Research Trip to Paris, Cologne, January-February 2019

One of the subtopics of my research is titled like “Searching for Innocence in the Midst of (Immoral) Masquerade”. Originally it had to deal only with the characters of „innocent girls”. This kind of character is for example Sophie in „Der Rosenkavalier”: in order to save her from the arranged marriage (which would be a masquerade by itself) Octavian stages even a greater masquerade… Then, it is surely Arabella in the eponymous opera. A great deal of the plot is dedicated to the misunderstandings around the issue of her chastity; but in order to prove her “innocence”, one has to expose the masquerade her whole milieu is engaged in (the bankrupt family had to bluff in order to marry her off and for the sake of this purpose her younger sister was dressed as a boy because this was less expensive…)

Initially, „The Legend of Joseph” was not included in this context. But it turned out that precisely in this work Hofmannsthal went to the utmost extremities in his elaboration of the „discourse of purity”. This ballet libretto, however, is a sort of changeling of his other works which feature „an image of innocence” (or vice versa?). Unlike in other relevant cases, in “The Legend of Joseph” a similar image is not associated with a girl who is distanced from any impure games, any impure bargains (which she might be anyway involved into as a commodity, as it is the case both in „Der Rosenkavalier” and „Arabella”).

Joseph in the „Legend” appears also as a commodity, for he is sold to Potiphar; but he seems not to be aware about it and is engaged rather with his mystical communication with God, which his first dance at the Potiphar’s court tells about. The idea of masquerade was equally present at the very early stages of the work upon the libretto. Namely, the main hero was understood as a shepherd boy, with the minimum of the clothes, while the main feature of the Potiphar’s court is its extravagant luxury. To display it, the imagery of Renaissance Venetian painter Paolo Veronese is cited, just to make sure that the action takes play in an artificial world that presents a theatralized version of the mythical past. (The fact that the Diaghilev’s company already possessed the sets was the crucial for the decision to make this ballet). Joseph, however, also has his multi-colored cape which is involved – opposite to the tradition – in the night scene with the Potiphar’s wife, when, in his run from the woman, he leaves it, probably just in order his nakedness could be revealed. And this is a kind of nakedness which should be a prove of his pure essence dedicated to God.

Thus, Aug.4, 1912, after his visit to Strauss, Harry Kessler (who was Hofmannsthal´s co-author on this work) writes in his diary: „This moment of Joseph’s disrobing must be the high point of the work for both eye and ear, a very powerful effect and shift in the mood, as, for example, the first knocking of the spirit world in „Don Juan”. The nudity must give the impression of a revelation, prepared already by the disrobing motive in the dance of the women. But what was earthly, theatrical, and sultry there, here is divine and tragic and the deepest reality. The woman is destroyed by this pure, supernatural, coolly glowing nudity” (Kessler, Harry. Journey to the Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler, 1880-1918. , 2013. P.608). Here the antinomy of the „masquerade” (in the enumeration of the „ earthly, theatrical, and sultry”) and the supernatural purity is most explicit, although it reveals itself in a similar gesture of „unveiling”.

Hofmannsthal and Kessler envisaged the ballet for the Vaslav Nijinsky, and the interpretation of Nijinsky’s talent which Kessler presents in his letters to Hofmannsthal, and later on Hofmannsthal in his letters to Strauss, is extremely important.

Although the researchers often name Parsifal („a pure fool”) as a prototype for Joseph in this ballet, Kessler and Hofmannsthal rather ignored that aspect of Nijinsky’s art which would be associated with the definition of „God’s clown”. But Nijinsky’s numerous graphic images and the contemporary descriptions of such parts as Petrushka or Fawn leaves no doubt of the great deal of romantic irony in his art. Kessler and Hofmannsthal, however, thought about a God-searching work in its pure form (thus, causing great problems to Richard Strauss…).

At a metatheatrical level, „The Legend of Joseph” was about to become the peak of „deification” of Nijinsky. An unexpected obstacle derived, however, from another aspect of the same cult. Namely, a young woman named Romola Pulszky expanded her Nijinsky-cult to that extent that became a dancer herself, entered Diaghilev’s compony and went on an oversee tour with her idol (while Diaghilev stayed in Europe because of a prejudice)… Nobody knows how the seduction of the prospective Joseph took place, but Nijinsky left the ship being already engaged to Romola.

By this, he canceled all the „deification’s plans”, because became unwanted in the Diaghilev’s company. Only at this point Kessler seems to become aware that Nijinsky used to be Diaghilev’s lover and that the story of his rise had also this side. With uneasiness and only by vague suggestions he tries to explain the whole situation to Hofmannsthal. Whatever later commentators would say about the latent homosexuality of the both, for Kessler and Hofmannsthal the theme remained rather a taboo.

Eventually it was another great dancer of the 20^th century, Leonid Massin who danced Joseph at the premiere. Kessler had finally to reconcile with the fact. „…Nijinsky was a Greek god, Massin is a small, wild and graceful animal of the steppes” – so he writes to Hofmannsthal on the 29^th of March, 1914. And in his diary: „He will be able to do much of the role better and more naturally than Nijinsky. Not, however, the supernatural radiance that encompasses Joseph” (Kessler, Harry. Journey to the Abyss… P.628).

The production ran just few times in Paris and then in London; short after it the WWI began. In the history of Diaghilev’s enterprise “The Legend of Josephs” tends to be omitted altogether or mentioned as a failure or only a half success. Its place in this history, is, however, unique. Thought as the strongest sublimation of Nijinsky’s art, which suddenly and in the most mundane way revealed its vulnerability, the performance became an important COMMENT both to this idea and to what had happened offstage before the premiere.

That’s why I became interested with what could have happened with the character who was destined to remain a secondary one, namely with the Potiphar’s Wife.

Although quite a lot of the writings both of Kessler and Hofmannsthal is dedicated to this character, as for the prospective theatrical realization of the work practically the whole attention was concentrated on the main hero. Thus, as unexpected sounds Kessler’s diary entry on June 16, 1913. „Tea at Tata Golubeff. /…/ She… asks me to give her the role of Potiphar’s Wife in my ballet (together with Casati, Rubinstein, Karsavina, Vollmoeller, Nelidova she is already the sixth one in the line for this still unready role)” (the entry is absent in the English-language edition).

It is possible, then, that the struggle around this part was equally strong. Among the performers mentioned above Tamara Karsavina and Norina Vollmoeller (Maria Carmi) were eventually cast for this role but only for the later performances in London. In Paris Maria Kouznetsova (which had become famous as Salome in Strauss’s opera) was cast for the premiere. In Vienna the role went equally to an outstanding singer (Maria Gutheil-Schoder), in Berlin it was played by the star of the drama theatre Tilla Durieux…

Sure, in 1913 the ballet was still not ready,  but, as one can derive from Kessler´s list, the fact, that the part of Potiphar’s Wife wouldn’t demand much of dance skills, was somehow known; eventually, while Joseph is defined as „a dancer and a dreamer”, his seducer, whom Joseph’s high dream amazes and attracts, is actually deprived of the access to it – because she also has no access to dance…

But „candidates” for this role should not know these details yet; the role attracts also the adepts of „life as art” concept: Luisa Casati, Ida Rubinstein or eventually Tata Golubeff. No doubt, they see such a role as important in their self-fashioning…

In respect of all these expectations, the traces which the first performers of Potiphar’s Wife left in the theatrical history seem to be miniscule. How could this happen? Karsavina, whom Kessler mentions in this list, but who seemed never to struggle for this part (simply the idea to write a ballet „for Nijinsky and Karsavina” belonged to the initial ones, see the plan for „Amor and Psyche”, Hofmannsthal und  Kessler, Briefwechsel… S.334-5), writes in her memoirs about the fact of receiving this role at the guest performances in London: „When the plan of Diaghileff to have an interpreter of singular beauty for Potiphar’s wife failed, I accepted the part without my usual doubts as to whether I was fit for it. (Karsavina, Tamara. Theatre Street. N.Y., 1961. P.244). As if this role simply could not demand anything more than „singular beauty”…

This result, however, bothered neither Kessler nor Hofmannsthal… The role begins to mean somewhat more – at least for Kessler – only when played by Tilla Durieux, in 1921.

All this I try to make out. Those who wrote about this production strangely based their opinions only on several London reviews… But in the collection of the French National Library there is enough reviews from the premiere in Paris, in the collection of theatre studies at Cologne University one may find a lot of German correspondence from the same premiere, and in the Dance Archive in Cologne there is a book dedicated to Amy Schwaninger, who is claimed to be the first one to transfer the role of Potiphar’s Wife from pantomime – to dance!