Circus Polka
Encyclopedia
Circus Polka: For a Young Elephant was written by Igor Stravinsky
in 1942. He composed it for a ballet production the choreographer George Balanchine
did for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
. The ballet was performed by fifty elephants and fifty ballerinas. In 1944, Stravinsky published an orchestration
of the piece, which is now part of the repertoire of many orchestras.
's Ballets Russes
, choreographed the ballet version of Stravinsky's Le chant du rossignol
. This was the start of a long friendship and many years of collaboration, which continued after both emigrated to the United States in the 1930s.
In late 1941, the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus made Balanchine the unusual proposal to do the choreography for a ballet involving the circus's famous elephant group in the spring of the following year in New York. Balanchine immediately suggested bringing in Stravinsky, much to the delight of the circus company. However, Stravinsky was only contacted by phone on January 12, 1942. Balanchine would later recount the conversation as follows:
Although Stravinsky was busy with other projects at the time, he negotiated a high fee with the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus for a short instrumental, which he composed within a few days. The piano version of Circus Polka, subtitled "For a Young Elephant" as an allusion to the phone conversation with Balanchine, was finished on February 5, 1942.
Although the piece is, according to its name, a polka
, it does contain a number of changes in rhythm. It only sounds like a polka towards the end, but this part is actually a borrowing from Franz Schubert
's Marche militaire No. 1
in D major, D. 733. Stravinsky always denied that this was a parody of the Marche militaire. He later called the whole piece a satire, the musical equivalent to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
's drawings, but his notes do not reflect this.
By the time the ballet was performed, Stravinsky was no longer involved with the project. The arrangement of the piece for an organ
and a concert band
was done by David Raksin
. Balanchine choreographed the Circus Polka for fifty elephants and fifty human dancers, led by the cow elephant Modoc and by Balanchine's wife and principal ballerina Vera Zorina
respectively. The elephants, including the bulls, were forced to wear pink ballet tutu
s. Reporters were at first concerned that Stravinsky's music might cause the elephants to panic. Balanchine was eventually able to teach Modoc the choreography.
The show, advertised as a "choreographic Tour de Force", premiered at Madison Square Garden
on April 9, 1942. The performance was successful and the crowd was particularly enthusiastic about Balanchine's extraordinary ballet. After this debut, Ringling Brothers performed the ballet another forty-two times, but Stravinsky did not attend any of the shows.
in January 1944 with Stravinsky as director. During the following months a number of charity concerts to support the U.S. Army fighting in World War II were held and broadcast over the radio. Stravinsky reported, that after one such broadcast he received a telegram from an elephant called Bessie who had taken part in the ballet in 1942, and whom he then met in Los Angeles. After listening to another such broadcast, Charles de Gaulle
ordered the sheet music for the piece and took it back home to France. The orchestration soon became part of the repertoire of many orchestras, and is popular to this day, especially at children's concerts.
George Balanchine re-choreographed the piece for a one-time performance by students from the School of American Ballet
Monday, November 5, 1945, at Carnegie Hall
which was directed by Lincoln Kirstein
. After Jerome Robbins
became ballet master at City Ballet in 1972, he created a new ballet to Stravinsky's music featuring young dance students and an adult ringmaster for their Stravinsky Festival. Since, it has become a regular piece, often with a guest ringmaster, most notably Mikhail Baryshnikov
and most recently with Robert La Fosse.
In 2006, a children's book detailing the history of the Circus Polka, Leda Schubert's Ballet of the Elephants, appeared in the United States.
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
in 1942. He composed it for a ballet production the choreographer George Balanchine
George Balanchine
George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...
did for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is an American circus company. The company was started when the circus created by James Anthony Bailey and P. T. Barnum was merged with the Ringling Brothers Circus. The Ringling brothers purchased the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1907, but ran the circuses...
. The ballet was performed by fifty elephants and fifty ballerinas. In 1944, Stravinsky published an orchestration
Orchestration
Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...
of the piece, which is now part of the repertoire of many orchestras.
Composition
Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine first met in 1925, as Balanchine, who just had started working for Sergei DiaghilevSergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...
's Ballets Russes
Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...
, choreographed the ballet version of Stravinsky's Le chant du rossignol
Le chant du rossignol
Le chant du rossignol, commonly referred to as The Song of the Nightingale, is a symphonic poem written by Igor Stravinsky in 1917. The song is an adaptation from his earlier work, Le rossignol , an opera from 1914. The opera, based on Hans Christian Andersen's tale The Nightingale, is set in...
. This was the start of a long friendship and many years of collaboration, which continued after both emigrated to the United States in the 1930s.
In late 1941, the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus made Balanchine the unusual proposal to do the choreography for a ballet involving the circus's famous elephant group in the spring of the following year in New York. Balanchine immediately suggested bringing in Stravinsky, much to the delight of the circus company. However, Stravinsky was only contacted by phone on January 12, 1942. Balanchine would later recount the conversation as follows:
- Balanchine: "I wonder if you'd like to do a little ballet with me."
- Stravinsky: "For whom?"
- Balanchine: "For some elephants."
- Stravinsky: "How old?"
- Balanchine: "Very young."
- Stravinsky: "All right. If they are very young elephants, I will do it."
Although Stravinsky was busy with other projects at the time, he negotiated a high fee with the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus for a short instrumental, which he composed within a few days. The piano version of Circus Polka, subtitled "For a Young Elephant" as an allusion to the phone conversation with Balanchine, was finished on February 5, 1942.
Although the piece is, according to its name, a polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
, it does contain a number of changes in rhythm. It only sounds like a polka towards the end, but this part is actually a borrowing from Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
's Marche militaire No. 1
Three Marches militaires (Schubert)
The Three Marches Militaires, Op. 51, D. 733, are pieces in march form written for piano 4-hands by Franz Schubert.The first of the three is far more famous than the others...
in D major, D. 733. Stravinsky always denied that this was a parody of the Marche militaire. He later called the whole piece a satire, the musical equivalent to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an œuvre of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern...
's drawings, but his notes do not reflect this.
By the time the ballet was performed, Stravinsky was no longer involved with the project. The arrangement of the piece for an organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
and a concert band
Concert band
A concert band, also called wind band, symphonic band, symphonic winds, wind orchestra, wind symphony, wind ensemble, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of several members of the woodwind instrument family, brass instrument family, and percussion instrument family.A...
was done by David Raksin
David Raksin
David Raksin was an American composer born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With over 100 film scores and 300 television scores to his credit, he became known as the "Grandfather of Film Music." One of his earliest film assignments was as assistant to Charlie Chaplin in the composition of the score...
. Balanchine choreographed the Circus Polka for fifty elephants and fifty human dancers, led by the cow elephant Modoc and by Balanchine's wife and principal ballerina Vera Zorina
Vera Zorina
Vera Zorina was a Norwegian ballerina, musical theatre actress and choreographer.-Background:Vera Zorina was born Eva Brigitta Hartwig in Berlin, Germany. Her father Fritz was a German and her mother Billie Hartwig was Norwegian. Both were professional singers...
respectively. The elephants, including the bulls, were forced to wear pink ballet tutu
Ballet tutu
A tutu is a skirt worn as a costume in a ballet performance, often with attached bodice. It might be single layer, hanging down, or multiple layers starched and jutting out.There are several types of ballet tutu:...
s. Reporters were at first concerned that Stravinsky's music might cause the elephants to panic. Balanchine was eventually able to teach Modoc the choreography.
The show, advertised as a "choreographic Tour de Force", premiered at Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
on April 9, 1942. The performance was successful and the crowd was particularly enthusiastic about Balanchine's extraordinary ballet. After this debut, Ringling Brothers performed the ballet another forty-two times, but Stravinsky did not attend any of the shows.
Versions
Two years after he composed the piano version, Stravinsky re-arranged the Circus Polka for an orchestra. This version was premiered along with Four Norwegian Moods by the Boston Symphony OrchestraBoston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
in January 1944 with Stravinsky as director. During the following months a number of charity concerts to support the U.S. Army fighting in World War II were held and broadcast over the radio. Stravinsky reported, that after one such broadcast he received a telegram from an elephant called Bessie who had taken part in the ballet in 1942, and whom he then met in Los Angeles. After listening to another such broadcast, Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
ordered the sheet music for the piece and took it back home to France. The orchestration soon became part of the repertoire of many orchestras, and is popular to this day, especially at children's concerts.
George Balanchine re-choreographed the piece for a one-time performance by students from the School of American Ballet
School of American Ballet
The School of American Ballet is one of the most famous classical ballet schools in the world and is the associate school of the New York City Ballet, a leading international ballet company based at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. The school trains students from the...
Monday, November 5, 1945, at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
which was directed by Lincoln Kirstein
Lincoln Kirstein
Lincoln Edward Kirstein was an American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, and cultural figure in New York City...
. After Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins was an American theater producer, director, and choreographer known primarily for Broadway Theater and Ballet/Dance, but who also occasionally directed films and directed/produced for television. His work has included everything from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater...
became ballet master at City Ballet in 1972, he created a new ballet to Stravinsky's music featuring young dance students and an adult ringmaster for their Stravinsky Festival. Since, it has become a regular piece, often with a guest ringmaster, most notably Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet and American dancer, choreographer, and actor, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974...
and most recently with Robert La Fosse.
In 2006, a children's book detailing the history of the Circus Polka, Leda Schubert's Ballet of the Elephants, appeared in the United States.
Reviews
- NY Times by Alastair MacaulayAlastair MacaulayAlastair Macaulay is a dance critic for the New York Times. He was previously chief dance critic at The Times Literary Supplement and chief theater critic of the Financial Times, both of London...
, June 4, 2008
- NY Times by Alastair MacaulayAlastair MacaulayAlastair Macaulay is a dance critic for the New York Times. He was previously chief dance critic at The Times Literary Supplement and chief theater critic of the Financial Times, both of London...
, June 12, 2008