Ravel’s Bolero — that 15-minute, crescendo-building piece of music which instantly conjures up images of skaters Torvill and Dean in purple chiffon — owes its existence to Ida Rubinstein, a Russian dancer and actress whose contribution to the development of theatre and ballet has been largely forgotten.
Ravel’s best-known work was just one of the many commissioned by Rubinstein. In the early years of the last century, she collaborated with such famous names as Diaghilev, Nijinsky and Debussy, formed her own dance company and was no stranger to scandal along the way.
Now her incredible life story is being brought to the stage in a play that celebrates her work. Ida Rubinstein: The Final Act looks at some of the more outrageous episodes in her life, from the portrayal of Salome that lead her embarrassed family to commit her to an asylum, to her fame in Paris and the assassination of her lover Lord Moyne, by members of the Stern Gang.
Rubinstein is played by Naomi Sorkin, a former principal of the American Ballet Theatre who bears a striking resemblance to the Russian diva. The similarities are not just physical. Rubinstein was born in Kharkov, in the Ukraine and Sorkin’s grandparents on her father’s side also came from that region. Sorkin’s father was a celebrated violinist; her grandfather on her mother’s side was Dr Max Dolnick, an ardent Zionist who frequently entertained such eminent visitors as Golda Meir, Albert Einstein and Sergei Rachmaninov in his Chicago home.
“Ida was born into an unbelievably wealthy family which is so rare, whereas my ancestors would have been in the shtetl,” says Sorkin. After her parents’ early deaths, Rubinstein was raised by an aunt and uncle in St Petersburg. “She was living like aristocracy, consorting with every sort of artist. They were Jewish but they were quite assimilated, therefore they could mix with dukes and princes. Ida was taken to the ballet and she fell in love with the theatre, and, against great obstacles and opposition, she became a dancer.”
Rubinstein’s first work was to produce and act in Antigone, which she staged in her aunt’s salon. With access to some of the great artists of the time, she asked Leon Bakst to design it, and Diaghilev was present in the audience.
Rubinstein’s next project was to star in her own production of Salome; so, in order to carry out research, she travelled to Paris where her sister and her husband were living. The couple saw sketches for the intended costume and realised that Rubinstein would be virtually naked. “They were horrified and, because he was a doctor, he had her locked up in a mental asylum outside Paris. It wasn’t until word got back to her aunt in St Petersburg that she was released and sent back to Russia.
“She realised that she would never have freedom unless she was married, because, at that time, women had no power. Not only would she have no freedom, she would not have access to her money, so she determined to marry her cousin who was in love with her. I’m sure he thought she would settle down but, shortly after they married, she went off to Palestine with a chaperone to research Salome.”
Against great opposition from the Russian Orthodox Church, she put on the production (the papier maché head of John the Baptist was confiscated at the last moment, so she resorted to miming with an empty tray instead). It was a triumph and word spread about the exotic beauty who had stripped naked for the Dance of the Seven Veils.
“This is what has kept me fascinated about this woman,” says Sorkin. “Her determination in the face of every obstacle that was pushed in her path— she overcame it. From the time I was very young, I’ve always felt an affinity to the Ballet Russes and that explosion of creativity. I wish I had been born then; it was such an incredibly fertile time and it was really the beginning of what we now consider ballet and dance.
“Ida flew in the face of convention. She was so outrageous in so many ways — she posed naked for paintings in 1910 and that was absolutely scandalous.”
Many of the paintings in which she appeared nude were created by the lesbian American artist Romaine Brooks, with whom Rubinstein had a long love affair. She also had an affair with Lord Moyne, the British Minister of State in the Middle East. He installed her in a suite at The Ritz in London, and she was devastated when he was assassinated by members of the Stern Gang in 1944. Eight years earlier, Rubinstein had converted to Catholicism— Sorkin guesses this was because she had felt so wounded by her family’s actions years before. During both World Wars she worked as a nurse, tending wounded French soldiers.
“Some people have written her off as a wealthy dilettante, but I think she was so much more than that,” says Sorkin. “Ida spoke many languages, she was obviously highly intelligent.
“She was not a talented dancer — she could never have had the career I had, as she didn’t train young enough, but she clearly had an unbelievable charisma. She obviously had what they called a plasticity, a kind of movement quality that was alluring and when used correctly by [the choreographer] Fokine, who knew how to feature her absolute strengths, then I think she was extraordinary.
“Her undoing was later on, when she formed her own company. She put herself at the centre of it, at a time when she would have already been in her forties, and went on pointe when she wasn’t a trained ballet dancer.”
It was then that Rubinstein became a figure of fun for many, including Frederick Ashton, one of the founders of British ballet. His first job was with Rubinstein’s company, and he took great delight in mimicking her.
“It’s a shame because she gave so much to the arts. She was the catalyst for a lot of fascinating work. There’s a musical legacy that she leaves behind which is huge — obviously the famous one that everybody knows is Bolero. She also put on Ravel’s La Valse and commissioned Stravinsky’s Baiser de la Fée. She was quite something really.”
Ida Rubinstein: The Final Act is at The Playground Theatre, Latimer Road, London W10, from January 23 until February 15
