Dreams about the theater
Ida Rubinstein was born on October 3, 1883, in Kharkov. The exact date only came to light after her death when archival records from the Kharkov synagogue were discovered. Ida never celebrated a birthday publicly and kept her precise age private throughout her life.
Orphaned early, she lost her father, Leon Rubinstein, an honored citizen of Kharkov, when she was nine. Her sister Ernestina Isaakovna died even earlier, in 1888. After the parents passed, the family fortune fell to Ida. Her grandfather founded the banking house Roman Rubinstein and Sons, and her father and uncle were deeply involved in large wholesale trade, owning three sugar factories and a brewery. When her parents separated, Ida went to live with her uncle, and after his death relatives took her to St. Petersburg for an education that left nothing wanting. She settled in St. Petersburg with every opportunity at hand.
Ida mastered four languages, attended a prestigious gymnasium, studied the history of ancient Greece with a Hellenistic tutor, learned reading and dramatic arts from actors of imperial theatres, and spent hours refining choreography and stage poses.
Her passion for the stage caused a family scandal when she moved to Paris to continue training. Relatives living in France worried about her, even attempting to have her placed in a nursing home for the mentally ill. Rubinstein, furious at this, wrote to St. Petersburg for support and was spared a grim fate by her French relatives and her own bold network back home.
The drive to theater did not wane after marriage, which served as a vehicle for independence. She entered into a sham marriage with her cousin Vladimir, divorcing after the honeymoon while maintaining cordial ties. This allowed her to spend her own money on the art she loved. Her goal remained clear: to stage Sophocles’ Antigone and take the leading role herself.
first failure
Ida pursued this dream by enlisting Lev Bakst, a prominent World of Art artist, to help design a production funded on her own. They met at a social event and sparked a swift collaboration. Critics, however, paid little attention to the play, focusing instead on the actor’s erratic diction and sensational remarks.
Yet Rubinstein possessed a striking presence. Her looks were unconventional by the beauty standards of the era—a flat chest, a broad mouth, a sharp nose, and slightly slanted eyes. Yet artists found her beauty inspiring, a factor shaping her future success. On stage she captivated audiences with a rare sophistication and eye-catching costumes created by Bakst.
Although Antigone was staged only once and did not meet acclaim, Ida’s resolve to act only strengthened. Stanislavsky would later invite her into a prominent troupe, but Rubinstein declined and instead joined the Komissarzhevskaya Theatre. There she prepared for a production based on Oscar Wilde’s Salome, directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold.
In 1907 the Wilde production faced a ban for perceived affronts to religious sentiment. Yet in 1908 the public still witnessed a fragment of the piece at the Komissarzhevskaya Theatre, including a scene where the veils were removed to music by Alexander Glazunov. The dance of the Seven Veils, choreographed by Mikhail Fokin, culminated in a revealing costume assembled from beads. This moment would later connect Rubinstein with Sergei Diaghilev and a wave of oriental fashion that swept Paris during the Russian Seasons.
From Cleopatra to her business
In 1909 Rubinstein sailed to Paris on the recommendation of Fokin, and with Bakst’s backing, Sergei Diaghilev invited her to the Russian Seasons company. She was cast in Cleopatra within the French capital, though the production omitted the actual Cleopatra character. The role suited Ida perfectly as an eastern queen. During performances she rode on stage in a sarcophagus, then emerged in a revealing Bakst ensemble with a blue wig, mirroring the earlier provocative styling.
Ida chose not to return to Russia. She purchased a Parisian mansion lavishly decorated by Bakst, a symbol of the life she built in exile. In 1910 Rubinstein again performed in the Russian Seasons, this time as Zobeide in Scheherazade, with Nijinsky as her partner. The pair drew immense applause, while Bakst’s costumes and set design helped push oriental fashion into the Parisian social scene. The era of exoticism made a lasting impression, shaping public taste in fashion and theatre alike.
brave beauty
The press chronicled Rubinstein’s luxurious lifestyle and globe-trotting travels. A notorious article in the Blue Journal described encounters across Northern Rhodesia and among a retinue of loyal Africans, recounting journeys through jungles and the display of trophy skins. Artists portrayed Ida in a variety of ways, with Jacques-Emile Blanche, Antonio de la Gandara, Georges Barbier, and Kees Van Dongen rendering her as Cleopatra. Yet the most enduring portrait is by Valentin Serov, painted for the 1910 Russian Seasons promotion and later exhibited separately in 1911.
Serov’s portrait sparked controversy not for nudity but for its stylistic choices. The public found the contour lines too sharp, deeming the work imperfect at the time, though today it is celebrated as a masterful piece of Russian modernism. In 1911 Ida left the celebrated troupe and formed her own company, pitting herself against Diaghilev and his established network. She moved between Bakst and other impresarios, navigating rivalries with a bold, entrepreneurial spirit.
During this period, Rubinstein cultivated a relationship with writer Gabriele D’Annunzio, lasting from 1911 to 1915. He penned a play for her titled The Mystery of the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian. The production sparked scandal again, with Ida playing St. Sebastian as a woman and a Jew, a pair of facts that challenged the period’s religious norms. D’Annunzio faced excommunication for this daring choice.
Rubinstein commissioned music from leading composers of her era, including Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel known for the Bolero, and Claude Debussy. After Bakst’s death in 1924, she collaborated with Alexandre Benois, and together they produced a body of work from 1928 to 1935 that remained fruitful despite occasional differences in artistic direction.
Memoirs from Benois describe Rubinstein’s luxurious lifestyle and sense of theater. He recounts how she constantly wore gleaming outfits, surrounded by grand bouquets and sparkling fabrics. He notes her flirtatious nature, an aptitude for looking unwell when needed, and a longing for compliments on her beauty and youth. The Rubinstein circle persisted until 1938, and in 1939 she left France amid the rising threat of war, moving to Great Britain where she established care for French and British soldiers. Her companion, Walter Guinness, heir to the Guinness fortune, helped sustain her characteristic lifestyle.
Towards the end of her life there were no public notices of her death, and her passing did not become widely reported in newspapers. Her grave bears two letters IR and no date, a quiet echo of a remarkable life that was spent in pursuit of art, beauty, and boundary-pushing performance. The record of her youth remains a vivid thread in the story of early modern theatre, a tale told with wit, daring, and an unrelenting hunger for the stage. Citation: Benois memoirs and contemporary critics provide the most detailed snapshots of Rubinstein’s career and public image.