soon become acquainted with Picasso---and in terms of her career, as Massine, now Diaghilev’s leading male dancer and new artistic protégé, was preparing his first choreographic works. He was well aware of Olga’s talent and within a year entrusted her with her most important roles.
In a gala benefit for the Red Cross at the Grand Théâtre de Genève on 20 December 1915, Olga appeared in Soleil de nuit (The Midnight Sun), choreographed by Massine to a score by Rimsky-Korsakov. The collaboration with Mikhail Larionov, the leading exponent of the Russian Neo-primitive movement, in creating the sets and costumes gave birth to a work in which “old Russia appears through the eyes of the people, flamboyant and comic, and a Byzantine motif is peculiarly wedded to the frenzied dances of Russian workers.”16 After a performance in Paris on 29 December, the company embarked on 1 January 1916, aboard the transatlantic liner Lafayette, for a tour of North America, where they performed in sixteen cities in less than four months.17 Olga, while frequently on stage during the tour, was also preparing for her first major role upon her return to Europe, in Massine’s new ballet Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor), the company’s first production with a Spanish theme, with music by Gabriel Fauré. The premiere was presented on 21 August at the Teatro Victoria Eugenia in San Sebastian. As the maids of honor, adorned in imposing crinoline dresses designed by José-Maria Sert, Olga and Lydia Sokolova danced a pavane with Leon Woizikowski and Massine. At the official performance by the company on 28 August in Bilbao, the two dancers were bowed to by the king of Spain.18 In September, the troupe split into two groups: the first left for a new tour in the United States with Nijinsky and the second, made up of some fifteen dancers, including Olga, went to Italy with Diaghilev and Massine, who entrusted to Olga the role of Felicita in his newest work, Les Femmes de bonne humeur (The Good-Humoured Ladies). Based on a plot by Carlo Goldoni, the ballet evoked the atmosphere of Jean-Antoine Watteau’s painting Fêtes vénitiennes and genre works by William Hogarth and Pietro Longhi. In the course of a comic imbroglio, the seven dancers perform solos and mimes to an orchestral setting of music by Domenico Scarlatti. Bakst, who created the decor and costumes, stressed the “touch of burlesque,” the “prodigious variety,” and “boisterous spirit” of the choreography.19 The premiere at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 12 April 1917 was very well received by the Italian public.20
16. Léon Bakst, « Chorégraphie et Décors des Nouveaux Ballets Russes », Program note for Les Ballets Russes à Paris, Théâtre du Châtelet, May 1917: “la vieille Russie apparaît à travers une vision populaire, flamboyante et comique, [et] où la note byzantine se marie étrangement aux danses frénétiques d’ouvriers russes.”
17. Olga added Le Pavillon d’Armide and La Princesse enchantée to her repertoire during this tour, which included appearances in New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington, and Philadelphia.
18. Sokolova, Dancing for Diaghilev…, op. cit., p. 84. See also Yolanda F. Acker, « Los Ballets Russes en España : recepción y guía de sus primeras actuaciones (1916-1918) », in Los Ballets Russes de Diaghilev y España (Yvan Nommick ed.), Granada, Centre Culturel Manuel de Falla, 1989, p. 229-252.
19. Bakst, « Chorégraphie et Décors des Nouveaux Ballets Russes », op. cit.: “note burlesque ,” “prodigieuse variété,” and “ l’entrain endiablé .”
20. See Léonide Massine, My Life in Ballet, London: Macmillan, 1968, pp. 95--98.
Summary