Les Noces: the American Premiere

Abstract

More than fifty years have passed since the American premiere of Stravinsky's Les Noces, which opened on April 25, 1929 at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Generally overshadowed by the Bronislava Nijinska version (Paris, 1923) and by the later Jerome Robbins version (New York, 1965), the 1929 production presented a significantly different interpretation of the Stravinsky piece. The choreographer was Elizaveta Anderson-Ivantzova (1890–1973), former prima ballerina at the Bolshoi, whose life span parallels almost exactly that of Nijinska (1891–1972) and whose career intersects with that of Nijinska by virtue of her choreographing the second version. Of concommitant interest is that the first two versions of Les Noces were choreographed by women in an age when women were less than likely to be engaged as choreographers, a fact not unnoticed in 1929. Yet, little is known of this and other aspects of the production today. An examination, therefore, of the background, the production itself, and the choreography in particular is needed to describe, as clearly as the evidence will allow, what the 1929 production was like and how it differed from the better known version of 1923.The little attention given to the New York premiere seems to have had less to do with its original performance than with a subsequent indifference to it.