Gordon Anthony. Russian ballet; camera studies. London: G. Bles, 1939. E336

Gordon Anthony. Russian ballet; camera studies. London: G. Bles, 1939. E336

Love and Death. Everywhere in the world, Russian ballet = Russian soul. On the eve of World War I Petrograd's avant-garde artistic community revolted against the stuffy, rigid conservatism of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in what one person called "the revolution before the revolution." It was the period of time when Sergei Diagilev would put Russian musicians and other artists to work turning Russian music, movement, theater design, painting, and intense drama into sumptuous ballets. The royal family, decidedly NOT ahead of its time, however, didn't think much of these productions and before long Diagilev was forbidden to perform in the city's imperial theaters. Stravinsky's Petrushka was yanked up and moved with Fokin's Ballets Russes to Paris. Petrushka, the puppet who comes to life, had been a favorite carnival character of the young Aleksandr Benois, but the people of Petrograd in those days never got to share the nostalgia and longing of this story embodying the soul of Old St. Petersburg.

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