German cigarette card by Eckstein-Halpaus, Dresden, in the series 'Die Tanzbühnen der Welt', Group 2: 'The dance stages of foreign countries', no. 95. Photo: Lipnitzki. Caption: Serge Lifar, former star dancer in Diaghilev's ballets, now working as a principal dancer and occasional ballet master at the Paris Opera, in his latest creation ‘The Youth’.
Serge Lifar (1905-1986) was a French dancer, choreographer and ballet master of Ukrainian origin. He was one of the greatest male ballet dancers of the 20th century and considered the successor to Nijinsky in the Ballet Russes. From 1930 on, he was immensely successful in his ballet creations. During three decades, he led the Paris Opéra Ballet, enriched its repertoire, reestablished its reputation as a leading ballet company, and enhanced the position of male dancers in a company long dominated by ballerinas.
Serge Lifar (Сергій Лифар) was born Serhіy Mуkhailovуch Lуfar in Kyiv, Russian Empire. His birth year is officially shown as 1904 (as on a 2004 Ukrainian stamp commemorating his centenary), but other sources say 1905. He was the son of a civil servant. Lifar had a late start as a dancer. He was introduced to dance in 1920 by Bronislava Nijinska, under whom he began to study. In 1921 he left the Soviet Union to join Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Diaghilev sent him to Turin to improve his technique with the eminent teacher Enrico Cecchetti. He made his debut at the Ballets Russes in 1923 and became the premier danseur of the company in 1925. The company revolutionised ballet by merging modern dance, music and art into a dynamic whole. At first a vehicle for bringing Russian art to the West, it was ostracised by the Revolutionary Soviet government and became a platform for collaboration between Russian and Western artists. Lifar was very handsome, had an athletic body, and a great desire to be liked. He was the impresario's favourite and considered the successor to Nijinsky. At the age of 21, he was cast in Nijinska’s 'Roméo et Juliette' (1926) opposite Tamara Karsavina, who was twice his age. In George Balanchine’s comic ballet 'Barabau' (1925), Lifar was a police sergeant chasing an Italian peasant. He originated leading roles in three ballets by Balanchine for the Ballet Russes, including 'La Chatte' (1927) with a score by French composer Henri Sauguet and based on an Aesop fable, which featured Lifar’s famous entrance in a ‘chariot’ formed by his male companions, 'Apollon Musagète' (1928) with a score by Stravinsky depicting the birth of the Greek God, Apollo and his encounter with the three muses, Callipe, Polyhymnia, and Terpsichore, and 'Le Fils prodigue' (The Prodigal Son) (1929) with a score by Prokofiev, the last great ballet of the Diaghilev era. Anna Kisselgoff in The New York Times about his charisma: “His dark exotic looks and athletic body gave him an animal intensity. A child's eye view is unreliable, but in 1949, on a trip to Paris, I saw his portly but still-dramatic presence dominate the stage in Icare. The image remains.“
At the death of Diaghilev in 1929, Serge Lifar was invited by Jacques Rouché to take over the directorship of the Paris Opéra Ballet. Lifar was 24 at the time. The Paris Opéra Ballet had fallen into decline in the late 19th century. He gave the company a new strength and purpose initiating the re-birth of ballet in France and began to create the first of many ballets for that company. In 1932 he was awarded the title of 'professeur de danse' and began reforms of the Opéra’s school to enable its dancers to perform the more modern ballets. Lifar was immensely successful, essentially in his ballet creations, notably with 'Les Créatures de Prométhée' ('The Creatures of Prometheus) (1929), a personal version of 'Le Spectre de la rose' (1931) and 'L'Après-midi d'un faune' (1935), 'Icare' (Icarus) (1935) with costumes and decor by Picasso, 'Istar' (1941) and 'Suite en Blanc' (1943), which he qualified as neoclassical, all created for the Paris Opera. He also worked as a choreographer for some films. Examples are Nuits de feu/Nights of Fire (Marcel L'Herbier, 1937), starring Gaby Morlay, and La Mort du Cygne/The Death of the Swan (Jean Benoît-Lévy, 1937), the first feature film set entirely in the ballet world. As ballet master of the Paris Opera from 1930 to 1944 and from 1947 to 1958, Lifar devoted himself to the restoration of the technical level of the Paris Opera Ballet to return it to its place as one of the best companies in the world. During those three decades as director of the Paris Opéra Ballet, he lead the company through turbulent times during World War II and the German occupation of France. In 1958, he was forced to resign from the Paris Opéra Ballet. In 1945, charges charges of collaborationism with the German authorities had caused him the first time to leave and become director of the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo. Lifar, cleared of the charges and given a year's suspension, returned as director of the Paris Opera Ballet in 1947.
During his career, Serge Lifar made an effort to revitalize dance and thought the basic principles of ballet and the five positions of the feet denied mobility for the dancer and invented sixth and seventh positions with the feet turned in not out like the first five positions. In 1935 he published his confessio fidei titled 'Le manifesto du chorégraphe', proposing laws about the independence of choreography. He proclaimed that dance, as an independent art, could exist without music. He also wrote a biography of Diaghilev titled 'Serge Diaghilev, His Life, His Work, His Legend: An Intimate Biography' published by Putnam, London, 1940. He brought the Paris Opéra Ballet to America and performed to full houses at the New York City Center. Audiences were enthusiastic and had great admiration for the company of dancers. According to Wikipedia, he undoubtedly influenced Yvette Chauviré, Janine Charrat and Roland Petit. During his life, he also appeared in a few films. The best known is Jean Cocteau’s Le testament d'Orphée, ou ne me demandez pas pourquoi!/Testament of Orpheus (1960), in which he played Orphée's Friend. Two years later he could be seen in a segment of Le crime ne paie pas/Crime Does Not Pay (Gérard Oury, 1962) with Rosanna Schiaffino. In 1977 the Paris Opéra Ballet devoted a full evening to his choreography. In 1983 he was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (1983). Serge Lifar died in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1986, aged 81 and was buried in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery. Editions Sauret published his memoirs titled 'Les Mémoires d’Icare' posthumously in 1993. The title references one of his greatest roles in the ballet 'Icare', “the story of the ballet is based on the ancient Greek myth of Icarus whose father Daedalus built him a pair of artificial wings. Disobeying his father’s orders, Icarus flies too close to the sun, which melts the wax in his wings and causes him to plunge to his death.” The Serge Lifar Foundation was set up in 1989 by Lifar's devoted companion, glamorous blonde Swedish countess Lillian Ahlefeldt-Laurvig. In 2012, jewels from the Countess' estate were auctioned at Sotheby's, with the proceeds going to the Foundation.
Sources: Anna Kisselgoff (The New York Times), Colin Gleadell (The Telegraph), Andros on Ballet, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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German cigarette card by Eckstein-Halpaus, Dresden, in the series 'Die Tanzbühnen der Welt', Group 4: 'Die Revue- und Varietébühne', no. 230. Photo: Jacobi. Caption: Katta Sterna. Solo dancer of the Matray Ballet, in the charming dance pantomime 'Das Märchen' (The Fairy Tale).
German actress and dancer Katta Sterna (1897-1983) was the wife of actor-dancer Ernst Matray and sister of actress-dancer Maria Solveig. After a career in silent films, she became one of the personalities of Modern Dance in Germany. The rise of the Nazis broke the career of the Jewish artist.
Katta Stern was born Katharina Ida Stern in Charlottenburg near Berlin in 1897. Stern was the daughter of the engineer Georg Joseph Stern and his wife Bertha Elisabeth, née Schmidt. Katharina was born into an artistic family. Her sisters were also active in the entertainment business and her aunt was the famous artist Käthe Kollwitz. Her sister Gregola appeared on stage with the stage name Regula Keller, her sister Johanna became well-known as the actress Johanna Hofer (married to director Fritz Kortner) and her sister Marie acted on stage and in front of the camera as Maria Solveg. Katta had a difficult puberty and behaved unconcentrated and impulsive. Her parents sought advice from Professor Theodor Ziehen of the Psychiatric and Mental Hospital of the Charité at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. He misjudged her as incurable and recommended that she be placed in a sanatorium. But luckily her parents did not comply with this judgment. When Katharina saw the famous Anna Pawlowa dance she decided to become a dancer too. She took lessons from the Austrian dancer and choreographer Grete Wiesenthal and briefly afterwards she got her first engagements at the German opera house where she adopted the pseudonym Katta Sterna. In 1913, she met the actor and dancer Ernst Matray and they became a couple, professionally as well as privately. Matray who was married to the actress Greta Schröder at that time separated from his wife. She also appeared as a solo dancer in the Matray Ballet.
Katta Sterna made her stage debut as an actress under the direction of Max Reinhardt in William Shakespeare's 'Sommernachtstraum' (A Midsummer Night's Dream) at Ernst Matray's side. It was followed by many other appearances together, often as a dancing duo, in the next years. In 1914, she already made her film debut in the silent short Lumpchens GlückLumpy's Luck (N.N., 1914). Soon followed parts in Das Sportsmädel/The Sports Girl (Ernst Matray, 1914) with Paul Hartmann, Teufelchen/Little Devil (Ernst Matray, 1914) and Die verkaufte Braut/The Bartered Bride (Ernst Matray, 1915) with Alice Hechy. But her film performances were rare. Her other silent films were Marionetten/Marionettes (Richard Löwenbein, 1915), the serial Ticky-Tacky (Richard Löwenbein, 1918-1919), Ein genialer Einfall/A Brilliant Idea (N.N., 1919), Das Verlobungsfernrohr/The Engagement Telescope (N.N., 1919), Flimmerherzen/Flickering Hearts (N.N., 1920), O du Quetschfalte meines Herzens/O You Crease of my Heart (N.N., 1920), and Kameraden/Comrades (Kurt Courant, 1921). Her only sound film was Tingel Tangel (Jaap Speyer, 1930) with Elisabeth Pinajeff, Ernst Verebes and Fritz Kampers.
Katta Sterna became one of the personalities of the Modern Dance movement. Her dancing filled the public with enthusiasm. In contemporary literature, her dance style was described as a new kind of pantomime, it was ‘based entirely on mimo-dramatic gestures. As much as the spiritual influence can be felt, it is also closely interwoven with rhythm. Above all, one senses a desire for movement; a desire to let off steam in a spiritually imbued, but no longer spiritually directed emotion'. In the 1920s Sterna did many projects with Ernst Matray and her sister Maria Solveg, like 'Die grüne Flöte' (The Green Flute, 1925), 'Vor dem Spiegel' (In Front of the Mirror, 1925) and 'Sommernachtstraum' (A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1928). When the National Socialists seized power in Germany in 1933, the career of Katta Sterna and her sisters became strongly restricted because they were considered to be 'Volljüdinnen'. Sterna could no longer appear in Germany. Tours in England and the USA followed but an emigration failed. She had to return to Germany and was forced to retire from public life. Katta Sterna died in 1984 in Berlin. She was 86. Her estate is preserved in the German Dance Archive in Cologne.
Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.
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