Frustrations Encountered in “Pillar of Fire”

If the YouTube video of Anthony Tudor’s pioneering psychological ballet “Jardin aux lilas” (lilac garden) was frustrating for its lack of metadata, the account of “Pillar of Fire” has better background information but serious problems with the video itself. When Tudor made his move from London to New York in 1940, one of the first ballets he set for what is now American Ballet Theatre was “Jardin aux lilas.” However, a little more that two years later, he unleashed another psychological bombshell with “Pillar of Fire,” which was given its first performance on April 8, 1942. Once again, he took on the travails of a woman with intense emotional difficulties; but both the narrative and Tudor’s choice of music made for an entirely new perspective of revealing the psyche through dance.

In Balanchine’s New Complete Stories of the Great Ballets, George Balanchine found the perfect sentence to introduce “Pillar of Fire” as follows:

This ballet tells a story to a piece of music that was inspired by a story.

The piece of music was Arnold Schoenberg’s Opus 4, “Verklärte Nacht” (transfigured night). The story that inspired it was a poem with the same title by Richard Dehmel, which he had published in his collection Weib und Welt (woman and world). The story unfolds in a compact sequence of six stanzas, which deserve repeating in the English translation by Mary Whittall on the Wikipedia page for Schoenberg’s composition:

Two people are walking through a bare, cold wood;

the moon keeps pace with them and draws their gaze.

The moon moves along above tall oak trees,

there is no wisp of cloud to obscure the radiance

to which the black, jagged tips reach up.

A woman’s voice speaks:

“I am carrying a child, and not by you.

I am walking here with you in a state of sin.

I have offended grievously against myself.

I despaired of happiness,

and yet I still felt a grievous longing

for life’s fullness, for a mother’s joys

and duties; and so I sinned,

and so I yielded, shuddering, my sex

to the embrace of a stranger,

and even thought myself blessed.

Now life has taken its revenge,

and I have met you, met you.”

She walks on, stumbling.

She looks up; the moon keeps pace.

Her dark gaze drowns in light.

A man’s voice speaks:

“Do not let the child you have conceived

be a burden on your soul.

Look, how brightly the universe shines!

Splendour falls on everything around,

you are voyaging with me on a cold sea,

but there is the glow of an inner warmth

from you in me, from me in you.

That warmth will transfigure the stranger’s child,

and you bear it me, begot by me.

You have transfused me with splendour,

you have made a child of me.”

He puts an arm about her strong hips.

Their breath embraces in the air.

Two people walk on through the high, bright night.

What is particularly interesting is that this entire narrative unfolds over the course of only a few minutes, while Schoenberg’s music, which follows the poem stanza-by-stanza, unfolds over the course of somewhat less than half an hour.

To do justice to both the poem and the music, Tudor therefore had to develop a more extended narrative, which would reflect Schoenberg’s music as effectively as that music had reflected Dehmel’s poem. Curiously, he engaged a device that had served him well in “Jardin aux lilas.” Only the principal character, the woman introduced in Dehmel’s first stanza, has a name: Hagar. The other character in the poem is known only as “the Man.”

Next, Tudor realized that he had to replace the woman’s narration in the poem with action. Thus, Tudor added the character of “the Man in the house across the way,” who is the father of the child that Hagar is carrying. Tudor then fleshes out the context by giving Hagar two sisters. The younger one is still not quite a woman and is full of vivacious expression and a heart just beginning to yearn for love. The older one is stern and becomes Hagar’s greatest source of fear after her encounter with the Man in the house across the way.

As a result, the substance of the narrative extends Dehmel’s account of two individuals to four: Hagar, her sister, and the two men. Once again Tudor handles all the subtle twists in the relationships, endowing these characters with the same rich palette of invention that he brought to “Jardin aux lilas.” Furthermore, just as the earlier ballet had a “Greek chorus” of wedding guests, a similarly small ensemble of neighbors weaves itself way among the principals. This time, however, there are two groups, the “upstanding” villagers (sometimes called “Lovers-in-Innocence”) and the more licentious ones (“Lovers-in-Experience”).

All this makes for a viewing experience that equals, if not betters, that of “Jardin aux lilas.” Unfortunately, YouTube has not done well by facilitating an attentive viewing experience. The source of the video was a PBS broadcast of an American Ballet Theatre performance in 1973. David Coll (one of the Lovers-in-Experience in that performance) seems to have made a videotape recording of that broadcast; but the video quality (including “tearing” across the top of the image and poor focus that often impedes the view of facial expression) leaves much to be desired. Nevertheless, Coll created an upload for a YouTube video of the ballet in its entirety. On the other hand another user, going under the name Gualtier Maldè (clearly a fan of Giuseppe Verdi), uploaded the same source in two separate parts. Unfortunately, the overall intensity of both the first video and the second video is so dim that one can barely see the movement; and homing in on facial expression is even more problematic. Furthermore, Maldè never took the trouble to create a playlist for these two parts, meaning that the viewer has to have their respective URLs at hand before beginning.

In other words this is a perfect example of the old adage that anything that is free is worth the price. That said, however, it is worth approaching Coll’s upload with the necessary level of generous patience. “Pillar of Fire” has as significant a place in the repertoire of psychological ballets as “Jardin aux lilas” does. A version that is a bit frustrating to watch is still better than no version at all.