NYCB Vol. 17 No. 1 - Prodigal Son - Diaghilev

Lauryn Johnson
Jan 21
5 min read

The libretto for Prodigal Son was written by Boris Kochno, the secretary and collaborator of Serge Diaghilev. This is his recounting of how the ballet came to be:

Text from Diaghilev and the Ballet Russe by Boris Kochno:

"In 1927 [...] Diaghilev asked Prokofiev to write a new ballet for the company. He had no specific theme to suggest, and his great preoccupation at the time was to find one. He wanted the new work to be simple and easy to follow, unlike Prokofiev's earlier ballets, and not to require a cumbersome set. He was looking for a timeless theme, a poetic episode that would be universally familiar and could serve as the unifying thread for a suite of dances, and yet impose no definite period or place on the artists creating the ballet.

"To find a subject that satisfied all these conditions was not easy. Time passed. Prokofiev grew impatient while waiting for the scenario Diaghilev was to submit to him. He was.on the point of giving up the commission when I had the idea of a theatrical version of the parable of the prodigal son.

Serge Lifar as the Prodigal. Felia Doubrovska as the Siren. Photo by Sasha, 1929. Victoria & Albert Museum

"Matisse seemed to Diaghilev the ideal painter for the setting of the ballet. He hoped to secure his collaboration without difficulty [...] Matisse declined the new commission, however, despite the intervention of Prokofiev and other mutual friends; he said that working for the theatre was too absorbing and taxing, and would prevent his concentrating on his own painting.

"After this refusal, on my advice Diaghilev asked Georges Rouault to do the mise-en-scène for Le Fils Prodigue. Rouault agreed immediately and, on Diaghilev's invitation, promised to come to Monte Carlo, bringing his sketches with him. He arrived without the promised designs, but, he said, he had brought the necessary materials to execute them quickly on the spot.

"He was staying at one of the hotels where Diaghilev lodged his guests —I do not remember whether it was the Hôtel de Paris or the Hermitage— and every morning he would come to the rehearsal studio and spend hours watching the dancing lessons and rehearsals. Every day he lunched with us at the Café de Paris, and after lunch closeted himself until evening in his room, where supposedly he was working. [...]

"One day, after having watched Rouault drag on in Monte Carlo without giving the slightest evidence of any work, Diaghilev, at the end of his patience, resolved to get hold of the sketches which Rouault kept saying had been finished long since. He persuaded Rouault to take a drive along the Grande Corniche, rented a cab for him (asking the driver to prolong the usual excursion), and, in his absence, had his hotel room opened.

"Diaghilev returned from this trespass empty-handed and wild-eyed. He had searched everywhere, turned the room upside down, and had discovered not one ballet sketch, indeed no trace whatever of any work. He had not even found sketching paper and had seen neither brushes nor colors.

"That evening, Diaghilev announced to Rouault that a reservation had been made for him on the Paris train for the next day. He said nothing whatever about Le Fils Prodigue. Although Rouault had arrived with a single piece of luggage, he now seemed anxious to go up to his room to pack his bags, and he disappeared for the entire evening. The following morning, before boarding the train, Rouault brought Diaghilev a stack of sketches for Le Fils Prodigue--admirable gouaches and pastels which he had executed in one night."

Sets painted by Rouault

This follow text comes from the biography of Diaghilev written by Richard Buckle:

"The costumes for Le Fils prodigue were made by Vera Sudeikina. Rouault gave her bits of coloured paper, and, although Kochno had drawn some indications of what was necessary, like many artistes-paintres without experience of dressmaking, Rouault left much to his interpreter. Vera bought forty metres of a cheap white cotton velvet, borrowed a spray-gun from a friend and sprayed patterns of red, black and ochre dye on the material before cutting it up. The painter soon became an active nuisance: he kept appearing at the theatre or in Diaghilev's room at the Grand Hôtel 'with terrible pieces of blue ribbon', saying the colours were all wrong.

"Grigoriev thought Prokofiev's passionate music needed Fokine's style of choreography; Prokofiev had perhaps hoped for a big spectacle and was dissatisfied with Balanchine's staging of his ballet; Rouault complained that he had wanted the tent for the middle orgy scene to be 'like a bird descending from heaven' instead of another painted décor - 'As it is, it hides my setting [of the landscape with a minaret-like tower] for the greater part of the performance....I had to spend three nights repainting it, so that it would not be too frightful looking. Diaghilev kept urging Lifar to let himself go emotionally, which was the opposite of his usual advice. On 21 May 1929 the Russian Ballet was to open its last Paris season at the Theâtre Sarah Bernhardt [...]

"Lifar went to bed on the afternoon of the première and announced that he could not dance. 'Some force ... seemed to be pinning me down? The long-suffering Koribut, an easy prey, was 'dumb with terror'. Then suddenly Lifar leapt from his bed. 'Let's go off to the theatre,' he cried. 'I have created the Prodigal Son... It is myself.'

Serge Lifar as the Prodigal Son. Photos by Sasha, 1929. Victoria & Albert Museum

[...] Kochno had reduced the parable of the Prodigal Son to the simplest of stories: a leave-taking, an orgy, the destitution of the Prodigal, his return and welcome home.

"If Balanchine's originality and economy of means went unappreciated by Prokofiev, they had a telling effect on the public. In the orgy scene, where the Prodigal is made drunk, submits to the Siren, and is robbed by her and her gang, Diaghilev had, in fact, been given a new and up-to-date Schéhérazade, which he had not bargained for. Although the tall, frigid Dubrovska, goose-stepping on point, was comparable in her menace and pride to the Zobeida created by Rubinstein for Fokine twenty years before, there were no voluptuous caresses in Balanchine's ballet: the sexual act was symbolized by the Siren's forming herself into a ring round the Prodigal's waist, hand grasping ankle, and being allowed to slide thus, gently, to the ground. Balanchine complained that in Kochno's librettos there always occurred the word 'promenade'.

"In Le Fils prodigue this came after the Prodigal passed out, drunk, and it gave rise to some of Balanchine's most fantastic inventions - the dividing of the spoils; the insect-like pattering around of the exultant robbers, back to back, arms interlocked, knees bent; and the upturning of the long table, which became a boat, with the men's arms for oars, the Siren as figure-head and her long crimson cloak for a sail.

"Everyone agreed that Lifar's final return home, in black rags, haggard, dirty and disheveled, as he dragged himself across the floor, holding on to a stout stick, to be lifted like a child and enfolded in his father's cloak, was wonderful. This emotional display, the opposite of what Diaghilev usually admired or allowed, aroused enthusiasm in the audience. (According to Lifar, 'Pandemonium broke loose. Numbers of people were crying.') It was 'Lifar, on his knees, that made the ballet,' said Balanchine generously. But, according to Danilova, Balanchine had 'made' Lifar, whose Prodigal she thought very good'."