POST-WAR AVANT GARDE IN PARIS, IN THE ARGENTINE PRESS JEAN COCTEAU, SERGE LIFAR AND NINA VYROUBOVA

Phèdre ballet rehearsals. Paris, 1950.

Four vintage gelatin silver prints. Measurements: 18.5 x 23.5 cm / 7.28 x 9.25 in. On the back, the author's wet stamp: “Photo Lido. 4, Rue Chernoviz, JAS 65-98, Paris. Mention obligatoire ”. In one of them, in graphite pencil the name of the artists, and in the bottom right, also in pencil, "Saber Vivir", the Argentine magazine that between 1940 and 1957 published great authors, such as Borges, Girondo, María Teresa León , Alberti and Gómez de la Serna.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a meeting of personalities took place in Paris together with an innovative spirit in art that was only comparable, for Western culture, to the Italian Renaissance. To give an example, a production by the Ballets Russes, a company directed by Sergei Diaghilev, could bring together music by Stravinsky, Debussy or Ravel, dance by Nijinsky, Balanchine or Serge Lifar, and scenography by Picasso or Jean Cocteau.

After several decades (and in them, the two great Wars) these artists continued their production. We observe them here rehearsing the play entitled Phèdre. Premiered at the Paris Opera in 1950, creation of the multifaceted Jean Cocteau (France: 1889 - 1963), with music by Georges Auric and choreography by Serge Lifar. We read in the Parisian newspaper "Libération" of June 16, 1950: "Jean Cocteau -this Picasso of letters- will tire of everything, except surprising us”. One after another, he takes up the eternal themes, the great myths and, to be more sure, in his own eyes, that they have not aged. Phaedra could not escape him. Cocteau then cut Racine down - without tearing him to pieces. Some twenty scenes follow, step by step, the classic tragedy and transform it into a faithful "choreographic tragedy" -with some subtle ironies-almost to the mother work. Has it become a ballet? No: a mimodrama perhaps for moments, but rather above all, according to the very name of the program, a “danced action” where Serge Lifar adapted to the immutable anarchism of the primitive myth as easily as to the innovations of the poet who resorts to the photography (giant photos of Brassaï) to narrate certain episodes, to evoke certain characters. The controversies raised prove by themselves that the spectators of creation undoubtedly attended a premiere that posterity will speak of as the premiere of Isadora or "Spring rite".

The four photographs, taken with the camera located at the same point, show us the playwright, set designer and costume designer Jean Cocteau together with Nina Byrouvona (first dancer of the Paris Opera Ballet) and Serge Lifar, first dancer and choreographer of the same theater. Opposing academic romanticism in ballet and naturalism in the theater, Cocteau revisited the spirit of Greek tragedy, as we observe in the set text written in Greek, and in the hieratic positions of the performers, resembling marble friezes.

Serge Lido (1906-1984) was one of the greatest dance photographers of the last century. Born in Moscow, and later established in Paris, he achieved international notoriety for his extensive photographic work and through his many trips around Europe, to cover the great dance events of the last century, from the 1940s onwards. We owe him the most beautiful images of great dancers, captured with the utmost professionalism and precision, thereby achieving one of the most important graphic testimonies in the history of contemporary dance. GGLM