John Percival: Hodson's version in America was interesting, but not quite convincing

There are two things everyone knows about ballet. One is that Tchaikovsky wrote Swan Lake; the other that there was a riot on the first night of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Most of us have seen Swan Lake; very few saw the original Rite of Spring (eight performances only) with choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky. Although Nijinsky was the great star dancer of his time, the four original works he created fared less well.

Only the first of them, L'Après-midi d'un Faune, to Debussy's music, has had continuous performances since its 1912 premiere, and it varies according to the memory of who put it on. But the erotic, angular originality of its brief content was enough to guarantee the stark unpredictability of Nijinsky's genius. Too bad that not only The Rite of Spring, his biggest and most daring concept, but also the small-scale modern-dress Jeux (more Debussy) and the later Till Eulenspiegel (Richard Strauss) were dropped by Diaghilev Ballet where he worked.

The problem was not only that dancers and some spectators found them difficult, but that Serge Diaghilev was in love with Nijinsky and could not forgive him for getting married. So when he wanted to revive the music of Rite seven years later, he had new dances made by Nijinsky's successor, Leonide Massine. That version, incidentally, is the best I ever saw. Ironically, the Royal Ballet turned it down when Massine proposed it after World War Two, and insisted on a new work, which flopped.

Nijinsky's Jeux was the Diaghilev Ballet's first production in a contemporary setting. Rite, made simultaneously, but to a scenario devised by Stravinsky and the designer Nicholas Roerich, followed the more frequent Diaghilev preference for treating the rituals of ancient Russia. The chance to see Roerich's wonderful settings and costumes reconstituted on stage is perhaps the most valuable feature of the new production, since the accuracy of the choreography is, to say the least, debatable.

Millicent Hodson's version does provide an impression of the general pattern Nijinsky adopted, which turns out to be surprisingly detailed and varied. The choreography, though, had to be guessed.

I saw Hodson's version 15 years ago when it was done for the American Joffrey Ballet: interesting, yes; convincing - not altogether.

Latterly, many choreographers have done their own thing to this score, with versions by Maurice Béjart, John Neumeier and Pina Bausch all worth looking for. They, I guess, might give more lasting pleasure, but since Nijinsky was the man who started it all, even an approximation of his must have some appeal.