Paul Dukas' La Peri as Interpreted by Two Balletic Collaborators

Abstract

Paul Dukas (1865–1935) had once mentally consigned his ballet, La Péri, to the funeral pyre.1 In the weeks leading up to its aborted premiere, Pierre Lalo recounts that the composer approached him for an honest assessment of his composition: “if you find that it is too bad . . . I will destroy the manuscript; it is all that it merits.”2 Against all odds, the curtain that finally rose on La Péri on April 22, 1912, turned Dukas’ reveries of ash into flame. La Péri, in piano score, was completed by March 1911.3 Gabriel Astruc arranged for Serge Diaghilev and Valsav Nijinsky to hear this version.4 With Diaghilev on board, the ballet’s premiere by the Ballet Russes was set for that same year,5 yet the venture was fraught with obstacles. Telegrams from Diaghilev highlight problems with unsigned contracts and impossible rehearsal schedules.6 Nijinsky was billed to appear in the star couple, along with Natasha Trouhanova.7 But both Nijinsky and Michel Fokine (whom Diaghilev had hired as choreographer) would agree to the project only if Dukas would serve as conductor.8 Diaghilev meanwhile failed repeatedly to persuade Trouhanova to sign her contract. Judging by Diaghilev’s telegrams, Trouhanova did not attend scheduled meetings, and it appears that she refused to sign her contract until she could be granted exclusive rights to perform La Péri elsewhere.9 In spite of setbacks, preparations for the performance went ahead. By May 1911, Leon Bakst had completed his designs for décor and costumes, and a photograph of Trouhanova wearing her costume appeared on the cover of Comœdia Illustré (June 1911).10 And yet, as Diaghilev reported in a May 22, 1911, telegram to Astruc and Bakst: “We have a fortnight till the Paris opening . . . I have still not received Trouhanova’s contract signed. . . . Obviously we can’t plan a work without the co-operation of its chief interpreter. . . . Now I am in a most embarrassing position with regard to Dukas.”11 Despite Diaghilev’s determination “to get Péri on,”12 the first staging of Dukas’ last large-scale work ultimately fell to the director of the Théâtre des Arts, Jacques Rouché.