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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

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248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1930

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About the author

Tamara Platonovna Karsavina (Russian: Тамара Платоновна Карсавина; 10 March 1885 – 26 May 1978) was a Russian prima ballerina, renowned for her beauty, who was a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and later of the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev. After settling in Britain at Hampstead in London, she began teaching ballet professionally and became recognised as one of the founders of modern British ballet. She assisted in the establishment of The Royal Ballet and was a founder member of the Royal Academy of Dance, which is now the world's largest dance-teaching organisation.

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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
Profile Image for Katerina.
905 reviews800 followers
January 29, 2016
Отец обычно уходил из дому рано утром. Мы все пили на завтрак чай со сдобными булочками или сухариками, но он никогда ничего не ел, только выпивал три или четыре стакана чаю. Второй завтрак – вещь невозможная в балетном мире: вслед за уроками обычно идут репетиции, так что отец возвращался после репетиций голодный как волк. Иногда он приходил в три, а иногда и в четыре часа дня и требовал, чтобы к его приходу супница уже стояла на столе. Было очень трудно приготовить обед точно к его возвращению, поскольку приходил он в разное время, но малейшая задержка ужасно раздражала его, хотя по природе был довольно спокойным и невозмутимым. Но в этом случае он не желал слушать никаких объяснений и нетерпеливо ворчал:
«Полная кухня женщин, а голодный мужчина не может пообедать».
Подлинной страстью отца был чай. У него под рукой постоянно стоял стакан чаю, и он пил его целый день. Закончив один стакан, тут же кричал:
– Женщины, чаю!

***
У меня не было никаких способностей к рисованию, и преподаватель практически отказался от попыток чему либо меня научить. В то время как мои соученицы достигли таких высот, что срисовывали гипсовую голову Антиноя, я все еще корпела над листом аканта. Мои художественные устремления нашли выход на уроках географии при раскрашивании схематической карты мира. Я выбрала самые яркие карандаши и раскрашивала карту с неподдельным пылом. Ярко синие реки (совсем как на цветной открытке с Женевским озером), изумрудно зеленые долины, красные, как смола драконова дерева, горные цепи, ярко желтые плоскогорья сильно отличались от общепринятой расцветки. Нельзя сказать, что моя карта имела полный успех, когда я вручила ее нашему симпатичному, любившему пошутить географу, но она явно произвела сенсацию. Оценка была такова: «Яичница с луком. Ультрамодерн, но сколько стараний».

***
Несколько недель до спектакля я бережно хранила пару парижских танцевальных туфелек, которые купила мне мама, так как обувь, выдаваемая в училище, была довольно грубой. Время от времени я примеряла свое сокровище, но очень осторожно, стараясь не испачкать. Но, когда я надела их перед спектаклем и сделала несколько шагов, сердце мое замерло: при каждом прыжке пятки выскальзывали из туфель. Я не знала, что мне делать, и расплакалась. Однако оказалось, что существует вполне доступное и весьма эффективное средство, хотя и не слишком элегантное. Его мне посоветовала старшая ученица, повторявшая в тот момент перед зеркалом свою партию:
– Поплюй в туфли и не реви.
Profile Image for Katrina Sark.
Author 12 books45 followers
March 6, 2016
p.51 – We lived a good way off from the school, and to get there in time I had to leave the house with Father before eight. In those days we had no tramways, only street cars, pulled along the rails by a couple of horses.
“Theatre Street” will always remain to me a masterpiece of architecture. I could not then analyse the beauty of my surroundings, but I felt it, and it grew on me as the time went on.

p.76 – In May 1896, the Coronation of the new Tzar was to be celebrated in Moscow. Some of the best dancers from Petersburg were going there to take part in a gala performance. The ballet prepared for the gala was an allegorical piece. Twelve small pupils were chosen to represent cupids, and I was amongst the lucky ones.
The régime of the Moscow school was more liberal than ours. Unlike us in Theatre Street, the pupils roamed about the school freely. The spirit of freedom was catching; the new surroundings gave a feeling of something not unlike adventure, and our little party got bold enough to ask tentatively that we should be taken to see a famous circus then giving a performance. The demand was thoroughly inconsistent with the whole idea of out cloistered upbringing.

p.77 – At the first sight of Moscow I could not believe this was the old capital and the heart of Russia. The somewhat severe stateliness of Petersburg left me unprepared for the homely absurd character of Moscow, with its straggling crazy streets winding up and down for a long while to finish abruptly in a blind alley.

p.118 – Every Sunday afternoon, we, the seniors, were taken to the Alexandrinsky Theatre. We like dramas where one could have a good cry. We liked to act what we had seen, imitating the actors very closely.
Lessons in elocution and acting were given to the seniors by an actor of the dramatic theatre. We chiefly kept to monologues and poetry. Sometimes he gave us some scene to act. In my Father’s time there was no separate dramatic school. Pupils of the theatrical school were trained according to their evinced capacity, though dancing was compulsory for all. Slavina, one of the leading mezzo-sopranos, had been trained for the ballet first. Singing classes we also followed, though there was no hope of another Slavina amongst us. For the examination in the spring we now were preparing nothing less ambitious than Mary Stuart. The classroom, crowded with desks, was found inconvenient; so eventually we went to the Little Theatre for our dramatic lessons.

p.119 – The whole school was usually taken to the dress rehearsals of operas, foregoing afternoon classes.

p.123 – There was an occasional exchange of artists between Moscow and St. Petersburg. A rivalry and a schism existed between the two schools. In Petersburg’s ballet, the opinion prevailed that at Moscow the dancers sacrificed tradition to cheap effects – “dancing to the gallery,” it was termed. We were reproached with being too academic and stale. A certain difference in execution was obvious. Less correct, at times untidy in their poses, the Moscovites displayed more vigour than our dancers. At the same time, contrary to our principle of making any difficulty appear easy, they emphasised every tour de force. The main feature of the male dancers of our stage was an extreme simplicity and reserve. They put themselves deliberately in the shade, leaving to the ballerina the display of graces and smiles. Their Moscow rivals lacked all restraint; forcible expression, too elaborate grace and overacting characterised their dance.

p.129 – Teliakowsky followed a distinctly national orientation. During his directorship, operas by Russian composers began outnumbering the foreign ones on our stage. A great vogue of Italian opera, until recently subsidised by the government, had almost entirely banished the taste for serious music amongst opera-goers. Teliakowsky had practically to force the operas of Rimsky Korsakoff on an unwilling audience. But in spite of unfriendly criticism, the productions of the new director stirred the theatrical world.

p.151 – When Matilda Kshseshinskaya went to dance at Moscow, the first row of stalls at the Marinsky emptied; her faithful had followed her.

p.177 – Every year there were several performances given at the Court Theatre of the Hermitage, where the stage was spacious enough for the production of any ballet or opera. The pick of the cast was nominated to take part in these performances. On this occasion the corps de ballet was suppressed, and solo dancers took the ranks; it was the night of a fancy-dress ball, and the entire Court wore historical Russian dresses.

p.185 – I never liked using the theatre carriages except on rainy days. They called at various places to deposit their loads, so that it took me twice as long to drive as to walk. Besides, I had a passion for wandering and looking into people’s windows. I had favourite spots in the district which I knew as my own ten fingers. Strong associations were attached to these places. As a child I had invented stories about the people living inside, stories told to myself in instalments, each walk a new instalment. In a lane at the back of the Church of the Archangel Michael there was a wooden house, whose panelled gate had two urns on its pilasters; the small architrave and window cornices were ornamented with carved wreaths pierced by an arrow. The place bore the melancholy name of Cancelled Lane.

p.231 – The imagination of a brilliant producer could not have managed an entry better than that of a young man [Diaghilev] who walked in during the suspense and sat in a middle row. A theatre in its unguarded moments, curtain up, stage abandoned, and lights lowered, has a strange poignancy. The faint ghostliness of it touches a vulnerable spot of incurable sentimentality, a professional disease of those bred in the artificial emotions of the footlights. I saw him scanning the stage warily. Disenchantment or boredom? N apparent motive brought him in; there was nothing going on.

p.263 – I have progressed with his through the Romanticism in which I had been brought up to the Modernism of Satie’s (Parade). I found I could easily attune myself to this. Though it required at times a great detachment from my own personal sentiments, I could follow him with a clear conscience in a difficult task, perhaps even with more satisfaction than in works to which I’m more naturally suited.

p. 268 – In choosing Paris as his sphere of action Diaghilev primarily followed his inclination. He shared with people of his class that love French culture, which is ingrained in our gentry, nurtured by their upbringing. Very likely there may have been as well an element of calculation in Diaghilev’s choice of place for his beginning, for he had the chess master’s capacity for planning ahead and for seeing the effect of his moves.

p.289 – Against the accepted harmony, softness, roundness of line, the vision of archaic Greece, as evoked by Nijinsky in L’Apres midi d’une Faune and the Sacre du Printemps, interpreting with angular jerky movements, the stone age of prehistoric tribes, stood as a direct challenge. Archaism and the prehistoric were the foundation stones of the modernism of the present-day Russian Ballet. In these two works of his, Nijinsky declared his feud against Romanticism and bid adieu to the “beautiful”.

p.290 – Nijinsky had no gift of precise thought, still less that of expressing his ideas in adequate words. Were he called upon to issue a manifesto of his new creed, for his dear life he could not have given a clearer statement that the one he had given to explain his wonderful capacity for soaring in the air. Certainly at the rehearsals of Jeux he was at a loss to explain what he wanted of me. And it was far from easy to learn the part by mechanical process of imitating the postures as demonstrated by him.

p.312 – That seeming aloofness of the theatre [when WWI broke out] was in no way due to selfish unconcern; the stage was fulfilling its mission in the war by protecting the eternal treasure, the high cult of beauty sheltered all through the world.
The same queues formed outside the box-offices; no empty seats disgraced the Marinsky; but the physiognomy of the public was greatly altered – no more bright uniforms, no more lovely toilettes. Every night the public demanded the national anthems. As new allies gradually joined the cause, our intervals became longer. Now a full quarter of an hour would be required to go through the anthems. The frenzied enthusiasm which greeted them at the beginning gradually dwindled with the years as war weariness increased.
In mistaken zeal for the eradication of the German flavour, Petersburg got rechristened; it became Petrograd.
Profile Image for Marija Assereckova.
125 reviews31 followers
July 6, 2020
Прима императорского театра и муза Фокина написала на 100% ностальгические мемуары о себе в искусстве. Злиться на наивность и аполитичность Карсавиной совершенно невозможно – от первой до последней страницы она описывает конфетный мирок, полностью закрытый от мира, тактично обходя малейшие неприглядные страницы театральной жизни. В этом мире нет узаконенного борделя для великих и не очень князей, нет интриг, нет зависти, а уж каких-то политических и общественных проблем нет и подавно, и даже 1905 и 1917 год только по касательной задевают кукольный домик театра. Царь и царица – источник счастья, императорский дом – вечный благодетель. И с чего бы это вдруг случилась революция?

Наверное, Карсавина и многие её коллеги действительно именно так ощущали жизнь в царской России. Невозможно им чуточку не сочувствовать, но всё-таки закрывая книгу, понимаешь, что Карсавина слишком о многом умолч��ла: родительский мезальянс, судьба брата-философа, балетный «Олений парк» и другие темы просто нельзя описать в розовом цвете этой книги. Поражает, конечно, и то, как она по умолчанию принимает мир и не задаёт своему прошлому ни одного вопроса. Мемуары поражают полным отсутствием рефлексии, так что в каком-то смысле воспоминания Карсавиной подтверждают худшие стереотипы о балетных. С другой стороны, её ностальгия кажется совершенно искренней, и даже если реальность была далека от описанного, поверить в эти мемуары совсем несложно.
Profile Image for Michael K Dane.
Author 1 book8 followers
December 3, 2019
I must confess this is not my first reading of Theatre Street. I read it 50 years ago as a young ballet dancer. The book has lost none of its charm.

Back then, as now, I share Karsavina’s wonder and dedication to the art that we both share! It’s written in our bones from the time we are children. Everything I have done in my life, every incarnation, ballet, recording artist, every movement of my hand ...there it is ballet.

As a protégé of Dimitri Romanoff who was one of the founding members of Mordkin Ballet which became America Ballet Theatre, he and his wife Francesca filled our minds with glamorous and glorious train adventures, hip flasks, parties and the Ballets Russes.

Little did I know that I too would one day flee a revolution in Iran over the Turkish mountains across Eastern Europe for five days and nearly die of pneumonia in a cold water flat in Montmartre in Paris. Just as she Fled Russia for Paris 60 years before me. Nor could I guess I would one day be famous for a separate self called Dame Peggy, who I created for Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.

The book is pure magic and transports with every word. It spoke to my future as a young child and my past now. Let it cast a spell over you as well!!

Michael Dane
Profile Image for Eva Stachniak.
Author 6 books479 followers
January 26, 2014
A marvellous memoir for anyone interested in the Russian ballet scene. Karsavina was a "trooper." In the world not known for its kindness she had kind words for everyone--and they were genuine, too. Her reminiscences are lush with period detail. The "Lunatic Ann" in teh Imperial Ballet School who eloped with a Horse Guard, the dreams and disappointments of the dance students, portraits of teh luminaries of teh dance world: Nijinsky, Diaghilev...A wonderful read.
Profile Image for Susan.
45 reviews1 follower
October 22, 2007
Memoir of a Russian ballerina, the real deal, and how she got that way. Suppose she is dead now (otherwise she would be about 120 years old) but I felt like she was sitting next to me on the sofa, spilling her tea when an errant gesture went awry, certainly not because of any lack of grace but from enthusiasm in the telling.
Profile Image for Madeleine.
352 reviews20 followers
October 14, 2013
A really fascinating look at Russia at the turn of the century, not only in terms of ballet but regular life as well.
Profile Image for Maria.
5 reviews8 followers
February 21, 2013
Fascinating and exciting book that brings you into the golden age of Russian Ballet.
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