The Rite of Spring
Diaghilev Ballet Initial Performance
Scenario and Choreography
Adapted from Robert Winter, A Multimedia Stravinsky
GENERAL
[M] “In Le Sacre du printemps I wished to express the sublime uprising of Nature renewing herself.”
[K] “Holy Spring is a musico-choreographic work, without plot. Scenes of pagan Russia are united inwardly by the mystery of the great upsurge of all the creative powers of Spring.”
Man playing dudki, from Nicholas Roerich’s “Human Forefathers,” 1911
Nicholas Roerich Museum
PART ONE
INTRODUCTION. [R] “My intention is that the first set should transport us to the foot of a sacred hill, in a lush plain, where Slavonic tribes are gathered together to celebrate the spring rites.”
[M] “The fear of nature before the arising of beauty, a sacred terror at the midday sun, a sort of pagan cry.” [The curtain rises at the end of this part.]
DANCE OF THE ADOLESCENTS. [R] “In this scene there is an old witch, who predicts the future…”
[M] “Some adolescent boys appear with a very old woman, whose age and even whose century is unknown, who knows the secrets of nature, and teaches her sons Prediction. She runs, bent over the earth, half-woman, half-beast. The adolescents at her side are Augurs of Spring, who mark in their steps the rhythm of spring, the pulse beat of spring.”
[K] “The celebrants of Spring are seated on hills. They blow ‘dudki’ [pipes]. Youths learn the art of divination from an old woman who knows all the secrets of Nature.”
Man playing dudki, from Nicholas Roerich’s “Human Forefathers,” 1911
Nicholas Roerich Museum
Drawing by Valentine Gross
Theatre Museum/Victoria & Albert Museum
Photograph from the original production
Theatre Museum/Victoria & Albert Museum
RITUAL OF ABDUCTION. [R] “a marriage by capture…”
[K] “After this is the Game of Abduction… ”
[4H] R. 37: “A large group of men begin.”
R. 2 b. 40: “The second group of men enter.”
R. 1 b. 40: “The answer of the women.”
R. 40: “Rhythm of the men, in two parts.”
R. 2 a. 40: “The answer of the women.”
R. 1 b. 41 to R. 42: “Everybody stops during these five measures.”
R. 1 b. 42: “The men group together.”
R. 42: “Here the women begin to jump. Eight measures.”
R. 6 b. 44: “From here, trampling with each eighth. Do not try to count the measures.”
R. 2 b. 45: “Start to count here, the same as at the beginning of the dance.”
R. 1 b. 46: “Here they come together.”
SPRING ROUNDS. [R] “round dances…”
[M] During this time the adolescent girls come from the river. They form a circle which mingles with the boys’ circle. They are not entirely formed beings; their sex is single and double like that of the tree. The groups mingle but in their rhythms one feels the cataclysms of groups about to form. In fact they divide right and left. It is the realization of form, the synthesis of rhythms, and the thing formed produces a new rhythm.
RITUAL OF THE RIVAL TRIBES. [M] “The groups separate and compete, messengers come from one to the other and they quarrel. It is the defining of forces through struggle, that is to say through games.”
[K] “…for which the youths divide into different tribes that attack each other.”
R. 4 b. 59: “The fighting stops.”
R. 1 b. 59: “Again.”
Costume design by Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich Museum
R.= Rehearsal No.
PROCESSION OF THE SAGE. [R] “Then comes the most solemn moment. The wise elder is brought from the village to imprint his sacred kiss on the newflowering earth.”
[M] “But a Procession arrives. It is the Saint, the Sage, the Pontifex, the oldest of the clan. All are seized with terror.”
Costume design for the Sage by Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich Museum
[R]oerich [M]ontjoie!
[K] “An opening is cleared for the Eldest and Wisest, who enters at the head of a religious procession.”
[4H] R. 71: “A halt, after which they all run to the tribe (‘the square of the tribal compound’).” [This refers to the long rest following the climax of the procession, which we play first.]
THE SAGE. [R] “During this rite the crowd is seized with a mystic terror.”
[M] “The Sage gives a benediction to the Earth, stretched flat, his arms and legs stretched out, becoming one with the soil.”
[K] “The games stop and the people wait, trembling, for the blessing of the earth. The Eldest makes a sign to kiss the earth…”
DANCE OF THE EARTH. [R] “Uprush of terrestrial joy…”
[M] “His [the Sage’s] benediction is as a signal for an eruption of rhythm. Each, covering his head, runs in spirals, pouring forth in numbers, like the new energies of nature. It is the Dance of the Earth.”
[K] “…everyone dances, stomping the earth.”
PART TWO
INTRODUCTION. [Curtain closed. No description.]
MYSTIC CIRCLES OF THE YOUNG GIRLS. [M] “The second scene begins with an obscure game of the adolescent girls. At the beginning, a musical picture is based upon a song which accompanies the young girls’ dances. The latter mark in their dance the place where the Elect will be confined, and whence she cannot move. The Elect is she whom the Spring is to consecrate, and who will give back to Spring the force that youth has taken from it.”
[K] “Night. The maidens perform secret games and group themselves in circles. One of the maidens is chosen for the Sacrifice. Fate points to her twice: twice she is caught in one of the circles without an exit.”
GLORIFICATION OF THE CHOSEN ONE. [M] “The young girls dance about the Elect, a sort of glorification.”
[K] “The maidens dance a martial dance honoring the Chosen One.”
Costume design by Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich Museum
R.= Rehearsal No.
EVOCATION OF THE ANCESTORS. [M] “Then comes the purification of the soil and the Evocation of the Ancestors.”
[K] “The Invocation to the Ancestors.”
RITUAL ACTION OF THE ANCESTORS. [M] “The ancestors gather around the elect…”
[K] “The maidens bring the Chosen One to the Elders…”
SACRIFICIAL DANCE (THE CHOSEN ONE). [M] [“The Ancestors gather around the Elect,] who begins the ‘Dance of Consecration.’ When she is on the point of falling exhausted, the Ancestors recognize it and glide toward her like rapacious monsters in order that she may not touch the ground; they pick her up and raise her toward heaven. The annual cycle of forces which are born again, and which fall again into the bosom of nature, is accomplished in its essential rhythms.”
Drawing of the Chosen One by Valentin Gross
Theatre Museum/Victoria & Albert Museum
Sources:
Shortly before the premičre of The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky gave an interview to Ricciotto Canudo, a poet and writer. Entitled “What I Wished to Express in ‘The Consecration of Spring,’” it appeared under Stravinsky’s name on the morning of the premičre in the journal Montjoie! Although Stravinsky soon disavowed the interview (still attacking it more than a half century later), its tone rings true. ›
After proclaiming that he has striven “toward a somewhat vaster abstraction,” Stravinsky describes The Rite in concrete terms, including accounts of each dance. Nine months later, for a concert performance in Moscow under Serge Koussevitzky, Stravinsky provided an “explanatory text” which supplies a few more details (and a few contradictions). These three sources—Roerich’s letter, Stravinsky’s Montjoie! interview, and the Koussevitzky note—are the primary surviving accounts of the scenario.
[R]oerich [M]ontjoie! [K]oussevitzsky [4H]and Score R.= Rehearsal No.