Succes de scandale
Succès de scandale is French for "success by scandal", i.e. when (part of) a success derives from a scandal.
It might seem contradictory that any kind of success might follow from scandal: but scandal attracts attention, and this attention (whether gossip or bad press or any other kind) is sometimes the beginning of notoriety and/or other successes.
The archetypal example of succes de scandale in art is Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps, premiered in 1913 by the Ballets Russes. The public attending this premiere was so scandalised by the brutal sounds produced by the orchestra, and the evocation of a blood sacrifice on the scene, that it literally tore down the theatre... this was 1913, the high days of the Belle Epoque. A shower of bad press and criticism followed. But Stravinsky kept aloof, as if he knew that overnight he had become the most famous composer of the 20th century, and that he never would have to recur to scandal again (he moved to chamber music and neoclassical style for the next few years, nothing with which to upset large audiences). From what he declared years later, he appeared still sure that he couldn't be beaten in exploiting a scandal for success, the way it had happened with Le Sacre du Printemps.
Belle Epoque
Belle epoque Paris appears to have had exactly the right climat for succès de scandale (probably also the reason why this is where the term originated): in all examples below, regarding famous artists kicking off their career with some sort of scandal, there are at least some connections with turn-of-the-century Paris. In other cities provoking a scandal appeared more risky, as Oscar Wilde would find out shortly after his relatively "succesful" Parisian scandal (Salomé - 1894, portraying the main character as a Necrophile):
- Le déjeuner sur l'Herbe by Edouard Manet (Salon des refusés, 1863): Even the Emperor was scandalised - but Manet had a nice start to his career.
- Alfred Jarry shocked Paris in 1896 with the first of his absurdistic Ubu plays: Ubu Roi. The performance of this play was forbidden after the first night. No problem for Jarry: he moved the production to a puppet theatre.
- A new group of artists, labelled disrespectfully Les Fauves ("The Wild Beasts") by an art critic, had their successful debut in 1905 Paris (and kept the name).
- Richard Strauss had had few success with his first two operas (which are never performed any more today), so he tried something different: he set music to Wilde's Salomé in 1905, and racketed quite some scandal with this opera, including in the New York Met, where the production had to be closed after one night. But Strauss wanted more: his next opera (Elektra - 1909) was so "noisy" that cartoons appeared with Strauss directing an orchestra of animals. Then Hugo von Hoffmansthal, the textwriter of this second "successful" production, seems to have taken the right decision, in refraining Strauss from getting ever more bold: Strauss's success was guaranteed without any further scandal, so Von Hoffmansthal wrote a bittersweet scenario with a theme of resigning to the fact of getting older, for Strauss's next (and after all most successful) opera. Only two world wars later Strauss would get involved in scandal again, for his way of realising what was then considered as the highest ambition: directing the Bayreuther Festspiele (which had involved sucking up to the Nazi regime). Here, however, scandal came after the success, which is more annoying.
- The Rite of Spring (1913): see introduction to this article.
- Parade production of 1917: see Parade (ballet).
- Paul Chabas had won a most prestigious prize with his September Morn in Paris. Nudity as portrayed in this painting was however far from being able to shock a Parisian public, half a century after the "déjeuner". So, notwithstanding the "official" prize, market value of the painting remained low. Then, Chabas put it on show in a New York shop window in 1913. There, for the first time in history, it appears a succes de scandale scheme was set up by a publicity agent (Harry Reichenbach), who "accidentally" coached a morality crusader along the picture. The scandal that evolved brought as well financial success, as that it secured Chabas's place in art history books (what did he care this was most often in the "Kitsch" chapter - the painting ended up in one of the most prestigious museums of New York).
See Also
