Let’s look at the Rite of Spring analysis and meaning. It caused such a raucous at the beginning of the twentieth century when it was first performed, so let’s look at it again as it was performed again later in the century.
The Rite of Spring was a one act ballet choreography by Kenneth MacMillan.
The music was by Stravinsky and the decor was done by Sydney Nolan.
The Rite of Spring was first performed by the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden on the 3rd of May 1962.
MacMillan’s version is very simple. The first Tableau, The Adoration of the Earth, presents a tribe in a rocky setting.
Groups of adolescents, men and women dance in a frenzy preparation to the choosing of the maiden who is to be the central figure of their fertility rite.
For the second Tableau, The Sacrifice, a backcloth featuring an enormous gold phallus shape is revealed, and the tribe are first seen sitting in a semi-circle round the edge of the stage.
Six maidens move into the centre and one is chosen as the sacrificial figure.
She is ritually daubed on the fae by the Elders, and then she dances with the tribe, sometimes held aloft, sometimes moving among their prostrate bodies.
Gradually her dance becomes more ecstatic and frenzied until she collapses dying on the ground.
The tribe cluster around her and her body is tossed high in the air as the curtain falls.
The Rite of Spring Analysis and Meaning
The first performance of The Rite of Spring by the Diaghilev Ballet in Paris on the 29th of May 1913 has passed into the annals of theatrical history as one of the most celebrated brawls in a theatre.
The shock administered by Stravinsky’s score to the decorous eardrums of the tout Paris and the originality of Nijinsky’s choreographic conception, all produced howls of outrage that still echo down through the years.
The score is now recognized as one of the most influential masterpieces of last centuries music, as in it Stravinsky was inspired by the violent Russian Spring when the whole earth seems to crack open into life.
He noted that he saw in imagination a solemn pagan ritual, wise elders seated in a circle, watching a young girl dance herself to death.
They were sacrificing her to the God of Spring.
Diaghilev produced a second version, with choreography by Massine in 1920, and other choreographers, including Maurice Bejart, have also been attracted by the score, notable among them being Kenneth MacMillan, whose staging was made for the Royal Ballet.
MacMillan was noted, ‘In Rite I wanted the movement to be primitive, but with a primitiveness of my own invention rather than an attempt to at an imagined prehistory. It does not deal with any specific race, and I believe that the actions and feeling that are shown may still be observed in people today.’
In thus delocalizing the score, MacMillan’s choreography manages to dominate Stravinsky’s massive creation so that the Russian flavor of the music does not obtrude through being unrealized.
In the first section he presents an image of the tribe as a single entity through his used of blocks of dancers who move almost in unison. These people have no individuality, only a corporate existence at this crucial moment of their year.
Their movements are frenzied, their desperate couplings, their arms thrust forward or up, the blind urgency, the almost animal intensity with which they move forward to lie flat on the ground at the very edge of the stage, preparatory to the choosing of the Virgin.
The second section finds the tribe sitting in a semi-circle awaiting the appearance of the six maidens from among whom the sacrificial victim will come.
The elders wait at the back as six girls, seemingly impelled by the music, move into the centre of this arena, and then one of them is singled out and collapses to the ground.
She is passed, prostrate, over a long column of males, she forms the central, hieratic figure held high above e the outstretched hands of the trip, like an Egyptian goddess, she dances a solo among the prostrate figures of her people, and her movements become more and more excited.
The tribe joins in agitated and eagerly anticipatory dances, and suddenly she collapses again in an orgasm that is her death and the renewed life of the earth for the tribe.
They gather around the body and toss it exultantly up to the sky as the curtain falls. The ballet is compact of fire imagery in which MacMillan has admirably suggested the urgency of the ritual and the girl’s terror, submerged in a resolute acceptance of her fate.
The choreographic manner was the freest and least classical that MacMillan had made to date, and yet it was possible to see in the shaping of the work and in much of the dance outlines a strong classically trained intelligence at work.
But what distinguishes this version from any other is the intellectual approach of the choreographer to his score The central role of the Virgin was interpreted by Monica Mason, who’s ability to invest her dancing with a superhuman grandeur and an outstanding muscular weight was wonderfully revealed in the role.
Her performance has never been equalled for sheer power. Eyes gleaming with terror, driven seemingly by forces outside herself, she gave an unforgettably moving interpretation.
I hope that this article has helped you to get a good understanding of The Rite Of Spring Analysis And Meaning.
