Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky: A mysterious love story
The spark between one of the greatest musical masterminds and the greatest fashion designer of the 20th century - did it happen? Film and literature have come up with their very own thoughts.
A musical critic described Petrushka, the ballet set to music by Igor Stravinsky, as 'a cocktail of Russian vodka and French perfume'. Little did he know how significant his words would become a few years later, when the Russian composer fell in love with the world's most famous, richest, most elegant, most talked-about and most visionary women: Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, better known as Coco Chanel.
Le Sacre du printemps
Paris, 29 May 1913. Coco Chanel makes her way through the crowd to the entrance of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées . On the bill was a much-awaited premiere for the capital's refined public: Le Sacre du printemps, a ballet with music by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, staged by Sergei Djagilev's Ballet Russes company.
The spark between one of the greatest musical masterminds and the greatest fashion designer in history was sparked at a very particular moment in both their lives. Stravinsky, as is well known, had fled revolutionary Russia in the early 20th century and found refuge in the Paris of the so-called "Roaring Twenties". A Paris that had attracted and given hospitality to a whole generation of artists such as Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway,Francis Scott Fitzgerald and Igor Stravinsky himself. A special moment, it was said, because for the composer the situation was disastrous: fleeing the motherland with his first wife Katerina - sick with consumption and bedridden - and their four children and penniless. But Stravinsky was already a more than famous and respected name in France, if only for his totally innovative and avant-garde way of conceiving music.
The world's most famous mademoiselle, Coco Chanel, had been impressed and enraptured by the Russian composer's music, theatricality and personality. But it was 1913, Chanel was immersed in a love affair with Arthur Boy Capel, a wealthy English scion, and Stravinsky was still living in Russia. But the arrow of love had been shot, music had opened a breach in the heart of the queen of fashion and in fact almost ten years later, when the composer was forced to flee, in an economic and family situation bordering on the tragic, Coco Chanel proved to be as generous as, to look at it from a certain angle, mischievous.
Living together
As Chris Greenhalgh recounts in his book Coco and Igor in 1920 Igor Stravinsky was invited to the French fashion designer's country house. A villa on the outskirts of Paris, full of modern artworks with a garden and large rooms. It was difficult for the composer to refuse the invitation to move into Chanel's house with his entire family. He would even have a piano and a room to himself and his music. So for some time the two geniuses of the 20th century lived together in an idyllic situation, but at the same time a difficult one because Stravinsky's whole family was with them. But resisting the charms of Coco Chanel was virtually impossible. How could Stravinsky's sick and modest wife compete with Coco's exuberance, vitality and modern mind?
Katerina gradually realized the secret passion between the two and despite her illness was forced to endure the betrayal as well: music and the family's financial situation and well-being were far more important than their marriage. And although the love affair remained secret, sealed between the rooms of the country villa, gossip about the two lovers began from the very beginning. They never confirmed anything, indeed the denials were many. But the vox populi had decreed the affaire.
