Igor and Coco
by Sedgwick Clark
A love affair between Igor Stravinsky and Coco Chanel must be among the least expected subjects for sexy summer film fare. It should come as no surprise that the composer of a ballet in which a sacrificial virgin dances herself to death and the designer of the 20th-century’s most famous perfume had sex lives. But the image of this bare-assed couple coupling on the floor is bound to stretch one’s comfort level.
Dutch director Jan Kounen’s cinematographic concern for historical accuracy is evident in every frame of Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, which opens in New York on June 11. The depiction of Le Sacre du printemp‘s scandalous premiere in the Champs-Elyseés Theatre, on May 29, 1913, takes the breath away, and impresario Sergei Diaghilev, choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky, and conductor Pierre Monteux look uncannily true to life. Cut to seven years later. Chanel, who had attended the ballet premiere, is a rich and successful designer. Stravinsky is a refugee composer in Paris, struggling to support his family of four children and a wife who suffers from tuberculosis. They meet, are attracted, and Chanel offers him and his family the opportunity to live in her villa to compose. The inevitable occurs.
The story fascinates, but the pacing is glacial even for an “art” film. Director Kounen remains emotionally at arm’s length, and Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen’s Stravinsky is defiantly one-dimensional, taking the composer’s aversion to expression in his early photos too much to heart: “I will not speak until you have finished taking my picture,” Stravinsky told an interviewer in 1939. “I must be photographed plainly, seriously. I detest being snapped in so-called action, with the mouth open.” Only later in life did he allow candid photos to be taken.
I don’t know much about Coco, but she comes off as calculating and self-involved rather than passionate in Anna Mouglalis’s icy portrayal. Consequently their love scenes are pretty sexless, despite the nudity. No surprise that the actress found those scenes boring to shoot, according to last Sunday’s New York Times. “We just wanted it to be over.” Igor’s consumptive wife, Catherine (Elena Morozova), is the only one of the three principals allowed to have convincing human qualities.
Perhaps this intellectualized film is all true to Chris Greenhalgh’s novel. But Stravinsky told his amanuensis, Robert Craft, that the opening night of Le Sacre du printemps made him angrier than he had ever been, before or since, and Mikkelsen betrays only minor annoyance at the pandemonium. Anyone who knows and loves Stravinsky’s music will feel that there is much more to the man than this.
Le Grande Macabre Broadcast This Week
For those unfortunates who couldn’t get into the New York Philharmonic’s sold-out run of the Ligeti opera a couple of weeks ago, the performance will be broadcast countrywide this week. Tune into 105.9 FM WQXR in New York on Thursday, June 10, at 9:00 p.m.; check local listings for full details or visit nyphil.org to listen online.
Quotable Chuckle
“Ligeti was a fine composer, probably a genius, but Le Grand Macabre is not an immortal composition. It is not to be confused with the B-minor Mass, no matter how much it’s ballyhooed.”—Jay Nordlinger, City Arts, June 15, 2010
Jack Beeson (1921-2010)
I’m sad to report that only a month after writing about American composer Jack Beeson (“Why We Left Muncie,” May 6), word came from his publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, of his death in New York on Sunday, June 6, of congestive heart failure. The 88-year-old composer had won an ASCAP Honor on May 21, 2009, and an American Music Center Letter of Distinction on May 3, 2010. In January of this year, Beeson was one of the American composers whose music was performed at Juilliard’s invaluable FOCUS! festival. Reviewing the concerts for MusicalAmerica.com, Peter G. Davis noted the “two lovely arias from The Sweet Bye and Bye (1956) by Jack Beeson, perhaps the only composer of the period whose elegantly crafted operas will certainly live on.”
Looking forward
My week’s scheduled concert:
6/10 Avery Fisher Hall. New York Philharmonic/Alan Gilbert; Lisa Batiashvili, violin. Lindberg: Arena; Sibelius: Violin Concerto; Brahms: Symphony No. 2.