Angel of the Arts

By Martha Duffy

MISIA: THE LIFE OF MISIA SERT

by Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale; Knopf; 337 pages; $16.95

What a life Misia Sert lived! Faure gave her piano lessons. Ravel dedicated La Valse to her. Stravinsky presented her with the score of Le Sucre du Printemps. Diaghilev made her his ally; she was the only woman with whom he could feel intimate. Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, Vuillard, Renoir, Vallotton painted her, sometimes obsessively. Cocteau modeled the heroine of his novel Thomas l'lmposteur on her. In the masterly hands of Proust she became two people, Princess Yourbeletieff, the young sponsor of the Ballets Russes: "One might have supposed that this marvelous creature had been imported in their innumerable baggage, and as their most priceless treasure, by the Russian dancers." Proust also used her as one of the inspirations for Mme. Verdurin, the far less sympathetic social climber. Then the magical synthesizer introduced his Misias to each other: "Mme. Verdurin's strength lay in her genuine love of art, the trouble that she used to take for her faithful, the marvelous dinners that she gave for them alone ... a sort of official representative in Paris of all foreign artists, was not long in making her appearance, by the side of the exquisite Princess Yourbeletieff, an aged Fairy Godmother, grim but all powerful to the Russian dancers."

On the evidence of this graceful, knowing, unpretentious new biography, it is hard to think of Misia as grim, but as usual Proust captured the essential truth. For 40-odd years she was the godmother of European artists. She came to maturity in the Belle Epoque, "a beautiful time for those who were privileged," and she brought zest, taste, a tart tongue and plenty of money to a role she never tired of. If she was a climber, the mountain was Parnassus.

The Thursday afternoons spent with Faure were a highlight in a very lonely childhood. Misia's father, Cyprien Godebski, came from an ancient Polish family. He traveled around Europe sculpting public monuments and seducing women: at the time Misia's mother was pregnant with her in Belgium, her mother's own aunt in Russia was also pregnant by Godebski. Having trekked to St. Petersburg alone to confirm this monstrous news, Mme. Godebska died in childbirth. Misia grew up mostly in Parisian convents.

Faure gave her a precious gift, a deep understanding of music. Her technique was fiery, and the old composer was certain she would have a concert career. He was heartbroken when, at 20, she decided to marry Thadee Natanson, editor of La Revue Blanche. Like his bride, he lived for the enjoyment of art. Though the marriage was not permanent (nor were later ones to the fabulously rich speculator Alfred Edwards and the fashionable painter Jose-Maria Sert), the pattern of Misia's life was established in her 20s. She was surrounded by artists, for whom she was companion, model and muse. "Misia never claimed to be a sexual athlete; that was for the ladies of the demimonde," write Gold and Fizdale. "Still, she took it for granted that not only was her husband in love with her, but so, more or less, were all his friends. It was the thing, to bein love with Misia ... She had tremendous allure in the French meaning of the word--a sense of how to carry herself with style ... she listened attentively and responded with enthusiasm, candor and an independence of judgment startling in one so young. Her speech was salted with irony and peppered with four-letter words, which on her lips somehow escaped vulgarity. She was a rough-and-ready princess."

In Parisian society, each hostess had a set reception day; Misia held open house every day in the week. She threw everything away except jewels. Drawings made by Lautrec at the dinner table were cleared away with the rest of the leavings. Her motto was, "I don't respect art; Move it." Gold and Fizdale print a lengthy honor role of sources for Misia, but their task would have been easier and clearer if she had not discarded thousands of letters. Or it may be that being forced at times to speculate and use the memoirs of others has enhanced their book. Misia is not well known to Americans. To the degree that she is recognized in the U.S., it is through her friendships with Diaghilev, whose ballets she supported lavishly, and later with Chanel, whom she also supported in the designer's early years. The authors' four-handed biography shows the virtues of the professional duo pianists' timing and technique, but they never take their subject with full scholarly weight. Instead, they have produced an alluring (any sense of the word will do) portrait of how creative people live, how the social world of the arts functions. Creating Vuillard-like interiors that Vuillard could not wait to paint, making a cult of Bernhardt, sailing on a pilgrimage to Norway to meet Ibsen -- through myriad details a creative world comes alive.

It would be to no effect if Misia were just a lucky hanger-on. But as Diaghilev recognized, her taste was accurate. Her occasional criticism stung and enraged Stravinsky, who often played his music first for her. For decades she helped support the composer generously and without question. With the men she loved, she was not so wise. She had a pathetic way of attracting younger women into her circle who could be counted on to steal her man. She was as slow to see this as she was quick to spot the first signs of young genius. Roussy Mdivani, the lovely girl who made off with Sert, whom Misia adored, actually managed to crawl into their bedroom the last time Sert made love to his wife without Misia's realizing it at the time.

She died in 1950 at 78. Her last years were lonely and idle; she was dependent on drugs. Her closest friend remained Chanel, who desperately wanted to take over her crown, her legend. There was nothing to inherit. As Cocteau said of Misia: "Angels fly because they take themselves lightly." --Martha Duffy

FIZDALE: We are pianists but we are both also frustrated authors. GOLD: Turgenev is as moving to me as Chopin. I wrote a play once, well, two acts of one.

FIZDALE: I've written hundreds of playlets, especially on trains. I get nervous waiting for the train to pull into Grand Central. The plays were two pages long, a sort of theater of the absurd. Anyway, you live only once, and we wanted to write as well as play the piano. GOLD: Do you want to know the truth? We were on tour, driving through Wyoming, skidding on very icy roads. I said, "I think we ought to get into something else."

FIZDALE: We wanted to write something that would take us to Paris for a long time. The French have a marvelous feeling about the arts, a real interest, but not heavy like the Germans. They enjoy art and then go off and have a great meal. GOLD: We spent the entire winter of 1974 in Paris doing interviews. No one refused us, but some people wanted to talk about Chanel instead. We returned three times for shorter periods.

FIZDALE: We couldn't write together. After four words we began arguing. I begged Arthur to stop. At a concert people applaud right away. I got discouraged. I thought we would run out of money. GOLD: I never worry about money. Anyway we got started.

FIZDALE: We practically wrote a book on Mallarme! It's in the drawer. GOLD: We wrote 50 pages on Revue Blanche before we realized that it wasn't our subject. The problem was to marry cultural history and biography. It is difficult to steer a clear course between interpretation and fact. And it should not be 900 pages long.

FIZDALE: Now we have withdrawal symptoms.

GOLD: You certainly learn a lot about yourself. All biography is partly autobiography. You learn tolerance and acceptance of values that are not your own. FIZDALE: Misia's career was getting married.

GOLD: Misia's career was making mischief. Then a woman could not show that she ruled the roost. Today Misia would be a committee of women. FIZDALE: Some of her life is not well documented. However we knew, or came to know, all the people around her. It was like a puzzle, or detective work. GOLD: Now we are like horses at the gate. We have been watching Balanchine's ballets since they were performed at the Central High School of Needle Trades. His world is a little island of paradise. We are starting on a book about his life before he came to the United States in 1934. It's exciting, but of course, one book is no help at all with the next one. FIZDALE: Don't say that.

Excerpt

"The Edwardses' first trip on the Aimee was to Trouville in the spring of 1905 . . . When they arrived, Misia invited Enrico Caruso on board. He had often joined her for a glass of champagne in the mirrored room behind her box at the Paris Opera. Day after day, with Misia at the piano, Caruso filled the salon of the Aimee with shatteringly beautiful sounds. Feeling that she was about to drown in the sentimental sea of Marecchiare and Santa Lucia, Misia told the famous tenor that she could not bear to hear one more Neapolitan song. Stupefied, Caruso puffed himself up as only tenors can and spluttered, 'No, that's really too much. It's the first time anyone's ever asked me to stop. Me, the great Caruso! Kings have begged me on their knees to open my mouth, and you, you tell me to shut it!' Then with a defiant look, Caruso raised his glorious voice in O Sole Mio."

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