Nijinsky's Regrets Of Mistakes Never Forgiven

 

Photo credit : Vaslav Nijinsky in his practice clothes, at the Krasnoe Selo Theatre from Bronislava Nijinska Memoirs

During 1904-1905 Bronislava Nijinska and Vaslav Nijinsky were starting their fifth and seventh year at the Imperial Theatrical School. This year was very different because many resignations came about of the school's most loved and distinguished teachers. Bronislava describes this event in her own words and how it affected both her and her brother.

"I was starting my fifth year in the Imperial Theatrical School. For the last three I had studied dance with Mikhail Mikhailovitch Fokine. I had been one of his first pupils in 1901 after Fokine, then only twenty-one years old, had accepted a teaching position in the School. I had loved Fokine's classes and was sorry that I was no longer going to be studying with him. I was assigned to the advanced class taught by Klavdia Mikhailovna Kulichevskaya. I had already had some lessons with her. In 1901 Kulichevskaya had replaced Enrico Cecchetti as Head Teacher in the Girls' Dance Division. She was then forty years old and an excellent teacher who upheld the tradition of classical dance established by Johannson and Petipa. She was very strict with her students and paid attention to the minutest detail. I realized that under Kulichevskaya I would concentrate on developing  the necessary discipline to perfect my dance technique, and I looked forward to studying with her."

"Vaslav was starting his seventh year in the Imperial Theatrical School. Because he had repeated two school years he had only this year completed, at the same time that I had,  the program of General Studies in the Lower Division, and we were  both promoted to the Upper Division, Class III. But Vaslav had already been studying for two years in the advanced ballet class. In 1902, while still a student in the Lower Division, he had, because of his perfect grades in dancing, been promoted to the advanced ballet class of Nikolai Legat, taught that year by his brother Sergei Legat. For the next year he has been assigned to the class taught by Mikhail Konstantinovitch Oboukhov, with whom he was to continue studying this year."

"Vaslav was very happy that now, at last, having been admitted to the Upper Division, he was entitled to the same privileges enjoyed by other students in the advanced dance division. On the first day back after the vacation we had to be weighed and measured and have complete medical checkup. My height and weight had not changed since the last checkup, six months before, which meant that for both my age and my height I was underweight. The School doctor examined me from head to toe and told me I was too thin."

 

"You will have an egg for breakfast and a glass of milk at lunch and eat all that is on your plate." I said that I could never eat all the food served to me at dinner, and so the doctor told me to go to the infirmary just before the evening meal and each day the nurse would give me a small glass of wine to stimulate the appetite. The wine was sweet and tasted like Marsala."

"Vaslav, since his last checkup in the School, had grown taller, his muscles had grown stronger, and he had gained eight pounds, He was looking forward to the time when he could study in the mime and adage class under the guidance of Pavel Gerdt. For more than forty years Gerdt had been dancing on stages of Imperial Theatres as a premier danseur, partnering all the great ballerinas, as well as teaching the classe d'adage to the advanced graduating students. "

 

"In September, when we returned to the School, Vaslav was disappointed to learn that Pavel Gerdt had retired from the Imperial Theatrical School. There were other changes that were disturbing to both the students of the School and the Imperial Ballet Artists. Many of us were shocked to learn  Shiraev had been asked to resign by the Director, Telyakovsky. There had been tension between Telyakovsky and Shiraev ever since Petipa had resigned and left the Imperial Theatres. Shiraev had been Petipa's assistant and ballet master and had participated in the mounting and rehearsing of all the Petipa's ballets. He knew them well, Telyakovsky kept asking Shiraev to remount and choreograph new dances for Petipa's ballets, but Shiraev repeatedly refused. Besides, he was dancer and not a choreographer. He went abroad to dance, in Berlin and London, returning from time to time to dance in private performances. Later he returned to teach in the Imperial Theatrical School, but only to the drama students and not in the Ballet Division."

"Later that year Alfred Feodorovitch Bekefi also resigned. Bekefi, like Shiraev, was an outstanding character dancer and teacher. Together they had developed exercises for a character- dance class later adopted by the Theatrical School. In a short time, a period of three years, the Imperial Theatrical School had lost many of its great teachers--- Cecchetti, Johannson, Ivanov, Petipa and now with the retirement of Pavel Gerdt and the resignation of Shiraev, and later Bekefi, there was an unsettled, anxious atmosphere among both the Artists and the students." - Quote from Bronislava Nijinska of Teachers resignations.

I feel you can tell this was a very stressful time for the students and the Imperial Theatre Artists themselves, not just by being disappointed in losing great teachers to learn from but also influential choreographers that the ballets depended on. You can also feel Nijinsky's excitement for his new year and being taught by a teacher that he was so excited to learn from, but this turns into disappointment for him when he learns that teacher he was excited about learning from resigned. 

Bronislava Nijinska discusses how her brother separated himself from the boys that got him blamed for all the mischief they got into and almost cost Nijinsky his life. She discussed how her brother was improving himself in her own words, but he was still ridiculed for his past mistakes and regrets. 

"Now that Vaslav was in the Upper Division he began to study well. The classes were smaller than in the Lower Division, five to eight students and we had different teachers for each subject, whether French, Geography, History, Literature, Mathematics, of Science. Our teachers all had University degrees and were specialists in their subjects. Our art classes were taught by fine artists from the Academy of Art, and our music classes by musicians from the Conservatory. There was also a marked change in Vaslav's behavior. He broke with his former friends Babitch, Bourman and Rosai and made a new friend, Leonid Gontcharov."

"Leonid, or Leni, came from a family of artists. His sister was a ballet artist with the Imperial Ballet, as was his brother, Pavel, who had just graduated from the Imperial Theatrical School. Now that Pavel was living at home, Leni saw his brother only rarely and missed him very much. The friendship between Leni and Vaslav was to last until they both graduated. Leni was a serious student of music and dreamed of entering the Conservatory after graduating. His interests in music and his serious application to his piano were a good influence on Vaslav's studies."

"In spite of Vaslav's improved grades for both conduct and studies, it did seem to him at first the tutors and inspectors were unduly strict with him, but after a few months that attitude seemed to change and improve. Vaslav told me of one incident, but really to please me with a compliment more than anything else."

 

"He was sitting one day at the piano practicing  fingering and speed exercises when the new inspector, Missovsky, approached  and remarked,

          "Nijinsky you should take an example from your sister Bronislava Fominitchna is two years younger than you are and is in the same class as you, and she studies magnificently. Instead of playing your arpeggios you would do better to get out your books and study!"

"I was very annoyed ." Vaslav commented to me, "and I answered sharply, telling him I was sitting at the piano studying the music, and that I was preparing myself to be an artist and had to study music no less that any other subjects..." 

"Vaslav knew that such a reply would have brought a reprimand from the former inspector, but Missovsky didn't say anything and walked away."

"Although Vaslav and I were in the same class, the Girls' Division was completely isolated from the Boys' Division, and so I hardly ever saw Vaslav in school. I was only able to catch rumors about my brother, about the dancing of the remarkable Nijinsky, from my friends Tonya Tchumakova, Frossia Geogievskaya and Lydia Lopukhova, all of whom had older sisters who were Artists of the Imperial Theatres. Mama too heard from our friends, Gillert and Loboyko, both Artist of the Imperial Theatres, that reports of the sensation caused by Vaslav at the previous year's dance examinations had reached the Imperial Ballet Company. The Board of Examiners had been so impressed by Nijinsky that they had begun to talk about him a great deal-- the discovery of a new talent... a dance phenomenon... Nijinsky. Artists began to attend Oboukhov's classes to see this young prodigy of a dancer for themselves. Oboukhov, both an excellent classical ballet artist and a great teacher, asserted enthusiastically that Nijinsky's talent was unique, though he did not show Vaslav off in his classes, adhering rather to the routine classroom exercises. As might be expected the comments expressed by the dancers, some of  whom recognized Nijinsky as an upcoming competitor, were contradictory and not always favorable."- Quote from Bronislava Nijinska on her brother talent being recognized and ridiculed.

It seems like Nijinsky could never change people's opinions of himself. The people had such strong filters there was nothing he could do to remove that. Some saw how talented he was and praised him for that, while others saw him as competition, and they wanted to make him feel inferior.