Stravinsky: Once at a Border (review)

Stravinsky narrates this autobiographical portrait of events and influences in his life. Accompanied by interviews with Stravinsky's children Milene, Soulima, and Theodore as well as with Madame Vera Stravinsky, music associate Robert Craft, pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, ballerinas Alexandra Danilova, Vera Krasovsky, Marie Rambert, Tamara Geva, choreographer George Balanchine, Stravinsky's musical assistant Alexei Haieff, Nijinsky's daughter Kyra, Diaghilev's secretary Boris Kochno, concert promoter Jean Wiener, composer Georges Auric, old friend Nicolas Nabokov, and biographer Mikhail Druskin-all contribute their experiences. Stravinsky enjoyed his "booze," and always carried playing cards, small sketch pads of staff paper, and lots of erasers. Stravinsky loved animals and visited zoos everywhere he went.

This video contains some rare archival footage, family photos, manuscripts, and extensive ballet and concert performances. Various images reappear throughout: reflections of Venice in the water, flickering Russian Orthodox Church candles, and various ballet sequences. Occasionally the narration concerns Stravinsky as a young man but the images show a frail old man (his mother's death in 1939 is accompanied by an aged Stravinsky at the Vatican). The video does not explain some images, such as a train departing (death?), or a casket in a Venetian gondola (where Stravinsky is buried); one must fill in the blanks. Other images are less easily explained: The Rake's Progress "Lullaby" is accompanied by a view of a hillside, Symphony in Three Movements with brown surf in California. The images used to represent Hollywood would more accurately depict Las Vegas with casino signs and blinking arcade lights.

"I am inventor of music"-[not a composer]. The video begins with pictures of ice chunks depicting St. Petersburg where Stravinsky was born and baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church. Stravinsky explains "I believe in the person of the Lord and the person of the devil."

Various clips of the city and the Russian landscape, the Hermitage, Sorochintsky Fair, the countryside, Marinsky Theater, and the Kirov contribute to the national setting. Stravinsky's father was a bass soloist at the opera. Music was a constant companion in their home.

Stravinsky left St. Petersburg for Paris in 1910 at the age of 27. He had received a commission from Diaghilev for Fireworks which began their collaboration resulting in other ballets Firebird, Petrushka, and Le sacre du printemps. Extensive clips of each one of these works are played throughout.

Stravinsky spent winters in Switzerland: Beaulieu-sur-Mer, later Clarens on Lake Geneva where he composed Le sacre, and then to Morges. Economic conditions during and after World War I brought about the necessity for smaller ensembles (L'histoire du soldat). Stravinsky continued to compose with Russian themes in Les noces.

When he decided to write Oedipus Rex , he asked Cocteau for a "banal" libretto. The first two were Wagnerian, the next Italian, but he finally got his Latin oratorio "banal" libretto. The video shows Cocteau drawings and text with the manuscript score. The video clip of the Oedipus performance is particularly striking with a black background.

Although Stravinsky and Diaghilev often fought or stopped speaking to each other, Stravinsky states that Diaghilev was his closest friend. Diaghilev died 19 August 1929 in Venice and was buried on the Island of San Miguel in the orthodox section. After the death of Diaghilev, Stravinsky spent years wandering: Berlin, London, Budapest, Frankfurt, Paris.

His children comment about his first marriage (first wife, Katrina was his first cousin) and also Stravinsky's reaction to the 1938-39 family deaths (his oldest daughter, his wife, and his mother). A long sequence follows with a video clip of Kyung-Wha Chung playing the Violin Concerto alternating with various scenes from the ballets, the church candles, a train departing, and Stravinsky as an old man at the Vatican.

All these deaths happened in Paris; Stravinsky left for America in 1940-to Harvard for the lectures, then on to Hollywood. From 1940 to 1948 Stravinsky lived at 1260 North Wetherly Drive. Robert Craft describes how Stravinsky composed: the dampened out-of-tune...