The Critical Reception of Serge Lifar (1929–1939)

Abstract Chapter 2 analyzes the critical reception of Serge Lifar at the Paris Opera during the 1930s. Evidence is presented of Lifar’s poor critical reception at the start of the decade and the characteristics of his dancing are analyzed in relation to the developing ideals of neoclassical ballet. The analysis reveals a gradual drift in critical language toward a fascist conception of Lifar’s dancing body as a polarity machine. This vision of Lifar is put forward with respect to the double level of artistic activity demanded of the dance artist who, as choreographer, is the contemplative painter of compositions, but who as dancer is the sculptor whose artistic material is his own body. Lifar seemed to embody by turns both the Apollonian and Dionysian sides of Nietzsche’s influential argument on the origin of tragedy. The chapter also covers the debate over the meaning of neoclassicism in French ballet during the 1930s and the role Lifar played in this debate both as an object of discussion and an interlocutor. Critics include Russian émigrés under the influence of Akim Volynsky: André Levinson, Julia Sazonova, and André Schaïkevitch and their French compeers Roger Lannes and Maurice Brillant. Arguing for a formalist and idealist conception of balletic neoclassicism, the Russo-French school used the work of Serge Lifar as their main example. This chapter also explores in depth André Levinson’s change of heart concerning Lifar and the relation of Lifar to Vaslav Nijinsky in Levinson’s criticism.