Erik Satie's Ballet Mercure (1924): From Mount Etna to Montmartre

Abstract

Mercure, a ballet in three tableaux with scenery and costumes by Pablo Picasso and choreography by Léonide Massine, created a scandal on a par with that of Parade (1917) when it was first performed at La Cigale Theatre in Montmartre on 15 June 1924 as part of the ‘Soirée de Paris’ season mounted by the wealthy Comte Etienne de Beaumont. Although Mount Etna, as it transpired, featured in the scenario but not in Picasso's stage sets, the première was certainly the scene of a volcanic eruption, a deliberate demonstration orchestrated by the Surrealists (led by the poet André Breton), who tried to drown Satie's music-hall score with their cries of ‘Long live Picasso! Down with Satie!’ The reasons behind this were complex and inseparable from Satie's enthusiastic support for the Dada movement and its founder, Tristan Tzara, from 1919 onwards. After the failure of the Congrès de Paris (convened by Breton to establish a Dada constitution and himself as leader), Satie took great delight in assuming the presidency of Breton's public trial at the Closerie des Lilas restaurant on 17 February 1922. Their enmity was further intensified by Satie's participation in the ‘happening’, known as La soirée du Coeur à barbe, which Tzara mounted at the Théâtre Michel on 6 July 1923. In what might be regarded as a dress rehearsal for Mercure, the newly founded Surrealists under Breton mounted a campaign in support of Picasso, which led to Breton being expelled by the police.