Ida Rubinstein
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Ida Lvovna Rubinstein (5 October 1885 – 20 September 1960) was a famous Russian ballerina, actress, patron and iconic Belle Époque beauty.
Early life
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia into a wealthy Jewish family, Rubinstein was orphaned at an early age. She had, by the standard of Russian ballet, little formal training. Under the private tutelage of Mikhail Fokine she debuted in 1909 with a single private performance of Oscar Wilde's Salomé, stripping completely nude in the course of the Dance of the Seven Veils.
Sergei Diaghilev took her with the Ballets Russes and she danced the title role of Cléopâtre in the Paris season of 1909. This performance was as a powerful spectacle, the costumes were designed by Leon Bakst and the finale inspired Kees van Dongen's Souvenir of the Russian Opera Season 1909.
Depictions in art, ballet
Rubinstein was also much celebrated in art. Her portrait by Valentin Serov in 1910 marks the most complete realization of his mature style. The Art Deco sculptor Demetre Chiparus produced a Rubinstein figurine and she was painted by Antonio de la Gandara.
Bisexual, Rubinstein began in 1911 a three-year affair with the painter Romaine Brooks, who created a striking portrait and used her as a nude model for Venus.
Rubinstein danced with the Ballet Russe again in the 1910 season, performing in Scheherazade, a ballet based on the first story of the Thousand and One Nights, choreographed by Michel Fokine and written by him and Léon Bakst. This was admired at the time for its racy sensuality and sumptuous staging, but these days it is rarely performed; to modern tastes, it is considered too much of a pantomime and the then fashionable Orientalism appears dated.
In 1911 she performed in Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien. Gabriele d'Annunzio wrote the part for her and it was scored by Claude Debussy. This was both a triumph for its stylized modernism and a scandal; the Archbishop of Paris requested Catholics not attend because St. Sebastian was being played by a woman and a Jew.
After she left the Ballet Russe, Rubinstein founded and funded several ballet companies and she worked with a number of important choreographers and composers including Arthur Honegger. She commissioned and performed in Maurice Ravel's Boléro in 1928, she often staged free ballet events and continued to dance until the start of the second World War.
Later life
Rubinstein is not considered to be among first rank of ballerinas; she began her training too late for that to be a possibility. She did, however, have tremendous stage presence and was able to act. She was a significant patron and she tended to commission works that suited her abilities, works that mixed dance with drama and stagecraft. In 1934 the French government awarded her the Légion d'honneur, and then in 1939 the Grand Cross of the order, the highest rank. In 1935 she was awarded honorary French citizenship, and in 1936 she converted to Roman Catholicism.
In 1940 she left France during the German invasion, and made her way to England via Algeria and Morocco. There she helped wounded Free French soldiers until 1944. Walter Guinness, her long-term occasional boyfriend and sponsor, remained supportive, providing a suite at the Ritz Hotel, but he was killed in late 1944. She returned to France, living finally at Les Olivades at Vence.
She died in 1960 at Vence, France, and is buried nearby.
