Tour de danse (2/5): Stravinsky and his “Waldensian” ballets

Discover the second episode of the Dance Tour. Our journey into the world of music and dance continues with ballet. We couldn’t miss it!

And when it comes to ballet, the nameIgor Stravinsky naturally springs to mind. 50 years have passed since the death of the Russian composer, who was born in the canton of Vaud and died on April 6, 1971.

Vaudois by adoption? Yes, Stravinsky is also a little Vaudois …

He arrived on the shores of Lake Geneva in 1910. First for health reasons (his wife was in poor health), then for reasons of exile. He lives with his family in Clarens. After the outbreak of the First World War, he settled in Morges, from 1915 to 1920.

In the French-speaking part of Switzerland, he began a period of calm but excited stylistic evolution, relatively free of travel or major performances. He sketched or wrote several ballet scores that would become key works of ^20th-century music.

It was at the water’s edge that the composer strolled with the music for his ballet Petrouchka in mind . It premiered in Paris in 1911.

It was here that Stravinsky composed a large part of one of his masterpieces, The Rite of Spring. Its first performance in Paris, on May 29 1913, provoked the most resounding scandal of the turn of the century. The music was aggressive and brutal. The choreography was far from the beautiful lines, grace and lightness of classical dance. The result was too different from what was being done at the time, causing chaos in the audience. This work marked a break with the past and heralded the beginning of modern ballet.

It was in the house sublet to the Vaud orchestra conductor Ernest Ansermet that the composer worked on the music for the Russian choreographic scenes Les noces.

And it was still in Vaud that Stravinsky wrote the music for the burlesque story Renard. He adapted the symphonic poem Chant du rossignol for Serge de Diaghilev’s Ballets russes. And he composed the music for the ballet Pulcinella.

In Switzerland, Stravinsky made friends with a number of musical and literary personalities. Ernest Ansermet, who conducted several of his creations. The writer and poet Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, whose collaboration was to leave a lasting mark on the Vaud art scene. This was the performance of L’histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) at the Grand Théâtre de Lausanne on September 28, 1918. The Russian folk tale was adapted into French and transposed between Denges and Denezy.

With the war over, Stravinsky left Morges for France. But he kept his ties with Switzerland, notably with Ansermet.

In 1985, Clarens inaugurated the “Rue du Sacre du Printemps”. In 1993, the town of Montreux dedicated its Auditorium to the composer.

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