|IN this ballet, in the style of the French ballets of the reign of Louis XIV., there is less distinction, I think, than in the others from which Miss Pamela Colman Smith has derived her pictures. The costumes and scenery are "designed by Benois," but any one with a knowledge of the theatre and a Racinet at hand could have done the same sort of thing. And yet as I write this I know I should make the reservation of that "life" which the Russians know how to breathe into everything. What I mean is that Benois gives us no new creation. Karsavina's bird-like grace in her eighteenth-century guise is captivating (oh, that this talented little dancer had more music in her, and did not dance always a fraction off the beat!), and Nijinsky as a wholly unnecessary slave in white satin gives a wonderful exhibition of dancing in the style of the original Ballon who danced at the opera in Paris at the end of the seventeenth century, and gave his name to the kind of classical dancing which consists in elevation. [Illustration: 0068] NOTE: Bolm as the lover looks very like one of Louis XIV.'s sons, and mimes perfectly. I like the "pas de trois" (the music of this ballet by Tscherepnin is fascinating), but I liked it better when it was originally given at the Coliseum as an extract, and danced by Kosloff, Karsavina and Baldina. Our spirited, bounding Nijinska has not got the eighteenth- century style. Oh, I must not forget those dear Bouffons! Their little dance alone makes "Pavilion d'Armide" worth while. Narcisse |THE last drawing in this book is of Nijinsky as Narcisse, and if Narcisse had been a _pas seul_ by Nijinsky I am sure that there would have been more to praise in it. For once, the mosaic was all wrong, and so the centre piece could not be all right. I have read enthusiastic accounts of "L'Apres-midi d'un Faune," which Nijinsky himself arranged, making Debussy's music the vehicle for a display of Greek poses, and from Nijinsky's personal performance in "Narcisse" I believe it to be possible that he has succeeded in doing, in "L'Après-midi de un Faune," what Bakst failed to do in "Narcisse. ' ' When, at the end of the ballet, that colossal stage narcissus was jerked up from the stage pool, and the limelight was turned on it, I regretfully saw in that light a limitation in the Russian art. They could not interpret the tranquil repose, the immanent beauty of Greek ideas. [Illustration: 0070]