David Dickinson - Death Comes to the Ballets Russes

At eleven o’clock Powerscourt the speechwriter was on parade on the stage of the Royal Opera House. The journalists had their notebooks open and pencils ready. Powerscourt’s representative in Covent Garden was Lord Roderick Johnston, chairman of the Royal Opera House and a dozen other companies:

‘. . a sad day indeed in the long history of friendship between our two countries. . young life, so full of promise, so brutally cut short. . extend our deepest sympathy to the ballet authorities in St Petersburg and to the theatre school where the young man learned his trade over so many years. . sympathy and condolences to the bereaved family who live, we understand, just off that great artery of life in the Russian capital, the Nevskii Prospekt. .’

The other Powerscourt was being shown to a seat in the residence of Richard Wagstaff Gilbert, whose walls were filled with a fine collection of English landscapes.

‘Mr Gilbert,’ Powerscourt began, ‘how kind of you to see me at short notice this morning. Lady Ripon asked me to look into the sad affair of your nephew. Let me say how sorry I am. It must be terrible to have the joy of a dear relative come to stay, only for that stay to be so tragically cut short.’

‘Our capital has been graced in recent years with many musical delights from your great country. Only last year did we first make acquaintance with Monsieur Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. . think I can say without exception that we have fallen in love with that ballet, so original, so full of life, and that the love affair continues with as much passion today as it showed that first day they danced in London. .’

‘Thank you very much for coming to see me, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Gilbert. ‘It is much appreciated. He was such a dear boy, Alexander, so much loved by all who knew him.’

There was something about the way Richard Gilbert looked at you, Powerscourt thought, a combination of slyness and a leer, that left you thinking his main objective was to get the better of you, or to win you over to some shady deal.

‘There is this morning, Mr Gilbert, a press conference at the Royal Opera House with the chairman and the general manager telling the journalists what has been going on and outlining the opera house’s plan for keeping the Press in touch in the days ahead. We, Lady Ripon and I, did not feel that the strain of those journalistic enquiries, the constant questioning of your staff at work and the people who look after you here, was one that it would be fair to subject you to at this time.’

‘Let us not forget,’ the chairman was nearing the end of the speech now, ‘the wider context in which this affair sits, the close relations between our two countries and the joint role we play in international affairs. . These are troubled times, with the threat of war, which seemed so impossible before, now threatening to darken the lives of all the countries on the continent of Europe. Let us hope that the flame of friendship between England and Russia, which does so much to keep peace alive in our time, may burn brighter yet because of this tragedy. . may it serve to bring about a happy state where the people by the Neva may live at peace with the people of the Thames and people all over Europe, and that the forces working for international peace may be stronger tomorrow than they were yesterday. .’

‘I am grateful for that, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Richard Gilbert, ‘truly I am. It has always been my policy to avoid the limelight; to work, if not in the shadows, in the quiet places.’

Powerscourt could see that for once the man was speaking the whole, unvarnished truth.

‘I am an old man now, Lord Powerscourt. I have no children of my own. But the nephews and their parents have always been a source of great delight to me.’

I’ll say amen to that, Powerscourt said to himself, and a great deal of playing rather wicked games with them and their families.

‘. . thought I would outline to you gentlemen some of our proposals for keeping you in touch with this terrible crime.’ The general manager was on his feet, the pens still moving rapidly across the notebooks. ‘We propose to hold a conference with you every morning at this time to bring you up to date with events, bringing in representatives of the police and the Ballets Russes as appropriate. . happy to answer questions except that the Ballets Russes, who will probably be represented by their principal choreographer, Monsieur Fokine, are not with us this morning. He will be speaking in French. .’ There was a deep sigh from the journalists, a sigh of regret for not paying enough attention to French lessons at school, and a cry of pain at the thought of trying to extract money for the services of a French translator from a miserly news editor, but the general manager threw them a lifeline. ‘We shall of course be offering the services of translators in French and Russian as required. .’

‘There has been a change in our plans, Lord Powerscourt. Originally my sister in St Petersburg was going to come and bring Alexander home in person. But that has proved difficult to organize and, obviously, a cross that my sister does not feel able to bear. We have engaged a courier from Thomas Cook to bring the boy home, starting the day after tomorrow. He will be away for at least ten days.’

‘Our daily programme will include another conference at four o’clock here at the Royal Opera House. This afternoon we will be pleased and proud to offer you the Russian Ambassador, who asks you to remember that his only comments on the terrible affair will be made here this afternoon. Otherwise he regrets to say that the pressure of business is such that he will be unable to answer individual requests for comment or interview. And the following afternoon we shall have senior spokesmen, not as yet finalized, but definitely coming from the Russian Orthodox Church, to speak of Alexander Taneyev. .’

‘I’m sure that is the right thing to do,’ said Powerscourt, ‘to commission Thomas Cook to take the body from London to St Petersburg. I think you are all very sensible, Mr Gilbert. I have made that journey a number of times and it is a very tiring business, particularly the final stretch when you feel surrounded by the vast size of Russia. Are your other nephews going to the funeral?’

‘Alas, no, the pressure of work or study is too great for them to be away so long. If you feel you need to be in touch with the family in St Petersburg, I have arranged that Lady Ripon could leave a message at the embassy there. They have very kindly given permission. The Ambassador is a former partner of mine at whist.’

Powerscourt took his leave a few minutes before the press conference broke up at the Royal Opera House. The general manager had done his job very efficiently, and two or three of the better brought-up journalists made a point of shaking him by the hand as they left. The one thing they had to be thankful for, as Patrick Butler of The Times had pointed out, was that there were unlikely to be many entries in the London telephone directories in the name of Taneyev.

Second position of the leg — the dancer stands with feet turned out along a straight line as in first position, but with the heels about one foot apart. The term seconded generally means to or at the side.

Second position of the arm — raises your arms to the side. Keep your arms slightly rounded. Lower your elbows slightly below your shoulders. Make sure your wrists are lower than your elbows. Keep your shoulders down, your neck long and your chin up.

Captain Yuri Gorodetsky was very worried about what his master in Paris would say when he heard the news. The call was booked for four o’clock on the afternoon of the great gathering at the Royal Opera House. As ever, the call came through on time. The General did not. As usual he was in the building but nobody knew precisely where he was. Messengers would be sent to search for the missing leader. Gorodetsky always wondered what it was that caused the delay. Did the General pop down to his basement to check the ordered ranks of his files? Did he nip into the library to catch up on the latest newspapers from Moscow and St Petersburg? The answer was none of these. The General merely felt that his presence would carry more weight if people had to wait around to talk to him. Being wanted, as it were, he would be more wondered at.