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Serge Lifar and the Question of Collaboration with the German

Authorities under the Occupation of Paris (1940–1949)
Article in Dance Research · November 2017

DOI: 10.3366/drs.2017.0203
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Serge Lifar and the Question of Collaboration
with the German Authorities under the
Occupation of Paris (1940–1949)
MARK FRANKO
This article examines the political and artistic activities of dancer and choreographer Serge Lifar
at the Paris Opéra during and immediately after the occupation of Paris. Although Lifar was
cleared of charges of collaborationism with the German authorities after the war, the question of
collaborationism has arisen again in light of the rehabilitation of his aesthetic by the Paris Opéra
and other dance companies. Using archival materials usually ignored by dance scholars, this
article examines Lifar’s political activities, his political convictions, and his political ambitions.
His theory of ballet as set forth in La Danse: les grands courants de la danse
académique (1938) and two of his successful ballets of this period – Joan de Zarissa
(1942) and Suite en blanc (1943) – are discussed in light of his politics.
Keywords: Serge Lifar, Paris Opéra, Jean Cocteau, Occupation,

collaborationism, collaboration, French ballet, Joan de Zarissa, Suite en blanc, ballet
and anti-Semitism
This article is a reassessment of the activities of the influential Ukrainian-

born star dancer, choreographer and ballet master of the Paris Opéra Serge
Lifar (1905–1986) during the German occupation of Paris between 1940 and
1944, and in its immediate aftermath. It is an attempt to document what it
is possible for us to know about this controversial figure at the height of his
career during the golden age of the Paris Opéra under Nazi occupation. The
Opéra was a prominent site of culture in occupied Paris for both Parisians
and Germans.1 Moreover, music historian Sandrine Grandgambe notes that
despite the enormous interest in the Opéra on the part of German officers and
soldiers, their interest in ballet exceeded their interest in music. Hence, during
the Occupation, 35% of the performances were ballets and 12% were spectacles
Dance Research 35.2 (2017): 218–257

Edinburgh University Press
DOI: 10.3366/drs.2017.0203
© Society for Dance Research
www.euppublishing.com/drs
SERGE LIFAR AND THE QUESTION OF COLLABORATION (1940–9) 219
that included ballet. Grandgambe concludes: ‘One often speaks of the golden
age of French ballet, but it would be more accurate to speak of the golden age
of Lifar.’2 Lifar’s career at the Paris Opéra developed throughout the 1930s, but
this article deals with the years of the Occupation during which Lifar continued
his meteoric rise.
In addition to the archival aspect of this article, a question is raised
concerning dance and politics: How we are to interpret artistic directions
and theoretical pronouncements about dance and choreography that appear
to be motivated to a significant degree by changing political circumstances?
In the case of Lifar, is opportunism incompatible with the expression of
political commitments? The evidence upon which I draw, much of which
has not been published before, indicates that both opportunism and political
commitments informed Lifar’s actions during this period.3 Questions about
Lifar’s collaborationist tendencies arose in the immediate aftermath of the
Second World War and were never entirely laid to rest despite a postwar trial.
I understand collaborationism as a willing complicity in shared work benefitting
the occupier. Thus, collaborationism can be distinguished from collaboration,
which is also an artistic term signifying shared artistic work with others.4 The
challenge for us today on both sides of the Atlantic since we are being asked to
reconsider Lifar’s work as part of the legacy of twentieth-century ballet is how
to understand the relation between his political and artistic activity in order to
evaluate the reperformances of work from an informed perspective that could,
if necessary, take collaborationism into account.5 Since his retirement the Paris
Opéra has honoured Serge Lifar with three separate programs of his work –
the first in 1977, the second in 1988, and the third in 2006–07. These various
homages have served to cement Lifar into the choreographic patrimony. Despite
the periodic reappearance of certain works by Lifar on the contemporary ballet
stage, the question of how we are to view them from the perspective of their
historical context has been given short shrift.6 In fact, viewing the works of Lifar
might furnish a way to interrogate the relation of dance to history that could
have noteworthy returns. Thus, this article is in no way intended to suggest
that, should it become evident that Lifar was indeed a collaborationist, his ballets
should be henceforth for that reason banished from the stage. To the contrary,
in my view his ballets should continue to be performed from the perspective
of a fuller historical consciousness than has previously been acknowledged.7 If
ballet as a form is to survive within historical consciousness it cannot do so at the
expense of self-reflective historical awareness.
Because Lifar published a great deal we must consider not only his
actions, but also his words. Signing many ghostwritten books of dance history
and theory, Lifar also published several autobiographies as well as many
lectures, scholarly articles, and newspaper articles. In 1936 Lifar even made
his debut as a dance critic in Comoedia.8 Nonetheless, Lifar was neither
a bona fide scholar nor historian.9 But, he cut a literary figure as his
choreographic and performing accomplishments were enhanced with theory,
criticism, historiography, polemics, journalism, and aesthetics. In this way, from
220 MARK FRANKO
the mid-thirties onward, Lifar arrogated to himself substantial intellectual and

historical as well as artistic authority. As a frequent contributor to German
and collaborationist publications during the Occupation Lifar was on shaky
ground from a postwar perspective. Tony Judt has pointed out that artists who
consigned their thoughts to published writings were more likely to be punished as
collaborationists.10 Given Lifar’s presence in print during the Occupation and his
generally pro-German attitude the lenience ultimately shown him is surprising
and has yet to be fully explained.
It is worthy of mention here that one reason Lifar remained a contentious
figure after the war is that he wove himself quite tightly into the institutional
structure of the Paris Opéra. From 1930 until his retirement in 1958, with just
one short postwar hiatus, he identified his work uniquely with the formation of
the Paris Opéra dancers, the choreography of the majority of its productions,
and the management and promotion of the ballet company itself.11 It can thus be
challenging to untangle Lifar’s artistic and political identity from this institutional
framework and hence any examination of Lifar can unintentionally appear to be
an attack on the Paris Opéra itself. Lifar’s salary in 1943 exceeded that of the
highest paid soprano of the Opéra, Germaine Lubin, and that of the director
Jacques Rouché himself.12 This salary enabled him to remunerate the Russian
émigré Pushkin scholar Modeste Hoffman who, along with his son Rostislav,
wrote Lifar’s books, lectures, articles, and letters in Russian and French, and to
support his brother, Léonide Lifar, who acted as his secretary (1933–1944).13
What could be characterized as the dance world’s position on Lifar since
the end of World War II has represented, both in and outside France, an
eccentric and decidedly minority perspective compared to serious historical work
on the other arts during the occupation.14 There are a number of artists whose
names historians cite as artistically active during the Occupation, and who were
collaborationists: Alfred Cortot, Arletty, Sacha Guitry, Jean Giraudoux, Henri
Montherlant, to name but a few.15 Historians always place Lifar within this group
when discussing prominent artists in the limelight of Nazi organized social life in
occupied Paris. Lifar can perhaps be most aptly compared with pianist Alfred
Cortot because of the latter’s active engagement with Vichy.16 The disciplinary
divide on Lifar with respect to this question is, therefore, quite striking. For
music historian Sandrine Grandgambe, ‘[T]here can be no ambiguity. Lifar
clearly chose sides and engaged with no misgivings in the logic of collaboration.’17
Historian Philippe Burrin put it succinctly: ‘Lifar fancied his chances as the
Führer of European dance.’18 In stark contrast to the perspective of historians
of music, art, literature, and cultural history, the world of ballet would appear to
exist in an alternative historical universe. For, in the dance context Lifar is usually
painted as a victim. So, for example, Clement Crisp wrote: ‘ . . . in the vengeful
weeks which followed Liberation, Lifar—like many another—was the victim of
calumny and ignorance.’19 The main objection to the charge of collaboration,
however, has been that Lifar was apolitical in both life and art. In The Dance
Theatre of Jean Cocteau Frank W. D. Ries glosses over the entire Occupation
with the phrase ‘Lifar had no real political leanings.’20 No evidence is offered
to back up this statement, but the assumption is that if there were no clear-cut
political motives there can have been no collaborationism.21 However, there is a
difference between collaboration for personal gain, and collaboration intended
to lend ideological support, which is thought of as collaborationism. Many dance
historians do not even consider these terms, preferring instead to discuss whether
the artist was ‘political’ or not.
One sense of political concerns acting strictly in one’s own self-interest
regardless of the moral consequences: this could be understood as opportunism.
Whilst many of Lifar’s actions can be interpreted in this light, my research also
shows that during this period Lifar expressed political opinions in no uncertain
terms. More recently, Claire Paolacci claimed that at his postwar trial there was
‘no proof that he had collaborated as an artist.’22 The Interrogatoire of 8 December
1944, however, states: ‘Mr. Lifar has clearly collaborated with the Germans
both from the private and artistic point of view.’23 Despite his subsequent
rehabilitation, the 1944 comité d’épuration condemned Lifar in no uncertain terms,
if not through its sanctions, at least through its words. Where Lifar came off
lightly in the immediate postwar period was on the level of punishment: he
weathered the attack against his person at the end of the war, but this was
followed in the 1950s by an attack against his choreography and his powerful
position at the Opera.24 Hence, a breach of ethical responsibility within dance
scholarship has been in evidence with respect to this subject for approximately
seventy years.25
This article attempts to position Lifar’s work (writings, choreography) and
actions politically, in both senses of the term, just before, during, and immediately
after the Occupation. The analysis of Lifar’s actions is based on archival evidence
as well as on his writings, some of which were published in the German and
collaborationist press that dance scholars tend to pass over in silence, as well as
on one of his pre-war books that no one now apparently takes the trouble to
actually read.26 The archive is nevertheless far from complete. Lifar destroyed
parts of important documents and contradicted himself in his autobiographical
writings.27 Upon his retirement from the Paris Opéra Lifar took with him most
of the archive concerning his career during the Occupation.28 He ultimately
donated it to the Archive de la Ville de Lausanne, where he retired, but not
before removing certain pages.29 What he left intact, however, is still informative
because it enables us to set up a timeline, something that is lacking in other Lifar
scholarship. This article pieces together a story whose chronological specificity
is of paramount importance. I focus on two works that had a particular success,
Joan de Zarissa (1942) and Suite en blanc (1943). I have structured the article in
three parts. First, I examine Lifar’s activities during the Occupation; secondly, I
ask what Lifar’s political commitments were; and, thirdly, I ask what Lifar’s political
ambitions were, and how these ambitions informed certain of his artistic projects.
For this reason, the article doubles back on the chronology three times. It ends
with a discussion of the two ballets.
The Archives Nationales (Paris) contains a transcript of the postwar trial
and the Services de la Mémoire of the Préfet de Police (opened in Paris in
222 MARK FRANKO
2012) contains reports on police surveillance of Lifar in the postwar period; the
Politisches Archiv in Berlin contains diplomatic documents relative to cultural
activities under the German occupation. In addition to these, the Museum of
the Resistance (Champigny sur Marne) holds the records of the stagehands
union of the Paris Opéra and their engagement with Lifar, and the Centre
de Documentation Juive Contemporaine at the Mémorial de la Shoah (Paris)
contains documents that provide a broader context for the persecution of French
Jewish employees of the Opéra.30
ACTIVITIES
The following facts have been ascertained through archival research concerning
Lifar’s activities during the Occupation. On 10 June 1940, having returned from
Spain with the ballet company on the last train to cross the border on 9 June,
Lifar found the Opéra house closed in the wake of the flight from Paris before
the German onslaught. The stagehand and electrician notebooks of the Opéra
show that the house was closed on 11 June, and the management retreated south
to Cahors in Lot.31 The Germans entered Paris on 13 June. Upon his arrival in
the capital, Lifar dispersed his company, but then singlehandedly reopened the
Opéra, serving as its interim director as of 25 June 1940.32
While it is argued that Lifar saved the Opéra Ballet, and even the Opéra
itself, from requisition by German artists, this was not the case. First, as Alan
Riding shows in The Show Must Go On, Nazi cultural policy in France was
to exploit the Opéra as a showcase for collaboration.33 The Germans wanted
to give the impression that French culture was happily continuing under the
Occupation. Lifar boasted of having personally shown Hitler around the Opéra
in the early morning of 23 June 1940, although he later denied this.34 However,
we do know he welcomed Goebbels to the Opéra on 1 July 1940.35 He
subsequently pursued Goebbels with the intention of discussing the future of
dance in Germany from his perspective as a dance historian. Lifar’s book La
Danse. Les grands courants de la danse académique, published two years earlier in 1938,
is decisive in this connection, and I shall return to it shortly.
On 22 July 1940 the Consul General in Paris Rudolf Schleier requested
that his staff research Lifar’s background. Schleier wanted to know if Lifar was
Jewish.36 A defamatory article had appeared in the pages of the collaborationist
publication Au Pilori, which insinuated that Lifar’s name was an anagram of Rafil,
taken to be a Jewish name.37 In the face of this Lifar maintained his Russian
identity. In a memo (Aufzeichnung) to Berlin on the same day, Schleier reported
on his meeting with Lifar who was anxious to launch two dance evenings per
week at the Opéra within four week’s time, and was himself ready to recruit not
only the dancers but also the musicians needed.38 There is no evidence that Lifar,
in this venture, was following directives from Opéra management. He requested
Schleier’s permission to travel to unoccupied Vichy to discuss this venture with
Pierre Laval, head of the Vichy government who was executed by firing squad
after the war, and to solicit a possible subvention. The memo indicated that
Laval and Lifar were already in touch and that Joseph Goebbels, Minister of
Propaganda, and Otto Abetz, German Ambassador to France, had approved
this project. The memo added: ‘Lifar is clear that Jews cannot work in the Ballet
or the Orchestra. He speaks of the fact that he is Russian. I will leave it to
Dienststeller Thomas Ermittlungen to determine whether he is Jewish or not.’39
Schleier noted that he told Lifar during this meeting that the ultimate decision
about his ballet evenings would have to come from Berlin and that there was
little necessity for Lifar to travel to Vichy. At the bottom of the memo he added
Lifar’s phone numbers, both at the Opéra and at home.
All this occurred before Jacques Rouché returned to Paris to reassume
the leadership of the Paris Opéra40 ; Lifar was acting as the de facto head of the
entire establishment and negotiating as such with the Nazis. The Opéra was to
become an eagle with two heads, as it were, since throughout the Occupation
Lifar would remain the point of liaison with the Nazis; whereas Rouché focused
on connections with Vichy.41 Hardly one month later, on 30 August 1940,
Schleier invited Lifar to contribute a ballet program to a reception at the German
Embassy (78, rue de Lille) planned for 3 September 1940 at 11pm.42
Jacques Rouché returned to Paris and resumed leadership of the Opéra
on 26 July 1940.43 Lifar had established an immediate relationship with the
occupiers and maintained close contact with the Propaganda Staffel – through Lutz
and Pierzig – as well as with the German embassy where he cultivated the
friendship of Otto Abetz who was responsible for confiscating French art (and
particularly the art of French Jews), and for the ‘first anti-semitic measures
promulgated in the occupied zone.’44 Abetz’s wife was French, and Lifar became
a close friend of the family.45 From then on Lifar was invited to the highly visible
social occasions at the German embassy in which prominent collaborators mixed
with the upper echelons of the Nazi cultural ministry. The audience for the
ballet would consequently comprise a large percentage of German soldiers and
officers.46 A guidebook for German soldiers discovering Paris – Wohin Paris? Der
Deutsche Wegleiter (1 September 1940) – announced the reopening of the Opéra
and the fact that world-renowned dancer Serge Lifar has been working for weeks
to prepare ballets that would charm even the most jaded audience.47 Lifar’s
picture appears on the cover of L’Illustration rehearsing Yvette Chauviré in the
1 September 1940 issue.48
While the Propaganda Staffel was interested in importing German art to Paris,
the Institute’s policy was to cultivate sympathetic figureheads of French culture
and to make French culture appear to flourish under German occupation.49
These two agencies were in competition with one another for superiority in Nazi
cultural policy.50 In late summer 1941 the Propaganda Staffel had discussions
with the Paris Opéra administration about the possibility of producing German
works in France, and in 1942 its Gruppe-Kultur supported Lifar’s collaboration
with Nazi composer Werner Egk on Joan de Zarissa.51 Lifar was, by his own
admission, frequently at the Propaganda Staffel (52 Avenue des Champs-Elysées)
conferring with Lutz and Pierzig.52 In 1943 the Propaganda Staffel created a shadow
224 MARK FRANKO
Photo 1. Serge Lifar at the German Embassy in Paris (1940s) with an unidentified woman
(photographer unknown). Mémorial de la Shoah, Centre de Documentation Juive
Contemporaine.
union – Groupement corporatif de la danse – for which Lifar served as President-Conseiller

Technique (Technical President-Advisor).53 In exchange for this, as reflected in his
notes, he was given a night pass in 194354 ; the German Institute also provided
him with German identification papers. Lifar was also allowed to carry a gun,
presumably to protect himself from reprisals.55
A newsletter of this union that bears Lifar’s name contains a column,
‘Clandestine Dances’ (‘Bals clandestins’), banning all assembly for social dancing in
France under the threat of being sent to a concentration camp.56 The Groupement
was charged to investigate social dancing (swing), secretive or undercover
dancing (bals clandestins and surprise-parties) as well as cours de danse (regular dance
classes of various kinds). An article in Compagnons explains that Lifar, along with
Irene Popard and Solange Schwarz, examined eighty-five dance teachers in the
Paris area resulting in the dismissal of fifty professors judged as incompetent.57 In
an article published in the collaborationist La Gerbe (26 August 1943), ‘La Danse
dans le Cortège des Arts. Printemps 1943,’ Lifar praised the new organization
in these terms: ‘At the end of this year we were invited to join the Groupement
Corporatif de la Danse, a French association of dance teachers, ballet masters
Photo 2. Serge Lifar and Yvette Chauviré on the cover of Illustration (September 1940).
and choreographic artists - it is one of a kind. I cannot emphasize enough

the importance of this organization . . . ’58 It was alleged during his trial that
the purpose of the Groupement was to facilitate the arrest of anti-collaborationist
dance teachers. The summary of testimony of the Orchestra of the Opéra alleges
this was the purpose of the organization: ‘The Groupement responded directly to
German directives. From its beginning, it imprisoned dance teachers whose anti-
collaborationist sentiments were known – more than thirty teachers are ready to
testify to this fact.’59
By September 1940 a relationship of mutual trust had developed between
Lifar and the occupiers such that his request to drive around Paris in his Renault
23 was granted. Among the reasons given by Lifar was his busy schedule that
included not only rehearsals, but also his trips to the Archives Internationales de
la Danse (6 rue Vital in the neighborhood of the Trocadéro), which Pierre Tugal
had confided to Lifar upon his departure from Paris.60 Tugal and his wife were
Jewish and escaped to Nice in the zone libre where they remained throughout
the war. Lifar was not only to look after the Archives, but also after the Tugal’s
apartment situated above the Archives. The apartment, later requisitioned by
the Germans, was to become an issue in his post-war trial.61
226 MARK FRANKO
Lifar celebrated the German occupation of Kiev in Paris-Midi (25

September 1941) with these words: ‘Before the German troops occupied Kiev I
experienced moments filled with anxiety: I feared that the Soviets would destroy
my country, our pride, in their retreat.’62 According to police files, Lifar sent
a telegram of congratulations on 31 December 1943 to the commander of
the German army. In his autobiography Ma Vie Lifar wrote: ‘20th September.
Kiev my city is in the hands of the Germans! This was for me a day of
mourning.’63 In 1943, Radio Londres broadcast a condemnation of Lifar as
a traitor: ‘Frenchmen, do not forget on Victory day to put Serge Lifar and
Germaine Lubin on the list of traitors.’64
Among the other activities that Lifar undertook with the help of the
Propaganda Staffel were two trips to Berlin during one of which Lifar personally
presented a copy of his film Symphonie en Blanc to Hitler and Goering,65 and a
Paris Opéra Ballet tour to the Zürich Festspiel, 20–28 June 1944.66 A telegram
to Berlin from Otto Abetz of 6 April 1944 recommended a tour of the German
ballet Lifar produced at the Opéra, Joan de Zarissa, to Madrid and Barcelona as
propaganda for German music and to counter Gaullist sentiments in Spain.67
This tour was approved for Lifar and sixty-two Opéra personnel from 6 May
until 5 June 1944 with the composer Werner Egk conducting. There were also
plans for German dancer Ilse Meudtner, star of the original German production
of Joan de Zarissa and sometime partner of Harald Kreutzberg, to perform at the
Salle Pleyel in Paris on 7 March 1944.68 Both the Swiss and the Spanish tour
were in direct relation to Joan de Zarissa, which the Germans felt was a cultural
propaganda weapon. This was the only occasion that the German embassy
organized international tours for French dancers. The main purpose was to
disseminate German music in a form that showed French dancers perfectly
in tune with it. Joan de Zarissa was collaboration in the full sense of the term,
artistic collaboration with substantial political benefits for the Germans.69 Lifar’s
performances, due to take place in Berlin in 1943, were, however, cancelled due
to the RAF bombing of the Deutsches Theater.70
After the war, the French police opened the files on both Serge and
Léonide Lifar. A letter of 22 November 1945 states that from 1937 Serge
Lifar was a member of the P.P.F. (Parti Populaire Français).71 Founded by Jacques
Doriot, the P.P.F. was a grass-roots fascist French organization that came to
the support of the IEQJ (l’Institut d’Etudes des Questions Juives), which was
created to facilitate the quick deportation of Jews in France to the east.72
According to the police file, Lifar’s membership in the P.P.F. shows that ‘well
before the occupation of our territory, his [Lifar’s] political opinions were
orientated towards totalitarian theories.’73 According to police reports, Léonide
Lifar was virulently anti-communist and anti-Soviet, and in close touch with a
great number of collaborationist personalities in Paris to whom he had been
introduced by his brother, Serge.74
The police undertook to track the activities of Léonide until the end of the
1950s and of Serge throughout the 1960s, as they considered both dangerous.
From this file, it becomes possible to consider that the charge of informer in
the post-war trial may have concerned the Russian émigré population in Paris.
The ‘Russian Gestapo’ in France was headed by Yuri Sergeevich Zherebkov
(Gerebkoff), who worked with the Germans ostensibly to aid Russian émigrés.
It appears this was actually a front for the development of a fighting force of
anti-Stalinist Russians on the German-Russian front. Zherebkov was closely
connected to Vlasov.75 Léonide became deeply involved in pro-German politics
in Paris amongst the Russian community that both he and his brother, Serge,
frequented. The police considered that Léonide derived his political convictions
from his brother, Serge.76
In April 1940 Lifar had received a letter from the Union of Antifascist
Intellectuals asking him to renew his membership. In the postwar period he
sent a copy of this letter to Gilberte Cournand with the notation: ‘Serge Lifar
anti-Nazi, anti-Vlasoniste in the Resistance 1941–1944.’ Apparently he did not
notice the letter showed his membership had expired. In the postwar period Lifar
attempted to distance himself from the charges of collaboration by also denying
his engagement with the Russian collaborationist (Andrey) Vlasov corps. Given
Lifar’s opposition to the hotbed of resistance amongst the technicians of the Paris
Opéra, the claim that he was associated with the Resistance is doubtful at best.
In the summary report of his postwar trial77 Lifar claimed to have belonged since
April 1944 to an anti-Vlasov Russian resistance group to which he supplied
weapons. He also claimed the group was recognized by the Russian embassy
in Paris. The committee reported that the Russian embassy declared having
absolutely no knowledge of any such group.78 The passage is underlined in the
transcript. It would seem Lifar tried to use the term Resistance in a Russian
context in order to ally himself with the French resistance after the fact.
After the liberation of Paris Serge Lifar was called to testify before the
Comité National d’Epuration (26 October 1944). Lifar went into hiding after the
Liberation of Paris, but appeared at his trial with armed Russian guards
who were immediately arrested. He was judged to be a personal and artistic
collaborator. The Interrogatoire of 8 December 1944 stated: ‘Mr. Lifar has clearly
collaborated with the Germans both from the private and artistic point of
view’79 The committee judged Lifar guilty of an anti-national point of view
unbefitting a foreigner who had been granted asylum in France. Born in Kiev,
Lifar officially immigrated to France only in 1929 and carried throughout the
war a Nansen Passport issued to refugees.80 His punishment consisted of a one-
year professional suspension from French national stages imposed retroactively
from 1 October 1945 (this was because Lifar had not danced at the Opéra since
June 1944 during which period the theatre had been without power). The failure
of the Minister of Education to act on the recommendation of the Purification
Commission to further sanction Lifar served definitively as a de facto rejection of
the commission’s recommendation.81 Rouché was also relieved of his functions by
a letter dated 12 June 1945.82 During this suspension, Lifar worked at the Opéra
de Monte Carlo where he was also forbidden to appear on stage.83 In Paris, the
left-wing French press lampooned Lifar with homophobic venom. During Lifar’s
absence from the Paris Opéra, Balanchine was brought from New York.84
228 MARK FRANKO
Photo 3. A post-war editorial cartoon depicting Lifar performing at the Opéra for German
officers. Archive de la Ville de Lausanne: AVL P 63 (Serge Lifar).
During his exile from France Lifar was booed in London.85 His banishment
ended officially in October 1946. On 4 April 1946 the Comité National d’Epuration
issued a brief statement that ‘Mr. Lifar is not subject to any disciplinary
sanction.’86 In September 1947 Lifar returned to the Paris Opéra where he
continued to work until his retirement in 1958. Police files suggest that this
created widespread consternation:
The artistic milieu that knows Lifar well is in shock that the police have never bothered
him because of his activities during the occupation. It is certain that the presence of such
an individual on the national territory where he constitutes a danger to internal security
is highly undesirable.87
Georges Hirsch, who had concluded negotiations with Balanchine, was also
instrumental in reinstating Lifar in the Opéra.88 Balanchine returned to New
York where, together with Lincoln Kirstein, he founded the New York City
Ballet.
Lifar’s postwar appearances in New York with the Paris Opéra Ballet in
November 1948 for the Commemoration of the Golden Anniversary of the City
of New York provoked a full-page statement in opposition by the American
Dancers Anti-Fascist Protest Committee in the New York Times.89 The French
police file on Lifar remained active into the 1960s although the police could do
little more than to spy on him and collect press clippings about his performances.
The police continued to circulate internal reports on Léonide until 1958 although
the latter did nothing to draw attention after the war.
Once Lifar had been reinstated at the Opéra, however, things did not go
smoothly. On 17 September 1946, Lifar was scheduled to dance at the Salle
Pleyel at a fundraising event to honour the liberation of Paris. The organizers
refused to accept him, calling his presence an ‘insult to the resistance.’90 The
dancers, in solidarity with Lifar, refused to perform without him and the gala
was cancelled.91 Although supported by most of the dancers, Lifar met with
resistance in 1947 from the Opéra machinists union. The electricians refused
to light him when he came on stage to make his comeback, sabotaging his
performances by plunging the theater into darkness. The notebook page for 1
October 1947 noted in red ink that there would be no performance.92 We read:
‘The Lifar Affaire . . . The stagehand electrician brigade decides unanimously
not to work with Lifar . . . There are demonstrations by the Dance and the
Public at the electricians walkout’93 Negotiations between the Opéra and the
machinists union continued for several weeks with the machinists threatening
to resign if Lifar were to appear on stage. A compromise was finally reached
whereby Lifar would be reappointed as choreographer and ballet master, but
not as dancer. A posted notice at the Opera dated 17 October 1947 stated: ‘Mr.
Lifar will not appear on stage, in public.’94 In mounting his productions, Lifar
was to have no direct communication with the technical staff. On 22 October
1947, Suite en blanc was performed on the Opéra stage without Lifar in the cast.
A letter from Hirsch rescinded his banishment from the stage, however, on 12
February 1949.95 Probably in order to expedite his rehabilitation, Lifar began
to choreograph and perform ballets that evoked the French seventeenth century
with himself in the role of Louis XIV. In 1949 he choreographed Ballet de cour
to the music of Rameau and in 1950 Les Eléments to the music of Rebel. Along
with Albert Aveline’s Les fêtes d’Hébé, these works were performed at Versailles.96
Lifar’s relationship with Hirsch grew increasingly strained from 1952 onward as
Lifar expressed resentment he was not being treated with the proper respect. His
contract was terminated in 1958.97
POLITICAL COMMITMENTS
Opéra Director Jacques Rouché received a letter from the Commissariat Général
des Questions Juives on 10 April 1942 informing him that Jews were forbidden to
appear on stage or to have contact with the public.98 The removal of all ‘non-
Aryans’ from public functions – part of Gleichschaltung – was a prelude to ultimate
deportation and annihilation of both foreign and French Jews. In a draft of a
letter to the head of the Opéra Jacques Rouché, in response to the suspicion that
he was Jewish, Lifar referred Rouché to his book:
My origins exclude any possible belonging to the Jewish race and prove absolutely that
I am of pureblood. As for my ideas about the Jews, they are known . . . In my book on
The Dance in 1937 I demonstrated that Jewish culture is incompatible with omni-Aryan
culture, that it has followed a distinctly different and destructive pathway while the omni-
Aryan spirit symbolizes creation.99
230 MARK FRANKO
Photo 4. ‘L’Affaire Lifar.’ Page from the stagehand and electrician calendar noting the
boycott of Lifar’s performance. Musée de la Résistance, Champigny sur Marne.
It would have been sufficient under this circumstance to deny he was Jewish.
But, by declaring himself to be an anti-Semite, Lifar expressed solidarity with
Nazi racist ideology to a much greater degree than a de facto collaboration would
require. Lifar’s book La Danse (1937–8), penned before the Occupation, reveals
an unambiguous anti-Semitic position framed in the context of dance history.100
I return to this book in what follows.
While it is sometimes claimed that his position allowed him to come to the
aid of others, Lifar apparently did nothing to prevent the deportation of Jean
Babilée who was in the cast of Suite en blanc in 1943.101 Babilée was a sixteen-year-
old student at the Opéra in 1939 when attempts were already being made by
his family to secure his employment given the approaching dangers for a dancer
of Jewish heritage.102 Nothing was accomplished, and having been denounced in
1944 as a Jew by a fellow dancer, Babilée received an order for obligatory work
service in Germany. He wrote to Rouché on 30 March 1944 that he was in need
of a certificate stating that the Opéra required him to remain in dance classes.
Although Babilée was already performing on stage, he was not yet an official
member of the Paris Opéra Ballet. Unable to obtain the desired contract or
certificate, however, Babilée was obliged to go underground until the end of the
Photo 5. Notice of agreement ‘between the Administrator of the Réunion des théâtres
lyriques nationaux and the federal Delegates speaking for the technical staff of the Opéra’,
17 October 1945. Archive of the Union of theater technicians at the Opéra at the Museum of
the Resistance, Champigny-sur-Marne.
war in order to escape deportation.103 After the Liberation, he officially resigned

from the Opéra in a letter addressed to Rouché dated 8 November 1944.104 After
the war Babilée attained immediate stardom in the Roland Petit/Jean Cocteau
Le jeune homme et la mort.
In 1941 the question of unionization (syndicalisme) was being hotly debated,
and the stagehands and electricians of the Paris Opera were on the front lines.
By 1942 the Fédération du Spectacle came into being.105 As early as 1941 the
union kept track of prisoners of war in Germany, collecting their addresses; and
they expressed solidarity with Jews. Jean Hugues was a stagehand, union activist,
and resister who was twice arrested by the Germans for being a communist. The
second time on 28 April 1942 he was sent to Auschwitz; he died in Birkenau on
16 January 1943.106 The loss of Hugues combined with Lifar’s vocal advocacy
for the Germans at the Opéra must have fueled the stagehands’ animus against
Lifar.107 From their perspective Lifar was double traitor: a class enemy and the
betrayer of France itself.
232 MARK FRANKO
Photo 6. Serge Lifar dancing as Louis XIV in the postwar period. Archive de la Ville de
Lausanne: AVL P 63 (Serge Lifar).
POLITICAL AMBITIONS
After their first meeting at the Paris Opéra in June 1940 Lifar wrote to Goebbels
through Abetz on 21 August 1940 in an attempt to invite the Minister of
Propaganda to the ballet première on 28 August 1940.
The lively interest and sympathy shown me by Herr Doctor Goebbels at our interview
during his visit to the Opéra on July 1st for our ballet, and in particular for my own activity
as ballet master and danseur étoile, incites me to address myself to him again, through
your good graces, to His Excellency the Minister of Propaganda.
What would not be my joy, if I could present to His Excellency the Minister the
general plan of my choreographic work – the closest connection of new tendencies with
the purest classical traditions – clearly in evidence in the two ballets I shall dance on
August 29th . But knowing the busy schedule and the multiple occupations in which he
is engaged I can nourish only the most tenuous hope.
Over the last few years I have dedicated myself to questions of dance and its history
and I hope to be able to present to Herr Goebbels my perspectives on the potential for
the development of dance in Germany.108
In his book La Danse. Les grands courants de la danse académique (1938), to which
he refers in this letter, Lifar depicts German modern dance critically in
characterizing it as a ‘dramatic grimace.’109 On 1 July 1940 an unidentified

orderly of Goebbels’ borrowed Lifar’s book from the Opéra library, an indication
that Goebbels may have decided to read it.110 In this book, Lifar proposes a
trans-historical and markedly racist account of the origin of ballet. Lifar asserts
that the fundamental positions of the legs are to be found ‘ . . . among all the
peoples of Europe belonging to the Indo-European Aryan race.’111 Lifar goes
so far as to see in ‘Hindu dance’ ‘the four classical positions . . . which serve as
the point of departure of all dances.’112 In 1941, Lifar created Istar, a solo for
Yvette Chauviré113 perhaps inspired by these theories of the origin and evolution
of ballet or, at least, making implicit reference to them.114 Be that as it may,
Lifar was applying the occult Nazi theory of writers such as Max Müller and
Willibald Hentschel, who posited a linguistic and racial connection between
Europe and India that would separate the Aryan from the Semitic language
groups, to the history and theory of dance.115 But, its more immediate effect
was to identify classical ballet with racial superiority historically, theoretically,
and aesthetically. Lifar’s claim for the Aryan origins of ballet aesthetics was at
variance with German dance critic Fritz Boëhme’s 1933 statement against ballet
as an acceptable German form of art.116 If Boehme’s article is to be taken as an
early Nazi policy statement, it should be noted that it was clearly not in force in
Paris during the Occupation. Lifar’s claim for the Aryan roots of ballet takes a
position different to Boehme’s. Even as he defended ballet, Lifar displaced the
identification of ballet with Frenchness, locating the historical development of
ballet instead outside of France.
One conclusion Lifar draws is that classical dance is an organic outgrowth
of the racially delimited ‘psycho-physical makeup of man.’117 Thus, ballet has
a folkloric basis in what he calls ‘pre-Aryan dance.’ According to Lifar, these
principles are handed down to Renaissance Italy and transferred to France in
the seventeenth century following the consecrated narrative of ballet history.
But, Lifar presses vigorously on the connections of folklore and folkloric dance
to ballet, a position that was bound to interest the Nazis after they withdrew
their support of Rudolf Laban in 1936 and in the wake of Mary Wigman’s
retirement from the stage in 1942. In this book, Lifar also proposes to abandon
the term ‘classical’ – and its synonym ‘français’ – and replace these with the term
academic. This gesture makes the establishment of the Academy of Dance and
Music in 1661 in Paris and the establishment of the ballet academy in Saint-
Petersburg in 1738 the key dates of dance history.118 But, in a roundabout way,
the importance of academicism is less historical than conceptual: his proposal
is that academic principles make ballet itself Aryan. In this book, completed in
August 1937, Lifar presents a racialized vision of dance history in line with Nazi
ideology.119 Although it was easy during the occupation to please the Nazis by
giving lip service to their racist viewpoint, the author of La danse did so presciently
in advance of the Occupation.120
But, there is another strategic aspect to the ideas contained in this book,
which Lifar extended in a series of articles during the Occupation such as ‘Uber
die Zukunft des Balletts. Gedanken zur Wiedergeburt des Bühnentanzes’ (‘On
234 MARK FRANKO
the Future of Ballet: Thoughts for the Rebirth of Stage Dance’), which Lifar
published in 1943 in both German and French in the Nazi publication Pariser
Zeitung (Paris Newspaper).121 The French dance critic Fernand Divoire was critical
of Lifar’s discussion of the so-called ‘pre-Aryan’ sources of ballet.122 Divoire felt
Lifar was imprecise about what pre-Aryan actually meant, and that his idea of
academic dance that continued to evolve was a contradiction in terms.123 It is
important to note that Lifar’s historical frame of reference under the Occupation
was no longer that of French dance history exclusively, as it had been in the
1930s: he now adopted a ‘European’ perspective in which choreographers such
as Jean-Georges Noverre who produced his work primarily in Germany, Austria
and Italy and the Italian Salvatore Viganò who worked in Vienna and Milan,
both served as models for the future of ballet, in part because of their pan-
European, border crossing careers. As Divoire himself pointed out, Noverre
and Viganò presupposed the existence of European ballet that had never been
fully realized: ‘And why wouldn’t this ballet, if Europe does manage to gain
an autonomous identity, have a leader, a unique guide, a conductor? [Divoire
stops short of using the word Führer]. This is a dream one could contemplate.’124
The critic’s reference to an autonomous identity of Europe is veiled language
for a German victory. Divoire subjected Lifar’s project to substantial sarcasm,
seeing through his ambitions as encoded in his writing. The transition to a pan-
European ideal had superseded André Levinson’s insight in 1934 that Lifar
should associate his career with developing the French seventeenth-century
academic tradition rather than follow in the footsteps of Diaghilev’s avant-
gardism.125 The usable past was now re-located on the Austrian-Italian axis and
drew upon the eighteenth rather than the seventeenth century.
Joan de Zarissa
Perhaps Lifar’s biggest propaganda coup of the Occupation period was the co-
production of Joan de Zarissa with music by Werner Egk, a prominent Nazi
composer, which premiered at the Paris Opera, on 10 July 1942. At his postwar
trial Lifar claimed he was ordered to mount this production, but also boasted
of its success. ‘This ballet that I staged was a triumph, which according to
the Germans had an uneven reception in their own country.’126 This was no
exaggeration. Joan de Zarissa was performed approximately 35 times at the Paris
Opéra, and the ballet went on to be performed three times in Rome in 1943 as
well as on tour in Zürich, Madrid and Barcelona.127 It was reprised in October
1942 and also broadcast on Radio Paris.128 Egk hailed Lifar as the champion of
a new form of ballet.129 The original German production of Joan von Zarissa had
been premiered at the Berlin State Opera on 20 January 1940 with choreography
by Lizzie Maudrik and it was subsequently performed in Vienna, Hamburg,
Halle, Stuttgart, Essen, and Zürich. It was produced around the world in the
postwar era as well.130 Lifar himself restaged it at the Vienna State Opera in
1945; Tatjana Gsovsky mounted the ballet in Buenos Aires in 1950; Heinz Rosen
Photo 7. Serge Lifar preparing for the title role in Joan de Zarissa (1942). Archive de la Ville
de Lausanne: AVL P 63 (Serge Lifar).
presented it in Munich in 1960; its last performance to date was in Wiesbaden in

1983 with choreography by Roberto Tinchero.131
A German reviewer of the original said the work took ballet in the direction
of opera and he likened it to the action ballets of Noverre, Angiolini and Gluck.132
According to Musical America, the ballet ‘supplemented the musical exposition
with a Speaker, a double a cappella chorus chanting the interludes behind the
scene in intricate polyphony, and a moralizing epilogue tacked on to the end
. . . .’133 Lifar, however, cut the epilogue as well as the prologue in Paris with
Egk’s approval. Yves Brayer created the original set and costumes for the Parisian
production in a Burgundian style after the paintings of Jean Fouquet.134 Fouquet
was not a familiar visual point of reference as indicated by the 1943 publication
in Verve of Les Fouquet de la Bibliothèque Nationale with a preface by Paul Valéry in
which the latter states that Fouquet is relatively unknown to the French public.135
The reproduction of a German work in a Burgundian style on the Paris Opéra
stage with a French designer’s set and costumes and Lifar’s choreography made
Joan de Zarissa a truly collaborative work in every sense of the term.
The review by Ferdinand Divoire in Paris described Joan de Zarissa as a
‘dance drama’ with classical steps, angular expressionist attitudes, and narrative
236 MARK FRANKO
gestures.136 The ballet told a Don Juan story, and Lifar himself danced the title
role. In an article for Comoedia Lifar narrated the action at length, and wrote
of being seduced by the gothic figure of Don Juan whom he called ‘intensely
tragic.’137 The story transpired in four scenes during which the main character
murders husbands and seduces women until he is confronted by the ghosts of his
victims. The action is strikingly bereft of psychological nuance, making it is hard
to imagine how anyone could consider the main character to be tragic.
Lifar himself wrote more about Joan de Zarissa in the Nazi newspaper Pariser
Zeitung.138 He envisaged this adaptation of a German ballet for the French stage
as a cross-fertilization of German and French dance cultures. Although in his
1938 book Lifar had reviled German modern dance, in the 1942 article for
Comoedia he claimed to have discovered the existence of German ballet. In this
article he also explained that German ballet shared some of the expressive
qualities of German modern dance: ‘I was curious to get to know the new
German school of which we have seen so little.’139 Lifar called the Egk ballet
a revelation: ‘It’s a very solid, healthy, strong, and expressive score.’140 The
adjectives used here fit with the Nazi emphasis on health and strength and
their rejection of introspection and pathology. Lifar’s goal with this ballet was
to marry German and French styles, understood here as gravity bound (‘terre
à terre’) versus the airborne. But, he essentially endorsed a myth of German
masculinity in staging a work originally created by German artists, a work, in
Lifar’s words, of ‘strong expression, massive, powerful, and dynamic, evoking
the triumphant constructivism of Germany today.’ These were practically the
same terms he used in 1937 to denigrate German dance as ‘plastic dramatic
pantomime, muscular and with a new dynamic of emotional hyperbole’141 ; then,
he said these qualities were ‘essentially and organically foreign to music and
dance’142 ; now, such ‘masculine’ expressive qualities were to be admired although
they could stand to be nuanced with elevation and its attendant harmony.
In Lifar’s new theory, cobbled together for the needs of this production
but also to serve the German masters, German dance was represented as the
masculine dance of the future, and French dance as the feminine dance of
the past. Their combination allowed French dance to contribute the feminine
qualities of academicism – harmony and lightness – to the strength and energy
typical of German dance. The Frenchness of ballet made it decadent in the
eyes of the Nazis, although they also understood decadence as a form of
weakness related to its femininity. For Lifar, the femininity of French dance
complemented the presumed masculinity of German dance, and became a model
for collaboration.143 Lifar drew out the benefits of collaboration understood
in sexual terms as the union of a dominant and a passive partner in his
article ‘La Danse à Paris en 1939–1940,’ in L’Information Musicale, a German
organized publication. In this article, Lifar prophesied that out of the Occupation
would emerge a fruitful period of artistic flowering and renaissance: ‘If the
peoples can forget their disagreements, their enmities, and return to work in
an atmosphere of frankness, if construction can follow upon destruction, then
the arts can experience a brilliant renaissance.’144 In this article, Lifar pictured
the Occupation as an opportunity to overcome isolation and to open out to the

external world.145 This, it seems to me, is a highly politically motivated idea of
how the arts can progress, and it is striking that it Lifar expressed it at the very
start of the Occupation.
Suite en blanc
One year later, Suite en blanc, set to excerpts from Edouard Lalo’s 1882 ballet
score Namouna, was advertised as the apogée of Lifar’s choreographic and dancing
career during the Occupation. The première on 23 July 1943 was a glamourous
occasion featuring the greatest French dancers of the period from Yvette
Chauviré, Lycette Darsonval, and Solange Schwarz to Max Bozzoni, the young
Roland Petit, and Lifar himself; it was timed to coincide with the publication of
Serge Lifar à l’Opéra in a bibliophile edition that reviewed his entire choreographic
career until then (35 ballets) with texts by Paul Valéry, Jean Cocteau, and
Lifar himself.146 This unprecedented luxury publication during wartime when the
quality of paper in publishing was in sharp decline indicates that Suite en blanc was
supported at high levels, and was clearly designed to enhance the perception that
Lifar was a major choreographer at the height of his career at a major European
opera house. Jean Cocteau was taken aback at the publication of Serge Lifar à
L’Opéra: ‘What nerve of Lifar,’ he wrote in his journal, ‘to insist I write texts for
an absurd book on ballets with a preface by Valéry.’147 That Cocteau, who was
very partial to ballet himself and was also a journalist and publicist as well as
a poet and playwright deeply involved with myth, found Lifar’s mythic status
with the Germans shocking should not pass unnoticed. ‘They speak of no one
but him,’ Cocteau noted with incredulity in his journal in 1943. ‘They treat him
like a myth.’148 Cocteau also noted: ‘They speak of him as if he were Nietzsche,
Wagner, God.’149 This particular choice of names ascending from Nietzsche to
God in passing through Wagner indicates how popular Lifar had become with
the German authorities some of whose acquaintance Cocteau also cultivated. He
knew whereof he spoke, but he clearly did not approve.
Lifar’s prestige with the Nazis had been enhanced the previous year by
the success of Joan de Zarissa in which he demonstrated that he could mount a
German ballet better than the Germans themselves could. A comparison of Joan
de Zarissa with Suite en blanc can be useful. In the articles he wrote for German
publications and the collaborationist press, Lifar positioned Joan de Zarissa as a
compromise between the best qualities of French and German ballet. Indeed as a
model for how the resources of French academicism and German expressionism
could be fruitfully combined:
Tomorrow, we will forge a collaboration or, rather, a new synthesis, that will have to do
with the association of the classic with the modern, of academic dance and popular dance,
of ballet and the symphonic dance, of pure dance and plastic expressionism of which the
first example was Joan de Zarissa. In this way, the ballet of tomorrow will be richer than it
has ever been.150
238 MARK FRANKO
Photo 8. Serge Lifar’s Suite en blanc c. 1940s. Photographer: Roger Wood. Jerome
Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox
and Tilden Foundations.
Yet, Suite en blanc represents a substantial shift in approach from Joan de Zarissa in
that it defended and illustrated the elements of the French academic tradition
without any mélange. Although it could be thought of as a divertissement,
however, Suite en blanc had a severe setting: black platforms and stairs at
the back of the otherwise empty stage, and the full cast dressed in highly
contrasting white.151 Although Lifar had said that academicism was fully achieved
in Romantic ballet, there was nothing romantic about the very academic Suite
en blanc.152 If the Germans were deifying Lifar as the Russo-French Wagner
of ballet, as Cocteau noted in his journal, it may be that in 1943 Lifar
grasped the political expediency of abandoning narrative and a ballet of ideas
in favour of unadulterated spectacle. The character of this spectacle lay in its
choreographic orchestration of the large cast, the use of different levels (the stage,
the platform behind, and the stairs), and the clever demonstration of classical
ballet vocabulary organized in unexpected ways, but devoid of plot.
Suite en blanc was a conservative and institutional work. In fact, the opening
tableau with the entire cast filling the stage resembled the climax of the ceremony
known as the defilé.153 In the défilé, 100 dancers and 150 students presented
themselves on the Paris Opéra stage with the maître de ballet at the center
demonstrating a social and institutional reality. As in the Paris Opéra Ballet’s
défilé, Suite en blanc begins and ends with the full cast onstage. Its variations show
no narrative development. As the first ballet to take ballet technique as its theme,
Suite en blanc was atypical of Lifar’s choreographic output: The majority of his
ballets were theatrical and narrative rather than plotless.154
Notwithstanding the Nazi’s earlier misgivings about ballet being too
international155 Lifar had attempted to show in his 1938 book and in his
debate with Divoire that contemporary ballet was Aryan because it followed
academic principles. This was two years after the 1936 Olympic Games when
the Nazis turned against German expressionist modern dance: Rudolf Laban
fell from favour, which led to his emigration to England in 1937; in 1942 the
other great star of German modern dance, Mary Wigman, retired from the
stage.156 Moreover, Goering liked ballet and favoured classicism as ideologically
acceptable to the Third Reich.157 The fact that the Paris Opéra Ballet was
scheduled to dance in Berlin in 1943 indicates that the Germans were taking
French ballet seriously. As Alexandra Kolb has noted: ‘Particularly in the
later years of the Third Reich, the preference for dance forms which were
entertaining and erotically stimulating led to a partial reversion to balletic forms
of entertainment . . . ’158 Suite en blanc was not typical of French entertainment as
it was not bubbly or risqué: it was elegant, but also stark and hard-edged in the
black and white contrast of stage and costumes, and the cold, predominantly
white, lighting.
As a result of Goebbel’s ‘ban on dance’ or ‘prohibition of dramatic ballet’
in 1940 German cultural policy officially banned narrative ballet and purged
all philosophical connotations in dance.159 A decree issued in February 1941
stated the intention ‘to transfer the direction of German Dance Theater and
the German Master Workshops associated with it for the coming academic and
theatrical season to an experienced ballet master at a great opera house.’160 An
institutional ballet needs to be evaluated in an institutional setting. Suite en blanc
underlined the status of the Paris Opéra as an unrivalled European institution of
classical ballet whose master of ceremonies was Lifar. The reference to the défilé,
the nineteenth-century score suggesting a romanticism the ballet itself did not
deliver – three dancers wear Romantic tutus at the start of the work, but these
quickly disappear – and the idea that Suite en blanc summed up the ballet reform
Lifar had engineered – his technical and stylistic innovations, known as lifarismes –
all this might be thought to appeal to the German cultural authorities. Could the
‘great opera house’ be the Paris Opéra, and was the ‘experienced ballet master’
Serge Lifar himself?161
This must remain conjectural. Yet, the efforts made to frame the academic
Suite en blanc as the crowning achievement of Lifar’s career after the very
successful but more expressionist Joan de Zarissa indicate a calculated change of
direction. In notes written to inform his testimony at the post-war trial Lifar
claims that after his visit to Berlin in 1942 Hitler signed a decree naming him the
leader of European dance and relocating him to Berlin.162 In the postwar trial
Lifar characterized this as a form of persecution. In order to avoid leaving Paris
Lifar claimed he had asked his friend the sculptor Arno Breker to intervene.
Hitler’s decree cannot be assumed to have actually existed. But, on 17 August
1942 Jacques Rouché wrote to the Contrôleur Financier of the Réunion des Théâtres
Lyriques Nationaux regarding Lifar’s exorbitant demand of 59,000 francs in salary.
240 MARK FRANKO
In making the case for Lifar’s raise, Rouché speculates in this letter that Lifar may
be receiving competing offers from Berlin or Vienna.163 A postwar newspaper
article reported that Goebbels had charged Lifar with ‘reorganizing in the Nazi
spirit the opera houses of Vienna, Milan, Bucharest, Budapest, and Paris’ and
another article mentions his presence in Spain.164 The documents are lacking to
draw decisive conclusions as to how and why Lifar conceived of and publicized
Suite en blanc as he did. But, if his pending European prominence was only
a private fantasy, Lifar’s imagined prospects circulated nevertheless in public
discourse.
CONCLUSIONS
The archival evidence shows that Lifar was politically astute, calculating, and
manipulative. He saw in Goebbels and in the Nazi propaganda machine an
opportunity to further his own career on a European scale with the enduring
support of the Third Reich. The evidence also shows that Lifar’s activities
coincided with his political convictions, which he discussed quite openly, and
which were consonant with Nazi ideology, particularly that of anti-Semitism.
The theory of dance history Lifar set forth as early as 1938 in his book La danse is
racist, but has never been discussed as such in the literature of twentieth-century
dance history. Given his production of the German ballet Joan de Zarissa at the
Paris Opéra with its stated goal of combining the aesthetics of German and
French ballet, and Lifar’s letter to Goebbels after their initial meeting at the
Opéra at the start of the Occupation to discuss the future of German dance,
it seems reasonable to assume that Lifar’s ambitions exceeded the Parisian
scene and were fixed on Germany and beyond. Lifar’s frequent references
to the eighteenth-century Viennese choreographer Franz Anton Christoph
Hilverding, the itinerant Swiss choreographer Jean-Georges Noverre, and the
Italian choreographer Salvatore Viganò oriented his discourse to European
dance within the exclusive framework of ballet, and thus to his own prospects for
pan-European dance leadership in the aftermath of a German victory in World
War II. It is therefore no longer credible to argue Lifar was apolitical personally
or professionally, nor that he was the victim of calumny after the war.
Institute of Dance Scholarship

Boyer College of Music and Dance
Temple University
NOTES
1. ‘The Germans went there to be entertained, the French went there to forget the
Occupation. Attendance was excellent throughout those years; indeed, performances
were often sold out.’ Frederic Spotts, The Shameful Peace. How French Artists and Intellectuals
Survived the Nazi Occupation (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 205.
This research was funded with a Vice Provost for the Arts Grant from Temple University,
Philadelphia, PA, USA. Special thanks for their critical and research input are due
to Marion Kant, Laure Guilbert, Hubert Hazebroucq, Christine Bayle, Sanja Andus
L’Hotellier, Robert Paxton, Frédéric Pouillaude, Catherine Soussloff, Anne Surghers,
Dominique Delouche, Serge Guilbaut, Zénaïde Romaneix of the Archives Nationales
(Paris), Michel Auclair and Romain Feist of the Paris Opéra Library, Jean-Jacques
Eggler of the Archives de la Ville de Lausanne, Claudine Boulouque of the Bibliothèque
Historique de la Ville de Paris, Céline Heytens of the Musée de la Résistance (Champigny
sur Marne), and Aurélien Conraux of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. I wish also
to thank Richard Ralph and the anonymous readers of Dance Research for their critical
insights. An earlier and shorter version of the article appeared as « Serge Lifar
et la question de la collaboration avec les autorités allemandes sous l’Occupation
(1940–1949) » Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire, n◦ 132, Oct-Déc 2016): pp. 27–41.
2. Sandrine Grandgambe, ‘La Réunion des Théâtres Lyriques Nationaux,’ in Myriam
Chimènes, editor, La Vie Musicale sous Vichy (Brussels: Editions Complexe, 2001), p. 119.
3. Two recent biographies of Lifar cover this period of his life. See Florence Poudru, Serge
Lifar. La Danse pour la patrie (Paris: Hermann Editeurs, 2007); Jean-Pierre Pastori, Serge Lifar:
La beauté du diable (Lausanne: Favre, 2009). In Poudru’s biography, which has a definite
nationalist ring, there is little question of moral responsibility: Lifar is seen as a victim.
Pastori covers some of the material discussed here, but it is generally presented without
careful attention to chronology, and the documentation of claims is uneven.
4. As this article demonstrates, the historical record shows that Lifar’s collaboration with
the Nazi occupiers had the double sense of the term as still used in German: mitwirken (for
artistic collaboration) and Kollaboration (for political collaboration).
5. The Paris Opéra performed Lifar’s Suite en blanc (1943) in New York (2012) and the San
Francisco ballet mounted this work in San Francisco (January 2013) and in New York
(October 2013).
6. Suite en blanc, in particular, has continued to be performed in the postwar era.
7. Indeed, the research for this article was set in motion by viewing a performance of Lifar’s
Suite en blanc in 2012. For my initial reaction, see Mark Franko, ‘They Are at it Again,
Bashing French Ballet: Serge Lifar’s Suite en blanc by the Paris Opera at Lincoln Center
Festival’: http://www.jampole.com/OpEdgy/?p=110
8. Serge Lifar, ‘Une Riposte: Comment Mlle Séménova remercie Paris de son accueil’ (25
March 1936). Collection Serge Lifar, Archive de la Ville de Lausanne, Presse boîte 1936.
Lifar’s dance criticism was designed to demolish his rivals and to impose his opinions in
an arbitrary manner.
9. Dance historian Patrizia Veroli has recently revealed that Lifar hired the erudite Pushkin
scholar Modeste Hoffmann to write his books, and effectively supported Hoffmann for
most of his adult life while consigning the author to the shadows. By the 1940s it was
Hoffman’s son Ratislav who took over ghostwriting for Lifar. See Patrizia Veroli, ‘Serge
Lifar as Dance Historian and the Myth of Russian Dance in Zarubezhnaia Rossiia (Russia
Abroad) 1930–1940’ in Dance Research XXXII/2 (Winter 2014), pp. 105–143.
10. Tony Judt, Past Imperfect. French Intellectuals 1944–1956 (New York and London: New York
University Press, 2011), p. 60.
11. As Alan Riding has noted: ‘Lifar was at the center of everything: management,
choreography, performance.’ Alan Riding, And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-
Occupied Paris (New York: Vintage Books, 2012), p. 158. By the mid 1950s, however, Lifar
felt frequently slighted by the Opéra management and made unreasonable demands and
threats of departure until his contract was no longer renewed.
12. See Sandrine Grandgambe, ‘La Réunion des Théâtres Lyriques Nationaux,’ in Myriam
13. According to the police file kept on Léonide Lifar, he arrived in France in 1933 on
a French visa obtained in Teheran thanks to a carte de séjour provided him by Serge
Lifar who requested it of Alexis Leger, general secretary of the Quai d’Orsay. Services
de la Mémoire, série W, 77W1792 115702** Diaghilev Leonid dit ‘Lifar’. These notes
242 MARK FRANKO
are on the stationery of the Ministry of the Interior, Direction de la Sureté Nationale,
Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire, dated 17 October 1949. Upon entry into
France, Léonide Lifar gave his name as Diaghilev.
14. This is true both of works that study cultural life in general and of those that study
particular art fields, such as theatre, art history, and music. See Serge Added, Le théâtre
dans les années Vichy. 1940–1944 (Paris: Ramsay, 1992); Laurence Bertrand Dorleac, Art
of the Defeat. France 1940–1944 (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2008); Myriam
Chimènes, editor, La Vie Musicale sous Vichy (Brussels: Editions Complexe, 2001); Frederic
Spotts, The Shameful Peace. How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008).
15. Pascal Ory, Les Collaborateurs 1940–1945 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1976). Cocteau, a
friend and supporter of Lifar, was nonetheless a borderline case as his homosexuality
was objectionable to the collaborationist press, and his conception of theater, particularly
in the case of his hit play Les Parents Terribles (The Awful Parents) in 1938, was considered
both immoral and ‘enjuivé’ by the collaborationist press. Alain Lambreaux, ‘Sur la scène’.
La Querelle des ‘Parents Terribles’ in Je suis partout 538 (15 November 1941), n.p.
16. François Anselmini, ‘ “Notre National et International Cortot”. Répertoire et pratiques
d’un artiste engagé,’ in La musique à Paris sous l’Occupation edited by Myriam Chimènes and
Yannick Simon (Paris: Fayard, 2013), pp. 177–196.
17. Sandrine Grandgambe, ‘La Réunion des Théâtres Lyriques Nationaux,’ in Myriam
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from the French and German are my own. I
shall include the original texts in endnotes throughout.
18. Philippe Burin, France Under the Germans. Collaboration and Compromise (New York: The New
Press, 1993), p. 29. I shall return to this point at the end of this article.
19. Clement Crisp, ‘Icare: Remembering Serge Lifar’ Dance Research XX/2 (Winter 2002),
p. 12.
20. Frank W. D. Ries, ‘Cocteau and Lifar,’ in The Dance Theatre of Jean Cocteau (Ann
Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1986), p. 132. See also, ‘The Lifar Years,’ in
Ivor Guest, The Paris Opera Ballet (Alton: Dance Books, 2006), pp. 81–93. For Marie-
Françoise Christout, Lifar was ‘indifferent to events in daily life,’ but, his ‘dazzling
career . . . [was] prematurely disrupted by intrusions of the outside world of politics
. . . ’ The International Dictionary of Ballet edited by Martha Bremsler (Detroit: St. James
Press, 1993), vol. 2, p. 865. It is typical of most dance scholarly discourse to refer to
the Occupation euphemistically as ‘the outside world’ or simply as ‘politics.’ The world of
ballet, by contrast, is the inside, apolitical world. In a more recent anthology on European
dance, Georgianna Gore, Laurence Louppe and Wilfride Piollet adopt a more cautious
perspective: ‘There is no definitive evidence to confirm the accusations of collaboration
levied during the fraught post-war period of score-settling against Serge Lifar . . . ’ ‘France.
Effervescence and Tradition in French Dance,’ in Europe Dancing. Perspectives on Theatre
Dance and Cultural Identity edited by Andrée Grau and Stephanie Jordan (London and New
York: Routledge, 2000), p. 41.
21. There also tends to be confusion between career politics and the politics of politicians.
To be politically effective in one’s own career in an arena such as the Opéra demands
a particular brand of political astuteness and knowledge that engages with the political
sphere properly speaking. To say that a ballet master at the Paris Opéra is apolitical
surely means that the ballet master is unable to deal with institutional politics.
22. Claire Paolacci, ‘Serge Lifar and the Paris Opera during World War II,’ in Journal of the
Oxford University History Society (2004), p. 4. Paolacci fails to cite any of the Nazi publications
for which Lifar wrote.
23. ‘Monsieur LIFAR durant l’occupation, a manifestement collaboré avec les Allemands,
tant au point de vue privé qu’artistique.’ Conclusions to the Interrogatoire of Lifar at the
comité d’épuration on 8 December 1944. Archives Nationales (Paris). The entire transcript
of the trial is available to be read at the National Archives in Paris: Dossier Lifar, Z/6/11.
24. Interview with Dominique Delouche (29 November 2014, Paris). Lifar’s farewell
performance was in 1956 (Giselle), and he was forced into retirement in 1958.
25. Several aspects of dance tradition are being implicitly defended in this breach of ethical
research procedures. First, the tradition of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in France; second,
the reputation of the many dancers who were formed by Lifar and of the students they
themselves trained. The recent passing of Yvette Chauviré is a sign of the disappearance
of the first generation of dancers who were in direct contact with Lifar during his tenure
at the Paris Opéra.
26. One exception is Franz Anton Cramer who, on the basis of Lifar’s book La Danse.
Les grands courants de la danse académique, notes the choreographer’s ‘totalitarian view of
normative art that solicited much resistance in France’ [‘totalitär grundierte Art der
Normativität, die in Frankreih Widerspruch herausfordert’). Cramer, however, specifies
neither what this view entailed nor exactly how it was expressed. Franz Anton Cramer,
In Aller Freiheit. Tanzkultur in Frankreich zwischen 1930 und 1950 (Berlin: Parodos, 2008), 100.
Cramer also notes that Lifar’s aggressive defense of classical normativity during the 1930s
made him an opponent of the intellectual and artistic openness and diversity surrounding
the activities of the Archives Internationales de la Danse. Ibid., 84.
27. Since his brother acted as his secretary much documentation likely disappeared in this
manner. The unreliability of Lifar’s autobiographical writings is well known, making any
scholarship based on them of dubious value at best.
28. This includes reviews and newspaper articles some of which can be found in Lausanne
with the Paris Opéra stamp upon them, which means they had been processed in Paris
and were originally part of the Opéra collection.
29. Lifar had extensive notes on his activities during the Occupation, which were apparently
drawn up to prepare his testimony. Numbered pages about the most sensitive periods of
time are missing as noted in the body of this article. The curator, Jean-Jacques Eggler,
commented to me that the archive had been ‘purged’ before it was delivered.
30. Further research was conducted at the Centre National de la danse (Paris), the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF) site Henri Mitterand, Les Arts du Spectacle (rue
de Richelieu), The Bibliothèque de l’Opéra, La Cinémathèque de la Danse (Paris), The
Bibliothèque de Arsenal (Paris), the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, and the
Dance Collection, New York Public Library of the Performing Arts.
31. Opéra personnel had been mobilized as early as 1939.
32. I base this narrative on Lifar’s trial testimony. Lifar later wrote that he was considering
moving the ballet company to the South of France or to Africa when he was ordered
by the French government in flight not to leave the capital. ‘Je reçus au contraire du
government français l’ordre de ne pas quitter la capitale.’ Serge Lifar, Au Service de la Danse.
A La Recherche d’une Science: La Choréologie. Archives – Témoignages – Réflexions (Paris: Université
de la Danse, 1958), p. 78.
33. ‘For the ballet’s opening performance, on August 28, one-third of the seats were
occupied by Germans, including Ambassador Abetz and General Otto von Stülpnagel,
the German military commander.’ Riding, And the Show Went On, p. 57.
34. This was widely reported in the post-war press and became of immense symbolic
significance to both defenders and detractors of Lifar. One example was a letter signed by
the Comtesse de Noailles and Paul Ristelhueber dated 5 September 1945 that attests it
was physically impossible for Lifar to have been at the Opéra on the morning of 23 June
1940 because he was with his hosts at 11, Place des Etats Unis where he lived between
11 June and 25 July 1940. (Archives de la Ville de Lausanne, Presse, 1937). Ristelhueber,
a friend of Misia Sert who wrote dance criticism under the pseudonym Boulos, kept a
wartime diary excerpts of which are reproduced in Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale,
Misia. The Life of Misia Sert (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), pp. 285–291. An entry of
12 January 1941 reads: ‘Serge is still in a state of euphoria. He says to me: ‘The boss is
expecting me in Munich soon.’ It’s Hitler he is referring to’ (p. 289). It would seem from
this and other comments Ristelhueber recorded that Lifar could have been anxious to
meet with Hitler.
35. Lifar admitted this in his trial testimony. He omitted, however, to speak of the letter he
subsequently sent to Goebbels. ‘Toutes mes relations avec le Dr. Goebbels se sont bornées
à cette entrevue unique et peu agréable pour moi.’ (‘All of my relations with Dr. Goebbels
244 MARK FRANKO
were limited to that one unpleasant interview with him.’). Dossier Lifar, Z/6/11, Archives
Nationales, Paris.
36. Memo to the Deutsche Botschaft (Paris) from Generalkonsul Schleier (22 July 1940).
Politisches Archiv Berlin, Auswärtiges Amt, Botschaft Paris, Heft 1379. ‘Ich bitte
um beschleunigste Feststellung, ob gegen den Ballettmeister der Pariser Oper, Herrn
Serge Lifar, irgendetwas Belastendes vorlieg. Lifar ist Russe von Gerburt und hat die
französische Staatsangehörigkeit nicht erworben. Insbesondere würde interessieren, ob
irgendetwas darüber an Unterlagen vorliegt, ob Lifar jüdischer Abstammung ist’ [‘I
am asking for the quickest determination as to whether there is anything incriminating
against Mr. Lifar, ballet master of the Paris Opéra. Lifar is Russian by birth and has
not sought French citizenship. In particular, would like to know if there is anything that
indicates Lifar is of Jewish heritage’]. In the trial report, Lifar’s family name is given as
Martchenko. Rapport, Le Commissaire Divisionnaire, chargé par interim de la Brigade
Mondaine, 16 mars 1945. Dossier Lifar, Z/6/11. Archives Nationales, Paris. According
to Ilyana Karthas, Lifar was born Sergei Mihhailovich Serdkin. See her When Ballet Became
French. Modern Ballet and the Cultural Politics of France, 1909–1939 (Montreal: McGill-Queens
University Press, 2015), 58.
37. Au Pilori (18 July 1940). Press clippings, Archive de la Ville de Lausanne.
38. For more information on Schleier who was closely associated with Abetz, see Roland Ray,
Annäherung an Frankreich im Dienste Hitlers. Otto Abetz und de deutsche Frankreichpolitik 1930–1942
(Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 2000), p. 20.
39. ‘Lifar is sich darüber klar, dass Juden in Ballett und im Orchester nicht mitwirken
können. Er selber spricht davon, dass er Russe sei. Ich lasse über die Dienstelle Thomas
Ermittlungen anstellen, ob Lifar Jude is oder nicht.’ Memo of Schleier, ‘Besuch des
Serge Lifar,’ 22 July 1940, sent from Paris to the Auswärtiges Amt, Berlin. Politisches
Archiv Berlin, Heft 1379 (Botschaft Paris). Subsequent reports show the Nazis went
behind Lifar’s back to search the records of the French Préfecture de Police regarding
his background. To their chagrin, they found that much of the voluminous file on
Lifar had suffered water damage. The investigators showed particular interest in Lifar’s
request for a visa to travel to Australia in 1939, to dance with de Basil’s Ballets Russes,
but admitted that French records make no mention of religion, so the Jewish question
remained unresolved. They recommended that he be brought in for questioning about his
Australian trip. ‘Uberprüfung des Balletmeisters Serge Lifar.’ 4 August 1940. Auswärtiges
Amt, Berlin. Politisches Archiv Berlin, Heft 1379 (Botschaft Paris).
40. Jacques Rouché (1862–1957) was director of the Paris Opéra from 1914 until 1945. For
an overview of his career, see Claire Paolacci, ‘L’Ere Jacques Rouché à l’Opéra de Paris
(1915–1945). Modernité théâtrale, consécration du ballet et de Serge Lifar’ [‘The Era
of Jacques Rouché at the Opéra of Paris (1915–1945). A New Theatre and the rise of
Serge Lifar and Ballet’]. Dissertation: Université Paris I – Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2006. This
unpublished dissertation is in the Paris Opéra Library: B. 3125.
41. As Sandrine Grandgambe points out, Lifar, Germaine Lubin, and dancer Solange
Schwarz had direct contact with the Germans whereas Rouché and his staff negotiated
with Vichy about programing and budget. See her ‘La Réunion des Théâtres Lyriques
Nationaux,’ in Myriam Chimènes, editor, La Vie Musicale sous Vichy (Brussels: Editions
Complexe, 2001), p. 116.
42. He asked Lifar to bring several young students for a demonstration and offered to
transport them to and from their homes if necessary. He invited Lifar to visit him
personally to work out the details. Letter of Consul General Schleier to Serge Lifar (in
French), Paris, 30 August 1940. Politisches Archiv Berlin, Heft 1379 (Botschaft Paris).
43. A dress rehearsal was scheduled in the stagehands notebooks for 21 August 1940 for the
Damnation of Faust.
44. Laurence Bertrand Dorléac, Art of the Defeat. France 1940–1944 translated by Jane Marie
Todd (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2008), p. 15.
45. Lifar discussed this in his trial testimony. Pascal Ory calls Abetz ‘the principal German
interlocutor in the collaborationist milieu.’ See, Les Collaborateurs. 1940–1945 (Paris: Seuil,
1976), p. 37.
46. Interview with Dominique Delouche (Paris, 28 November 2014).

47. ‘Die Wiederöffnung OPERA und OPERA-COMIQUE’ in Wohin Paris? Der Deutsche
Wegleiter (1 September 1940, No. 3). ‘Der Weltberümte Tänzer Serge Lifar und das
Opernballet haben schon seit Wochen eifrig geüubt und deren Leistungen dürfte auch
das verwöhnteste Publikum entzücken.’ (p. 3). Press clippings file 1940, Archive de la
Ville de Lausanne, Collection Lifar.
48. Robert de Beauplan, ‘La Reprise de l’Activité Théâtrale,’ L’Illustration (7 September
1940), pp. 22–24. The article covers the whole spectrum of theatrical activity starting
up again; it notes the Opéra was becoming a popular destination for German officers.
49. Lifar’s Les Créatures de Prométhée was revived early in the occupation (16 October 1940)
perhaps because the score was by Beethoven. See Mathias Auclair, ‘Richard Wagner à
l’Opéra,’ in La musique à Paris sous l’Occupation edited by Myriam Chimènes and Yannick
Simon (Paris: Fayard, 2013), p. 76.
50. See Manuela Schwartz, ‘La Musique Outil Majeur de la Propagande Culturelle des
Nazis,’ in Myriam Chimènes, editor, La Vie Musicale sous Vichy (Brussels: Editions
Complexe, 2001), pp. 89–105.
51. ‘Abschrift’ from the Gruppe Kultur of the Paris-based Propaganda-Staffel, 28 July 1942.
Politisches Archiv Berlin, Auswärtiges Amt, Botschaft Paris, Heft 1215.
52. Dossier Lifar, Z/6/11, Archives Nationales, Paris.
53. This organization was authorized by a Dr. Dehme on 25 March 1943 on stationary of
the Sicherheitspolizei Kommando, Paris. The founder of the organization, according to
police files, is a M. Venot. Services de la Mémoire: 77W145/114084.
54. ‘ . . [U]n laissez-passer de nuit décerné par le Groupement Corporatif des Spectacles . . . ’
Serge Lifar, Ecrits Divers, p. 17, Archives de la Ville de Lausanne.
55. In his testimony notes Lifar writes: ‘It is true that I had authorization to carry fire
arms and a revolver (of the Browning type); I received these in January 1944 at a time
when armed assaults on people in the street had become particularly frequent’ (‘J’ai
eu effectivement une autorisation de port d’armes et une arme (un revolver du type
Browning); je les ai reçus au mois de janvier 1944, à une époque où les attentats à main
armée, la nuit, contre les passants, étaient devenus particulièrement fréquents.’) Archive
de la Ville de Lausanne, Collection Lifar. By 1944 the resistance was increasingly active.
56. Newsletter of the ‘Groupement Corporatif de la Danse. Association Française des
Professeurs de Danse, Maîtres de Ballet & Artistes Chorégraphes. Groupement Officiel
Unique. Circulaire no. 1 (Octobre 1943). Serge Lifar is listed as President—Conseiller
technique. In the Circulaire is a column: ‘Bals Clandestins’: ‘Les bals publics sont et
demeurent interdits dans toute la France. Sont considérés comme bals ou dancings
publics tous les bals même organisés dans des propriétés privées si le public y est admis.’
Also, if you are caught: ‘Des peines ayant atteint un mois de camp de concentration
ont été appliquées aux musiciens ayant prêté leur concours. Les organisateurs risquent
également le camp de concentration pour une durée assez longue et la fermeture de
leur établissement.’ Lifar also penned an article in Comoedia (7 August 1943) entitled: ‘A
propos d’un Groupement Corporatif de la Danse’ where he argues the importance of the
new organization for defending the rights of teachers and of choreographers. (Coupures
de Presse, 1943, Archive de la Ville de Lausanne). Lifar had defended choreographic
droits d’auteur as early as 1935 (‘Droits d’Auteur du Chorégraphe’, typescript dated 1
November 1935). Archives de la Ville de Lausanne, Ecrits Divers- 1930–1939, box:
Textes Dactylographiés et Manuscrits. In this article, Lifar overlooks the sinister nature
of the Groupement Corporatif.
57. ‘There are two sorts of dance classes: the real ones and the phony ones. To demonstrate
this recently, the Groupement Corporatif de la Danse – an official entity whose direction
includes the names of Irene Popard, Serge Lifar and Solange Schwarz, examined 85
dance instructors in the Paris region for the designation of “dance teacher”. Of this
number, 35 were judged competent. The other 50 were obliged to shut their schools
and judged manifestly incompetent to teach modern dance.’ [‘Il y a deux sortes de
cours de danse. Les vrais et les faux. A titre d’indication, disons que, tout récemment, le
groupement corporatif de la danse – organisme official où l’on trouve, dans le comité de
246 MARK FRANKO
direction les noms d’Irene Popard, de Solange Schwarz, et de Serge Lifar – fit passer un
examen pour le titre de “professeur de danse” à 85 prétendus professeurs installés dans la
region parisienne. Sur ce nombre 35 seulement furent jugés aptes. Les 50 autres devront
fermer les “cours” étants manifestement incompétents en matière d’enseignement de
danse moderne.’] ‘Ici L’on Danse . . . ’ in Compagnons no. 158 (Samedi 30 Oct. 1943),
pp. 6–7. BnF: Fol - Z - 1358 (1940/10-1941/12(N1-63). Compagnons, otherwise known as
L’hebdomadaire jeunes Compagnons was an offshoot of the fascist Vichy-based organization
Jeune France with a focus on youth and the renewal of the peasantry in part through
traditional music and dance.
58. ‘En fin d’année, nous avons été invités à faire partie du Groupement Corporatif de
la Danse, association française des professeurs de danse, maîtres de ballet et artistes
chorégraphiques, groupement official unique. On ne saurait exagérer l’importance de
cet organisme pour les artistes de la danse . . . ’. Serge Lifar, Ecrits, conferences et interviews
(1931–1949), Bibliothèque Nationale de France: R-133988.
59. ‘Ce groupement avait pour effet d’obéir aux Directives purement germaniques. Dès sa
création, il fit enfermer tous les Professeurs dont les sentiments anti-collaborateurs étaient
connus – Plus de trente professeurs sont prêts à témoigner sur ce fait.’ Extrait du Rapport
établi par l’Orchestre de l’Opéra, Dossier Lifar, Z/6/11, Archives Nationales, Paris.
60. For background to the Archives Internationales de la Danse, the flight of the Tugals
from Paris, and Lifar’s relationship to Tugal, see Sanja Andus L’Hotellier, Les Archives
Internationales de la Danse. Un projet inachevé 1931–1952 (Coeuvres-et-Valsery, France:
Ressouvenances, 2012), pp. 234–235.
61. Testimony of 24 October 1944, Dossier Lifar, Police Judiciaire: F347.481, Z/6/11,
Archives Nationales (Paris).
62. ‘Avant que les troupes allemandes n’occupent Kiev, j’ai vécu des minutes lourdes
d’angoisses: je craignais que les Soviets, en se retirant, ne détruisent sa beauté, notre
fierté. . . ’ Serge Lifar, ‘Kiev, ma ville natale’, text typed as part of the comité d’épuration.
63. Serge Lifar, Ma Vie. From Kiev to Kiev translated by James Holman Mason (New York &
Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1965), p. 213.
64. ‘Français, n’oubliez pas le jour de la Victoire d’inscrire sur la liste des traîtres Serge Lifar
et Germaine Lubin.’ Cited in Robert Clarke, ‘Serge Lifar Pourra-t-il Danser à Paris?’ in
Paris-Actualités (30 June 1946). Archive de la Ville de Lausanne, Collection Lifar.
65. Yann Lorane, ‘L’Art, Eternel Lien des Peuples nous dit Serge Lifar, retour d’Allemagne,’
in Paris-Midi (10 October 1942). ‘He has gone to Germany twice, inivited by the
Propaganda Ministry of the Reich’ (‘ . . . [P]ar deux fois il est allé en Allemagne, invité
par le ministère de la Propagande du Reich’. Asked by the interviewer what the meaning
of his trips to Germany was, Lifar responded: ‘I cannot say anything about these projects
before they have been decided upon. But, I intend to leave for Germany a third time
and when I return I will tell you what decisions have been made.’ (‘Je ne puis encore
rien dire de ces projets avant qu’ils soient mis définitivement au point. Je dois d’ailleurs
partir une troisième fois pour l’Allemagne et ce n’est qu’à mon retour que je pourrai vous
communiquer les décisions qui auront été prises.’) Lifar also reported he had travelled
to Salzburg, Vienna and Italy. Serge Lifar, Ecrits, conferences et interviews (1931–1949),
Bibliothèque Nationale de France: R-133988.
66. A statement about these trips was also part of the resumé of the judicial inquest at the trial.
‘LIFAR made two trips to the Berlin Opera. During these trips he was received by the
Führer and Marshal GOERING to whom he presented his film “Symphonie Blanche”
[sic] dedicated to choreographic arts and which he produced at the Maison Pathé. On
was accompanied on this trip by Mr. HARDOUIN, a representative of the Maison
Pathé.’ (‘LIFAR a fait deux voyages à l’Opéra de Berlin. Au cours d’un de ces voyages,
il aurait été reçu par le Fuhrer et le maréchal GOERING auxquels il a présenté le film
“Symphonie Blanche” consacré à l’art chorégraphique, qu’il a tourné pour le compte de
la Maison Pathé. Il était accompagné dans ce voyage par M. HARDOUIN, représentant
de la Maison Pathé’). Directeur de la Police Judiciaire. Enquête sur les agissements de
Serge Lifar. Leur point de vue antinational Durant l’occupation. Parquet de la Cour
de Justice de Paris (Dossier no. SN 7060). Dossier Lifar, Z/6/11, Archives Nationales
(Paris). Telegrams from the Botshaft Paris to Berlin also confirm the appearance of the
Paris Opéra Ballet at the Zürich Festspiel between 20 and 28 June 1944 ‘als wirksames
Argument gegen angloamerikanische Propaganda, dass französische Kulturleben durch
deutsche Besatzung bedrückt wird’ (‘as an effective argument against angloamerican
propaganda that French cultural life is oppressed by the German occupation’). Telegram
from Dr. Pierzig to Berlin, 30 April 1944. Auswärtiges Amt, Berlin. Politisches Archiv
Berlin (Botschaft Paris), Heft 1215.
67. Auswärtiges Amt, Berlin. Politisches Archiv Berlin (Botschaft Paris), Heft 1215.
68. Telegram from the Deutsche Botschaft Paris to Berlin, 24 April 1944: ‘Tanzabend Ilse
Meudtner’. Politisches Archiv Berlin (Botschaft Paris), Heft 1215.
69. Berlin liked to tour German artists to France, but the touring of French artists abroad was
rare because it was assumed French cultural expression could encourage anti-German
sentiment. The embassy suggested many tours that Berlin refused, and Schleier reports
in his draft memoir that Abetz sent Louis Jouvet and the Thèâtre de l’Athenée to
Switzerland and South America without Berlin’s approval. Schleier noted: ‘Man wollte
verhindern, dass französische Künstler den bekannten französischen Kultureinfluss im
neutralen Ausland während des Krieges stützten oder stärkten’ [‘We wanted to prevent
the well-known French cultural influence being transmitted to neutral countries through
French art’]. Nachlass Rudolf Schleier, Auswärtiges Amt, Politisches Archiv, NL 968,
2/II.
70. In Jacques Rouché’s épuration file at the Archives Nationales (Z/6/11) there is a clipping
from Défense de la France (21 September 1944), ‘Serge Lifar soutenu par Jacques Rouché
veut revenir à l’Opéra’ (subtitled: ‘Cicérone d’Hitler’), in which it is noted that the RAF
bombing aborted the project just before the company was to depart Paris. A letter of
Jacques Rouché on 6 December 1943 to one M. Florisoone, Directeur du Service d’action
artistique à l’étranger, discusses the planned tour of the Opéra ballet to Berlin on the basis
of a comparison with the tour to Spain in 1940. This was clearly envisaged as a major
tour with a program to include Le Spectre de la rose, Les Animaux modèles, Suite en blanc, Le
Chevalier et la Demoiselle, Coppélia, Daphnis & Chloé, Entre Deux Rondes, Les Deux Pigeons, and
Elvire. Opéra de Paris: ARCHIVES. XXe siècle, R6, 1943, p. 268.
71. For more on this organization, see Bertram M. Gordon, ‘Collaborationism in Full Bloom:
the Parti Populaire Français,’ in Collaborationism in France during the Second World War (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1980), pp. 130–165.
72. See Joseph Billig, L’Institut d’Etudes des Questions Juives. Officine française des autorités nazies
en France (Paris: Editions du Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, 1974), p.
87. Early in 1941 the Germans placed inordinate pressure on French authorities to
expedite the deportation of all Jews in French concentration camps to the east. In a memo
dated 21 January 1941 Carltheo Zeitschel wrote to Theodor Dannecker, head of Jewish
affairs in Paris, that this undertaking was ‘gigantic.’ Dannecker himself, stationed in Paris,
reported directly to Adolf Eichmann. The Germans were anxious to delegate this task to
the French by having them create a Central Jewish Office in Paris, which was initially
the Institut d’Etudes des Questions Juives. (F_Fonds Ambassade d’Allemagne, Centre
de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, Paris). For fuller documentation, see Joseph
Billig, Le Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives (1941–1944) (Paris: Editions du Centre
de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, 1965), 3 volumes. That Lifar was, according to
the police files, involved in the P.P.F. milieu to which he introduced his brother Léonide
indicates that he was fully aware of these initiatives. Historian Pascal Ory describes
the P.P.F. as serving a ‘. . . fascist pedagogical function: cult of the leader, exaltation of
virile authority, a symmetrical rejection of capitalism and bolshevism . . . ’ Pascal Ory, Les
Collaborateurs. 1940–1945 (Paris: Seuil, 1976), p. 26.
73. Unsigned letter in Service de la Mémoire, Paris.
74. Lifar, Serge, 77W1346 77336, Service de la Mémoire, Paris.
75. See Catherine Andreyev, Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Movement. Soviet Reality and émigré
theories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 65–67.
76. Lifar, Serge, 77W1346 77336, Service de la Mémoire (Paris).
77. Z/6/11, Archives Nationales, Paris.
248 MARK FRANKO
78. ‘Le sieur LIFAR a déclaré que le groupement ‘Anti-Vlassof’ était connu à l’ambassade
de l’U.R.S.S. Après demarches faites, cet organisme ignore complètement l’existence de ce groupe’.
79. ‘Monsieur LIFAR durant l’occupation, a manifestement collaboré avec les Allemands,
tant au point de vue privé qu’artistique.’ Conclusions to the Interrogatoire of Lifar at the
comité d’épuration on 8 December 1944. Dossier Lifar: Z/6/11, Archives Nationales, Paris.
80. Although he first came to France in 1923, the Préfet de Police granted Lifar a ‘droit
d’asile’ of an ‘Etranger sans nationalité’ on 6 May 1940. These documents are housed at
the Centre national de la danse, Pantin, Collection Gilberte Cournand.
81. Dossier LIFAR, Serge. Archives Nationales, Côte: 19900035/85.
82. Bibliothèque de l’Opéra: 109 13 (59). Rouché was rehabilitated in 1951. See Guy Hervy,
Guy Krivopissko, Aurélien Poidevin, Axel Porin, Quand L’Opéra entre en Résistance . . . . Les
personnels de la Réunion des théâtres lyrique nationaux sous Vichy (Paris: l’Oeil d’or, 2007), p. 21.
83. An article in Images du Monde reports that he was not allowed in the theater for his own
premiere unless he purchased his own ticket. When he was finally granted permission
to occupy an official box seat he was accompanied by the police to assure he would not
enter the stage area. ‘ . . . [I]l était à la fois protégé et surveillé par le chef de la sûreté
monégasque, prêt à l’appréhender au cas où il se léverait pour applauder ou répondre à
une ovation, qui finalement se produisit’ [‘. . . [H]e was at once protected and watched
by the head of Monaco security forces who was ready to arrest him if he stood up to
applaud or attempted to acknowledge an ovation, which did take place’.] Y. Albin and
Pierre Roughol, ‘Lifar, Etoile Errante, Paie sa Place Pour Voir ses Propres Ballets,’ Images
du Monde 54 (15 January 1946), p. 7.
84. Among the productions Balanchine created specifically for the Opéra was Palais de Crystal
(Symphony in C), which would seem to be a response to Lifar’s full-company work Suite en
blanc.
85. ‘Les Anglais N’Oublient Pas . . . Serge Lifar sifflé à Londres,’ in France Libre (26 June
26 1946). This article describes how Lifar was met with cries of ‘Collaborator!’ and
‘Achtung!’ as he danced Afternoon of a Faun with the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo at the
Cambridge Theatre in London. Lifar, Serge, 77W1346 77336, Service de la Mémoire,
Paris.
86. ‘Monsieur Serge LIFAR n’est l’objet d’aucune proposition de sanction disciplinaire.’
Photocopy of document sent by Lifar to Gilberte Cournand, Centre national de la danse,
Pantin, collection Gilberte Cournand.
87. Unsigned letter on Serge Lifar, 22 November 1945, Services de la Mémoire, Paris. See
also, René Dunan, ‘Ceux’ de Paris. Août 1944 (Geneva: Editions du Milieu du Monde,
1945), 359–364.
88. ‘Et c’est parce qu’on ne construit pas sur du sable mouvant que je m’étais attaché à
reconstituer le ballet, usé disait-on, à mon arrivée, en mai 1946, mais dont Balanchine a,
lui-même, et justement, reconnu les merveilles en mars 1947’ [‘And since we cannot build
on shifting sands I was concerned to reconstitute the ballet whose marvels Balanchine
himself justly recognized in March 1947 but which I found upon my arrival in May 1946
to be, as they said, worn out’]. Georges Hirsch, ‘Finale Sur un Thème Ressassé,’ in Arts
(30 May 1947). Georges François Hirsch, Clippings file, Dance Collection, New York
Public Library.
89. The tour took the Company to Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, Quebec,
and Montreal. Dance Magazine published a heated exchange of letters on Lifar and
the protests in October 1948 in New York City. The Antifascist Protest Committee
proclaimed: ‘L’Affaire Lifar has not been laid to rest.’ The Committee stipulated: ‘The
early information released to the press indicated pretty clearly, even specified Lifar was
not to accompany the troupe’ (p. 9). It would seem from this that the prohibition on Lifar’s
dancing in France was not extended to international tours. The Committee rejected the
press conference in which Georges Hirsch sought to clear Lifar’s name. British dance
critic Arnold Haskell wrote in Lifar’s defense: ‘He is, after all, an artist, an exuberant one
at that – and NO politician’ (p. 10). Haskell may have initiated another leitmotif of Lifar’s
defense: ‘I feel very strongly that he has been the victim of professional jealousy from the less gifted
and more especially of the hatred of the communists; always dishonest, always WELL
ORGANIZED’ (p. 40). ‘Letters to the Editor,’ in Dance Magazine vol. XXII, no. 11, pp. 7,
9–10; 40–46. The cold war trope of the gifted apolitical artist versus the untalented (and
spiteful, but well organized communist) artist here converges with the 1930s discourse
of the ballet dancer as the skilled apolitical artist versus the politically radical unskilled
modern dancer. See Mark Franko, The Work of Dance: Labor, Movement, and Identity in the
1930s (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2003).
90. Le Progrès Egyptien (2 April 1949), Alexandria, clipping, Paris Opera Library, boîte 0,
folder, pp. 46–50. See also, ‘Une Inconvenance,’ in Le Figaro (11 September 1945); ‘Le cas
de Serge Lifar,’ in Le Monde (12 September 194); ‘Serge Lifar sautera-t-il du programme
du 17 septembre?’ in France Libre (13 September 1945); Serge Lifar, Ecrits, conferences et
interviews (1931–1949). Biblothèque Nationale de France: R-133988.
91. The majority of dancers at the Paris Opéra supported Lifar during this period. In his
professional archive in Lausanne there is a letter dated 15 May 1945, urging the Minister
of National Education to secure Lifar’s position ‘for the Glory and grandeur of French
ballet.’
92. The performance was to include the défilé, Coppélia, and Suite en blanc.
93. ‘Affaire Lifar. . . la Brigade Machinistes électriciens décide à l’unanimité décisive de
ne pas travailler avec Lifar. . . . Manifestations de la Danse et du Public à la sortie des
machinistes électriciens.’
94. ‘M. Serge LIFAR ne paraîtra pas en scène, en public.’ I discovered this notice in the
carnets of the Machinistes at the Musée de la Résistance. It had been stapled on all four
sides into the calendar presumably so that it would not disappear. ‘Entre l’Administrateur
de la Réunion des THEATRES LYRIQUES NATIONAUX et les Délégués Fédéraux,
parlant au nom du Personnel Ouvrier et Technique de l’Opéra.’
95. Dossier Lifar, Serge, Archives Nationales, Côte: 19900035/85. The public greeted Lifar’s
return to the stage in 1949 with great acclamation. ‘La rentrée de Serge Lifar sur la
scène de l’Opéra,’ in Le Monde (5 February 1949). Serge Lifar, Ecrits, conferences et interviews
(1931–1949), Bibliothèque Nationale de France, R-133988.
96. Dix Ans de Ballets à l’Opéra. Du Chevalier et la Demoiselle aux Indes Galantes (Paris: Musée de
l’Opéra, 1952). Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal: 4. NF.26.288.
97. Lifar’s last contract expired on 30 September 1958. In a letter of 1 October 1958 Hirsch
made it clear that Lifar’s erratic and disrespectful behavior could not justify renewal.
Dossier Lifar, Serge, Archives Nationales, Côte: 19900035/85.
98. Bibliothèque de l’Opéra, Fonds Rouché, pièce 109B2. On 20 August 1942 Rouché
wrote to the Financial Controller of the Réunion des Théâtre Lyriques Nationaux that it was
becoming difficult to furnish Jews formerly on salary with ‘emoluments’ since they had
been dismissed. There was an exception for those who were ‘Anciens Combattants’ or
who were doing menial labor. Opéra de Paris. ARCHIVES 20 siècle. R5 (1942), p.
123. This letter was copied to thirteen employees: Barraine, Cauderer, Weiller, Biber,
Juda, Tubiana, Schwarz, Lopez, Birbaum, Jamin, Levy, Haussmann, and Benchimol.
On October 1, 1942 Rouché sent a letter to Adrien Lévy, ‘chef de chant’ informing him
of the necessity to establish a retirement request if applicable as a result of being dismissed.
The dismissal of Jews was pursuant to the law of 6 July 1942. The letter was copied to
five members of the orchestra, three dancers, one chorus leader and six chorus members
as well as to head of singing, Adrien Lévy. Opéra de Paris. ARCHIVES 20 siècle. R5
(1942), p. 169. Three other Jews who were war veterans were able to continue to draw
salaries as long as they did not have other employment. These were M. Franck, head of
singing who was already a prisoner of war in Germany and had been deported to Drancy,
M. Haussmann, a stage hand, and M. Lopes, a member of the orchestra. (Ibidem, pp.
171–173). Hence, it appears from the Opéra records I was able to consult that nineteen
Jews in all were dismissed. On 30 October 1942 Rouché confirmed the appointment of
Henri Dutilleux to replace Franck as Chef de Chant, on a provisional basis (Ibidem, p.
219). Sandrine Grangambe, however, reports that approximately thirty individuals were
affected, not counting the students of the dance school. See ‘La Réunion des Théâtres
Lyriques Nationaux,’ in Myriam Chimènes, editor, La Vie Musicale sous Vichy (Brussels:
Editions Complexe, 2001), p. 118.
250 MARK FRANKO
99. ‘Mes origines excluent toute possibilité d’appartenance à la race juive et prouvent de
façon absolue que je suis de sang aryen pur. Quant à mes idées à l’égard des juifs, on
les connaît . . . Dans mon livre sur la Danse en 1937, j’ai démontré que la culture juive
était incompatible avec la culture omni-aryenne, qu’elle a suivi des voies distinctes et
destructives, alors que l’esprit omni-aryen symbolise la création.’ Typed letter signed by
Lifar at the Archives de la Ville de Lausanne, Correspondence Personnelle 1940–1949.
The letter was written in the summer of 1940; the first page of the letter is missing.
100. See my discussion of this book in the following section of this article. The book was first
published in Russian in 1937, which puts his formulation of such a position in the mid-
1930s.
101. In an interview given Alan Riding, Babilée said: ‘He didn’t save me at all.’ And The Show
Went On, p. 161.
102. Jean Gutmann Babilée’s dossier at the Opéra contains letters posted to Jacques Rouché
as early as 1940 pleading with the Director to protect the talented young dancer by giving
him ‘un engagement réel’ (a real engagement) that would supersede his status as a student.
103. As Jean Babilée recounted to his biographer: ‘One day I received a notice to appear for
obligatory work detail in Germany’ (‘Un jour, j’ai reçu une convocation pour partir au
travail obligatoire en Allemagne’). See Sarah Claire, Jean Babilée, ou la danse buissonnière
(Paris: Van Dieren, 1995), p. 47.
104. ‘Comme suite à notre conversation du Samedi 4 Novembre, j’ai l’honneur de vous
confirmer ma décision de quitter le théâtre national de l’Opéra.’ Opéra. ARCHIVES. 20
siècle. 707. Dossier Personnel: Jean BABILEE. 1939–1971. He was, however, apparently
called back since in the 1952 season he alternated with Lifar and Renault in dancing
the role of Albrecht in Giselle and was contracted to dance Spectre de la rose, Scheherazade,
Petrouchhka, and Suite en blanc among other ballets. In 1953 Roland Petit requested that
Babilée be released by the Opéra to perform as guest artist with Ballets de Paris Roland
Petit. As this request was apparently denied, Babilée resigned from the Opéra again in
November 1953 in order to perform with Petit in London. Opéra. ARCHIVES. 20 siècle.
707. Dossier Personnel: Jean BABILEE. 1939–1971.
105. A memo of 28 January 28 1942 from the Secrétaire Général Adjoint de la Féderation
du Spectacle to the ‘Camarade Secrétaire de l’Union des Syndicats de la Seine’ identifies
dues (timbres) paid by three groups within the Opéra: Choristes de Paris, Opérateurs,
and Employés des Spectacles. Musée de la Résistance, Champigny sur Marne, fonds
Federation National du Spectacle, boîte 7.
106. Hervy, p. 55.
107. This was especially the case since the Opéra stagehands were resisters. In an article
by Jean Gandrey-Rety, ‘Les Dessous de l’Affaire Serge Lifar,’ in Franc Tireur (1947),
the journalist made a connection between Lifar’s vocal support of the Germans, and
the death of their comrade Hugues. ‘Certains mots restent. Ceux qu’on lui impute
semblent avoir laissé – avec le souvenir de leur camarade mort en déportation – des traces
particulièrement vivaces dans l’esprit et dans le coeur des machinistes à l’Opéra’ (‘It is
hard to eradicate certain words. Those words imputed to Lifar seem to have left – along
with the memory of their colleague lost in the deportation – particularly vivid traces in
the mind and heart of the Opéra machinists.’ Serge Lifar, Ecrits, conferences et interviews
(1931–1939) Bibliothèque Nationale de France: R-133988.
108. Le vif intérêt et la sympathie témoignés par Monsieur le Docteur Goebbels, au cours de notre
entrevue pendant la visite à l’Opéra le 1er Juillet, pour notre ballet, et, en particulier, pour ma propre
activité de maître de ballets et premier danseur, m’incitent à m’adresser, par votre intermédiaire, à
Monsieur le Ministre de la Propagande.
Ma joie serait grande, si je pouvais présenter à Monsieur le Ministre les lignes générales de
ma chorécreation – union étroite des tendances nouvelles avec les traditions classiques les plus
pures – nettement apparentes dans les deux ballets que je danse le 29 août, mais connaissant les
multiples occupations de Monsieur le Docteur Goebbels et le temps qu’il y consacre, je ne puis
nourrir, malheureusement, qu’un bien faible espoir.
Au cours des dernières années, je me suis consacré à l’étude de questions ayant trait à la
danse et à son histoire, et j’espère pouvoir bientôt présenter à Monsieur le Docteur Goebbels mes
considérations sur les perspectives qui s’ouvrent à la danse en Allemagne.
Letter of Serge Lifar to Otto Abetz, 21 August 1940. Auswärtiges Amt, Berlin. Politisches
Archiv Berlin, Heft 1379 (Botschaft Paris).
109. ‘La grimace dramatique.’ Lifar uses this phrase specifically to characterize the dance of
Harald Kreutzberg. Serge Lifar, La Danse. Les Grands Courants de La Danse Académique (Paris:
Denoël, 1938), p. 230.
110. An internal Opéra memo dated 17 December 1940 reports that an unidentified German
officer working under Goebbels borrowed the book without giving his name, and had not
returned it. The memo suggests that Goebbels be requested to return the book. The book
is clearly identified as Lifar’s La Danse, and on 9 January 1941 it was confirmed that the
book had not been returned. Archives administratives: A65/1. Bibliothèque Nationale de
France.
111. ‘ . . . [C]hez tous les peuples de l’Europe appartenant à la race indo-européenne,
aryenne.’ Serge Lifar, La Danse. Les Grands Courants de La Danse Académique (Paris: Denoël,
1938), p. 93. Cyril W. Beaumont translated this book into English with a number of
the racially charged passages excised as Ballet Traditional to Modern (London: Putnam,
1938). In Beaumont’s translation, the passage on German dance reads: ‘Grimacing and
the grotesque, stressed by contracted muscles and distorted features, exaggerated pathos
or caricature, extremes of expression, such in general are the principal elements of the
German ballet . . . ’ (p. 190).
112. Lifar, La Danse, p. 93. The section of this book on ‘Choréologie et Folklore’ (pp. 265–277)
is also extremely and explicitly racist, and is very critical of André Levinson.
113. Chauviré was promoted to Danseuse-Etoile on 1 March 1942. The contract is in the dossier
Chauviré, Yvette, côte: 19900035/81, Archives Nationales (Paris).
114. Istar was favorably reviewed in the collaborationist paper La Gerbe (5 January 1943) along
with the announcement that Chauviré was now the only first dancer in the Opéra since
the ‘mysterious disappearance from circulation’ of Lucienne Lamballe who resigned in
December 1942. Max Bozzoni, who married the Jewish dancer Rita Thalia Schiff also
resigned from the Opéra after her dismissal. Yann Lorenz, ‘Trois Succès de Serge Lifar’
in La Gerbe (5 January 1943), p. 7. According to Dominique Delouche, Bozzoni was also
Jewish (Interview with the author, November 28, 2014). The correspondence of Rouché
that I have seen shows no evidence of attempts to protect his employees, and there are
no extant memos of Lifar in the Opera archives. Given Lifar’s close connection to Nazi
authorities it nevertheless seems likely Lifar could have intervened on behalf of Schiff and
Babilée as did other known collaborators such as José-Maria Sert.
115. See Jon R. Stone, ‘Introduction,’ in The Essential Max Müller on Language, Mythology, and
Religion (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 12. See also, George L. Mosse, The
Crisis of German Ideology. Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich (New York: the Universal
Library, 1964), pp. 89–90.
116. Fritz Boehme, ‘Ist das Ballett deutsch? [Is Ballet German?],’ in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
(25 April 1933), n. p.
117. Lifar, La Danse, p. 93.
118. Ibid., 99.
119. See, in particular, the section on ‘Choréologie et Folklore,’ 265–277 where he takes
André Levinson to task for not having recognized the superiority of Indo-European, and
specifically Aryan, dance, a term upon which Lifar repeatedly insists.
120. Among the clippings Lifar saved and deposited at the Archives de la Ville de Lausanne
is a clipping stamped with his personal stamp containing his name within the seal of the
Academie Nationale de Musique et de Danse. It is the front page of LU (13 mars 1936)
with the headline: ‘When Will Hitler Wage War?’ (‘Quand Hitler Fera-t-il la Guerre?’)
signed by Louis Fischer.
121. Serge Lifar, ‘Regards sur l’avenir du Ballet,’ in Pariser Zeitung n. 133 (May 15, 1943),
p. 7.
252 MARK FRANKO
122. Fernand Divoire, ‘Danse et ballet,’ in Panorama (2 June 1943). Clippings file, Paris Opera.
‘Uber die Zukunft des Ballets. Gedanken zur Wiedergeburt des Bühnentanzes,’ was also
published in French in the same issue as ‘Regards sur l’avenir du Ballet,’ Pariser Zeitung no.
133 (15 May 1943). Most of the issues can be consulted at the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal
(Paris). The Pariser Zeitung was a German-language daily published in Paris during the
occupation with occasional articles in French. It contained mostly war news and was
heavy on Nazi propaganda and rampant anti-Semitism. Its culture pages were mostly
dedicated to opera and theater. Lifar continued in this vein with another article, ‘Des
origines préaryennes de la danse académique’ published in Nouveaux Temps (24 November
1943) in which he argued that the pre-Aryan principle linking academic ballet to the
folkdance of various nations within the pre-Aryan family was the second and fourth
position turn out of the legs. He also claimed in this article that his film Symphonie en
blanc demonstrated this thesis. In yet another article, ‘Antiquité et Danse Classique,’
published in Nouveaux Temps (24 December 1943) Lifar returned to the dispute to claim
that Antiquity had in no way influenced classical ballet; this argument indirectly supports
the idea that Aryan dance stems from India. Serge Lifar, Ecrits, conferences et interviews
(1931–1949), Bibliothèque Nationale de France: R-133988. Nouveaux Temps, Paris-Midi,
and La Gerbe were all collaborationist publications.
123. Fernand Divoire, ‘Il fallait un danseur . . . ’ in Panorama (18 November 1943). Serge Lifar,
Ecrits, conferences et interviews (1931–1949), Bibliothèque Nationale de France: R-133988.
124. Fernand Divoire, ‘Danse et ballet,’ in Panorama (3 June 1943). Lifar responded in
‘La Danse Académique,’ an article published in Comoedia (31 July 1943) in which he
defended the idea that academic dance can combine ‘pure dance’ with expressionism.
Divoire responded to Lifar’s response in ‘Il a été perdu des danses préaryennes et une
danse classique,’ in Panorama (16 August 1943) by saying he thought Lifar used the
term academic imprecisely because his choreography mixed too many styles together.
Serge Lifar, Ecrits, conférences et interviews (1931–1949), Bibliothèque Nationale de France:
R-133988.
125. Levinson’s book Serge Lifar. Le destin d’un danseur was a turning point in Lifar’s career. For
more on the development of Lifar’s career in the 1930s and Levinson’s position on Lifar,
see Mark Franko, Serge Lifar and the Crisis of Neoclassicism (New York: Oxford University
Press, forthcoming).
126. ‘Ce ballet, monté par moi,’ Lifar reported to his interrogators, ‘fut un triomphe, triomphe
qui d’après les Allemands avait été jusqu’alors inégalé dans leur pays.’ Excerpt from
Lifar’s testimony, Parquet de la Cour de Justice de Paris (Dossier no. SN 7060), Archives
Nationales: Cote Z/6/11. This was apparently true as Dr. Pierzig reported the work’s
success to Berlin in a letter dated 4 November 1942: ‘The remounting of the ballet was
the strongest success, not only for Egk’s music, but for Lifar’s outstanding choreography
and direction’ (‘Die Wiederaufnahme brachte für Egk’s Musik, die in Serge Lifar einen
hervorragenden Choreographne und Hauptdarsteller gefunden hat, erneut allerstärksen
Erfolg.’) Politisches Archive, Botshaft Paris, Heft 1215. See also a report by Lutz of 28
July 1942 to Berlin. Politisches Archive, Botshaft Paris, Heft 1215.
127. Michael H. Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era. Eight Portraits. (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2000), p. 18.
128. Unsigned letter of 26 September 1942 to the General Konsul Knothe. Politisches
Archive, Botshaft Paris, Heft 1215.
129. Monika Woitas, ‘Abraxas und Kein Ende. Kontext und Hintergrunde eines Skandals,’
in Jürgen Schläder, editor, Werner Egk: Eine Debatte zwischen Asthetik und Politik (Munich:
Herbert Utz Verlag, 2008), 118–133.
130. ‘Joan von Zarissa,’ in Eberhard Rebling, Ballett von A bis Z (Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1970),
217–222. See also: Léandre Vaillat, Ballets de l’Opéra de Paris (Paris: Compagnie Française
des Arts Graphiques, 1943), pp. 133–134. See, also, Ernst Krause, Werner Egk. Oper
und Ballett (Wilhemshaven: Heinrichshofen’s Verlag, 1971), 160. Egk himself wrote the
libretto and conducted most of the performances, including those in Paris. Leading roles
in the original production were danced by Ilse Meudtner, Bernhard Wosien, and Rolf
Jahnke with direction by Heinz Tietjen. Harald Kreutzberg danced the role of the Fool
in Vienna.
131. Helmut Scheier, ‘Pathetisches Handlungsballett. ‘Joan von Zarissa’ in Wiesbaden,’ in
Ballett-Journal. Das Tanzarchiv 31/1 (June 1983), 38–39.
132. Andreas Liess, ‘Die Zukunft des Tanzdramas,’ in Neues Musikblatt 51/19 (February 1940),
Jerome Robbins Dance Collection, *MA, New York Public Library for the Performing
Arts at Lincoln Center.
133. Geraldine de Courcy, ‘Berlin Opera Gives Egk Dance-Drama’ in Musical America
(10 May 1940), 12. Joan of Zarissa (Maudrik), Clipping file, *MGZR, Jerome Robbins
Dance Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
134. Fifty-seven costume designs are available at the Bibliothèque Nationale, but can only be
consulted on Gallica intra muros: IFN-10539266.
135. Paul Valéry, ‘Préface’ in Les Fouquet de la Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris: Verve Vol. III, no. 9,
1943), n.p.
136. ‘Comme technique, fidèle à sa methode qui est à la fois éclectique de fait et synthétique
d’intention, le chorégraphe a mêlé les pas classiques, les attitudes déformées et anguleuses,
les gestes de narration. On a bien fait de remarquer qu’il avait voulu créer un “drame
dansé”.’ Ferdinand Divoire, ‘La Danse’ in Paris-Midi (16 July 1942), n.p. [Recueil. ‘Joan
de Zarissa’ de Werner Egk [Document d’archives]: FRBNF42645021.
137. ‘J’ai été immédiatement séduit par le personnage de Joan, sorte de Don Juan gothique,
figure intensément tragique.’ Serge Lifar, ‘Un Nouveau Ballet à l’Opéra: Joan de Zarissa,’
in Comoedia 54 (4 July 1942), n.p.
138. Serge Lifar, ‘Regards sur l’avenir du Ballet.’ Pariser Zeitung n. 133 (15 May 1943), p. 7.
139. ‘[J]’étais curieux d’entrer en contact avec la nouvelle école allemande, encore trop peu
connue chez nous.’ Serge Lifar, ‘Un Nouveau Ballet à l’Opéra, Joan de Zarissa,’ in
Comoedia no. 54 (4 July 1942), n.p.
140. ‘C’est une musique très solide, très saine, très forte, très expressive . . . ’. Ibidem.
141. Les grands courants, p. 230.
142. Ibid., p. 231.
143. This kind of gendered characterization of national identity, it must be stressed, is highly
ideological. Another example of it is found in the writing of Robert Brasillach, the only
literary collaborator to have been executed after the war: ‘I have had an affair with
German genius that I will never forget . . . Like it or not, we have lived together; The
French who have thought during these few years have more or less slept with Germany
and that memory will be forever sweet. » Robert Brasillach, Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Club
de l’honnête homme, 1963–1966), pp. 610–614. I thank Serge Guilbaut for calling my
attention to this quote. A similar national gendering of dance took place in the Nazis’
approach to Martha Graham. See my Martha Graham in Love and War. The Life in the Work
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 67.
144. ‘Si les peuples oublient leurs dissentiments, leurs haines, s’ils se remettent au travail dans
une atmosphère de franchise, si la construction succède à la destruction, les arts peuvent
connaître une brillante renaissance.’ ‘La Danse à Paris en 1939–1940,’ in L’Information
Musicale (1940). Archives de la Ville de Lausanne, Serge Lifar collection, boîte 1940
(presse).
145. Jean Cocteau had earlier made a similar argument for the creative potential artists might
find in the Occupation. See his article, ‘Le Territoire de l’Esprit: Adresse aux Jeunes
Ecrivains’ (1940) published in La Gerbe on 15 December 1940. Fonds Cocteau, MS-FS-
05-1071, Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris.
146. Serge Lifar à l’Opéra (Paris: Thibault de Champrosay, 1943). The book is ‘défini par Paul
Valéry, parlé par Jean Cocteau, vécu par Serge Lifar.’ Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal: Rés-4
NF 23.734.
147. Jean Cocteau, Journal 1942–1945 (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), p. 399.
148. Ibid., p. 275.
149. Ibid., p. 400.
150. ‘Demain, nous réaliserons de même une collaboration, ou plutôt une synthèse nouvelle
qui portera essentiellement sur l’association du classique et du moderne, de la danse
académique et les danses populaires, du ballet de la Tanz-Symphonie, de la danse pure et
254 MARK FRANKO
de l’expressionisme plastique dont le premier exemple fut Joan de Zarissa. De cette façon, le
ballet de demain sera plus riche qu’il ne l’a jamais été.’ Serge Lifar, ‘Regards sur l’avenir
du ballet,’ in Pariser Zeitung 133 (15 May 1943), p. 7.
151. In the original production, with décor by André Dignemont, a backdrop of shrubs
painted in a neutral color could be seen on the platform. ‘Le décor représente une
perspective de charmilles taillées à la française. M. Dignemont l’a peint dans une gamme
neutre.’ Léandre Vaillat, Ballets de l’Opéra de Paris, p. 145. In one image published in the
thesis of Claire Paolacci (p. 535) we see classical sculpture on the platform above the steps:
each nude stands on a low table.
152. ‘It is a Viennese ballet master, Hilverding, who cleared the ground on which two foreign
reforms were born: that of Noverre, a Frenchman, and that of Viganò, an Italian. From
their reforms resulted what one calls Romantic ballet, the ballet of the years 1820–1895,
veritable high point of academic dance.’ (‘C’est un maître de ballet viennois, Hilverding,
qui a défriché le sol où sont nés deux réformes étrangères: celle de Noverre, un Français,
et celle de Vigano, un Italien. De leurs réformes a résulté ce qu’on a appelé le ballet
romantique, le ballet des années 1820–1895, véritable apogée de la danse académique’).
Serge Lifar, ‘Regards sur l’avenir du ballet,’ in Pariser Zeitung 133 (15 May 1943), p. 7.
153. The first défilé was staged by Leo Staats to the march from Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner
in 1926, but only performed twice. Ballet master Albert Aveline staged it at Lifar’s
suggestion to the march from Hector Berlioz’s Les Troyens in 1945 during Lifar’s absence
from the Opera. Lifar re-instituted it in 1947 and is now officially recognized as its author.
See Hommage à Serge Lifar (Paris Opera Program, January-February 1988).
154. Yet, Suite en blanc was not Lifar’s first return to ballet classicism. An earlier attempt
is Divertissement (1932). An article in Paris-Soir (June 5, 1932) explains that ‘The
Divertissement has no plot . . . It is clearly inspired by the original choreography of Marius
Petipa’ (‘Ce Divertissement ne comporte pas d’argument . . . [Il] est inspiré nettement de
la chorégraphie originale de Marius Petipa.’). Serge Lifar, Ecrits, conferences et interviews
(1931–1949), Bibliothèque Nationale de France: R-133988. Divertissement was a version
of Aurora’s Wedding (Le Mariage d’Aurore), first staged by Bronislava Nijinska for the Ballets
Russes in 1922 and performed throughout the 1920s by that company.
155. Fritz Böhme, ‘Ist das Ballett deutsch? [Is Ballet German?],’ in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
(25 April 1933). In this article, the German dance critic and historian argues against ballet
as an instrumentalization of the body and for an ‘organic’ German dance art of dance
concerned with the cultural meaning of German gesture.
156. Lifar’s post-war problems bear comparison with those of Mary Wigman and Rudolf
Laban. In the question of the engagement of dance with Nazism in Germany, little
attention has been paid to ballet, and equally little attention to occupied France. It
is less remarked in this context that the Nazis attention also turned to France as the
home of ballet despite earlier misgivings about ballet as an international art form. See
Lillian Karina and Marion Kant, Hitler’s Dancers. German Modern Dance and the Third Reich
(New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2003). See, especially, ‘From German Dance to
German Ballet’: pp. 138–146.
157. David J. Buch and Hans Worthen, ‘Ideology in Movement and Movement in Ideology:
the Deutsche Tanzfestspiele 1934 (9–16 December, Berlin)’, in Theatre Journal 59, no. 2
(May 2007), pp. 215–239.
158. Alexandra Kolb, Performing Femininity. Dance and Literature in German Modernism (Bern: Peter
Lang, 2009), pp. 273–274. Kolb also cites Goebbels: ‘Dance must be buoyant and show
beautiful female bodies. This has nothing to do with philosophy’ (279).
159. See Marian Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, pp.140–143.
160. Karina and Kant have reproduced this and related documents. See Lillian Karina and
Marion Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, p. 291.
161. According to Claire Paolacci (2004) ‘Adolf Hitler invited him [Lifar] to be the
choreographer for the third Reich, an offer Lifar refused, claiming that his neo-classical
ballet was incompatible with the way German choreography was developing’ (p. 4). As I
show in this article, Lifar used Joan de Zarissa precisely to argue the connections between
French and German dance. Paolacci also claims that Stalin approached Lifar to be the
head of dance, which, given Lifar’s politics, seems hard to believe. She offers no evidence
for these claims. See ‘Serge Lifar and the Paris Opera during World War II,’ translated
by Charles S. Heppleston in Journal of the Oxford University History Society 2 (2004), p. 4.
162. ‘En 1943, le chancelier Hitler, sollicité par M.M. Goebbels et Goering, signe un décret
me nommant à la direction de tout le ballet européen en Allemagne, et je ne réussis
à rester à Paris que grâce à l’intervention de M. Arno Breker.’ Dossier Lifar, Z/6/11,
Archives Nationales (Paris).
163. ‘Mr LIFAR insiste pour obtenir le chiffre de sa demande. Il part pour Berlin et Vienne
et il peut trouver sur sa route des propositions qui le détournent peut-être en partie de
son désir de nous consacrer sa collaboration entière et exclusive.’ [‘Lifar is insisting on the
salary amount he is asking for. He is leaving for Berlin and Vienna and on the way he may
come across proposals that distract him from his desire to remain completely faithful to
us’]. The jump in Lifar’s salary requested at that point was from 39,000 to 59,000 francs.
Opéra. ARCHIVES. XXe siècle. R5. Correspondance Générale. 1942, pp. 119–121.
164. ‘Mais la Résistance se souvient encore que ce Monsieur fut appelé plusieurs fois chez
Goebbels et qu’il fut chargé de reorganizer dans l’esprit nazi les opéras de Vienne, de
Milan, de Bucarest, de Budapest, de Paris.’ ‘Serge Lifar. Russe, Hitlérien, Danseur Nazi,
exhibe sa troublante nudité au Casino de Monte-Carlo,’ in L’Ergot (Nice, 13 January
1946). Coupures de Presse, Archive de la Ville de Lausanne. ‘Serge Lifar spoke of his
recent trip to Spain, and of Germany and Italy’ [‘Serge Lifar nous parle ensuite de son
récent voyage en Espagne, de l’Allemagne et de l’Italie’]. ‘Projets et Réalisations de Serge
Lifar,’ in Reflets Européens 4 (February 1944), 10.
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Serge Lifar and the Question of Collaboration with the German

Article in Dance Research · November 2017

Dance Studies: a Critical Anatomy View project

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Keywords: Serge Lifar, Paris Opéra, Jean Cocteau, Occupation,

This article is a reassessment of the activities of the influential Ukrainian-

Dance Research 35.2 (2017): 218–257

the mid-thirties onward, Lifar arrogated to himself substantial intellectual and

union – Groupement corporatif de la danse – for which Lifar served as President-Conseiller

and choreographic artists - it is one of a kind. I cannot emphasize enough

Lifar celebrated the German occupation of Kiev in Paris-Midi (25

war in order to escape deportation.103 After the Liberation, he officially resigned

characterizing it as a ‘dramatic grimace.’109 On 1 July 1940 an unidentified

presented it in Munich in 1960; its last performance to date was in Wiesbaden in

the Occupation as an opportunity to overcome isolation and to open out to the

Institute of Dance Scholarship

46. Interview with Dominique Delouche (Paris, 28 November 2014).

Lifar, S. ‘La Dance Académique.’ Comoedia (31 July 1943), n.p.

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