French postcard by Ed. S.I.P., no. 1442 (according to other examples of this card). Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.
French postcard by Ed. S.I.P., no. 1309. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.
A well-publicised confrontation with Richard Strauss
Natalia or Natasha Trouhanova was born Natalia Vladimirovna Troukhanova (Наталія Володимирівна Труханова) in 1885, in Kiev, the Russian Empire (now Kyiv, Ukraine). She was the daughter of Vladimir Bostunov, a Russian opera singer and star of the Kyiv operetta, and Marie Brown, a Frenchwoman born in Alsace. After arriving in Moscow with her mother at fifteen and a half, she married Lieutenant B. F. Trukhanov. She escaped from family custody by marrying, and the couple soon divorced.
From 1904, she lived in France, where in no time she became a great master of dance. She worked with and was acquainted with Sergei Diaghilev, Fyodor Chaliapin, Richard Strauss, and Isadora Duncan. Her friends, colleagues, and associates were Maurice Ravel, Max Reinhardt, and Camille Saint-Saëns, to whose music Trouhanova created a choreographic miniature for her 'Dance of Death' that impressed the composer.
Leonida Sobinova noted in one of her letters with surprise: "Trukhanova is full of thoughts about her dances. I did not even expect her to be so serious about it... She has a photograph of Massenet on her desk with a most pleasant inscription. Next season she will dance a new ballet by him here."
Wikipedia (English): "She made international news for wearing extravagant diamonds on stage at Monte Carlo in 1906. She was known for dancing the part of Salome in various Paris productions, including Richard Strauss's 'Salome' (1907, dancing for singer Emmy Destinn), Antoine Mariotte's opera 'Salomé' (1910, dancing for singer Lucienne Bréval), and in Florent Schmitt's 'La tragédie de Salomé' (1912). She also premiered Paul Dukas's 'La Péri' (1911), which he dedicated to her and which she performed in 1912.
She also performed in Maurice Ravel's 'Adelaide, or the Language of Flowers' in 1912, and acted the part of 'the Nun' in Max Reinhardt's 'The Miracle' (1911/ 1912). In 1914, she danced at Rheims for the Sixth Olympic Congress. She had a well-publicised confrontation with Richard Strauss in 1907, when he refused to let her take a curtain call as Salomé, next to the singer of the part, "as he considered the art of dancing was an inferior one"; she left the production and described the insult in a letter to the press."
French postcard by Edit. M.G. Photo: H. Manuel.
French postcard by Ed. S.I.P., no. 1309. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.
A memoir full of masculine intelligence and charming femininity
Trouhanova appeared in several French silent films between 1909 and 1916, mostly short films, beginning with the Pathé production La laide, conte hindou / The Ugly Girl (Michel Carré, 1909). Next, at Pathé, she was Maguelonne in Le roi 's amuse / Rigoletto (Michel Carré, Albert Capellani, 1909), opposite Paul Capellani as King François I and Henry Sylvain as Triboulet, and based on Victor Hugo's novel. IMDb also mentions Rigoletto, but this is the same film.
In 1911 Trouhanova acted at Eclipse in the films Milton (Henri Desfontaines, 1911) and the William Shakespeare adaptation La mégère apprivoisée / The Taming of the Shrew (Henri Desfontaines, 1911). In 1913 she played the character Musidora in the Pathé production Le carabine de la mort (Henri Desfontaines, Paul Garbagni, 1913).
Even if all sources write that actress Musidora took her nom de plume from the 1837 novel 'Fortunio' by Théophile Gautier, it may be no coincidence that soon after Trouhanova's film, Musidora adopted the name. After one more film, L'homme nu / The Naked Man (Henri Desfontaines, 1913), starring Raimu, Trouhanova's film career ended in 1916 with the films Léda (dir. unknown, 1916) and La forêt qui écoute / The Listening Forest (Henri Desfontaines, 1916).
Trouhanova retired from the stage when she married in 1918, but she returned in 1921. From 1918, she was the wife of Alexei Ignatiev, a Russian living in Paris. After the First World War, they ran a small farm. The couple went to the Soviet Union in 1936 or 1937. Trouhanova published her memoirs as 'On Stage and Backstage', which were praised by Soviet academician Yevgeny Tarle as "a charming memoir full of masculine intelligence and charming femininity".
Natalia Trouhanova died in 1956, aged 71 years, in Moscow. There is a box of letters to Trouhanova and a manuscript of her memoirs in the Houghton Library at Harvard University.
French postcard by Ed. S.I.P., no. 1461.
French-German postcard by Ed. S.I.P., no. 1506. This postcard has almost the same illustration as the French postcard above, but it has a different serial number. On the back is an indication that the Neue Photographische Gesellschaft had this card censored in 1906. During the 1900s, Eds. SIP made a whole series with actresses and dancers before the same palette, including e.g. La Toledo and Miéris.
French postcard, number illegible. Photo: Verus.
Sources: Wikipedia (English, French and Ukrainian) and IMDb.
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