Stage Design and the Ballets Russes

Authors(s): John E. Bowlt

Source: The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol. 5, Russian/Soviet Theme Issue
(Summer, 1987), pp. 28-45
Published by: Florida International University Board of Trustees on behalf of The
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Stage Design and the Ballets

Russes

ByJohn E. Bowlt

John E. Bowlt, born in London

-~ f ~erhaps the greatest monument to the cultural rebirth of Russia

.: i : at the beginning of our century is the ballet company-the

in 1943, holds degrees from the

Ballets Russes-founded by Sergei Diaghilev in 1909. Much has

been written about this undertaking which, during the twenty

University of Birmingham and

years of its very active life, created extraordinary productions

the University of St. Andrews.

such as Scheherazade (1910), Petrouchka (1911), Le Sacre du Printemps (1913),

La Chatte (1927), and many others. Diaghilev and his dancers, musicians, art-

He also studied for two years at

ists, and patrons revolutionized the concept of ballet on all levels, but particu-

larly in the context of scenography or stage design: the major contributions by

Moscow State University. A

the Russian artists who worked for the Ballets Russes, especially Lev Bakst,

specialist in the history of mod-

Alexandre Benois, Natalia Goncharova, and Mikhail Larionov, provide the focus

for this article.1

ern Russian art, he has

To a considerable extent, the establishment of the Ballets Russes represented a

published many books and articreative aspiration identifiable with much of the cultural activity of Russia's

Silver Age. This was a time (ca. 1895-ca. 1920) when poets, painters, and musi-

cles on aspects of Russian

cians such as Bakst, Alexander Blok, Goncharova, Larionov, Sergei Prokofiev,

Vladimir Maiakovsky, Kazimir Malevich, and Igor Stravinsky refurbished

symbolism, the avant-garde,

Russia's artistic traditions and brought their country-culturally-into the

and socialist realism. A recent

European mainstream, even surpassing the achievements of their French,

Italian, and German colleagues. Through his ballet company, Diaghilev ex-

publication is the catalogue for

ported Russian talents to the West, thereby linking St. Petersburg and Moscow

directly with Paris. A paradox lies, however, in the fact that the Ballets Russes
a retrospective exhibition of

was never seen in Russia, although its dancers and designers, individually, often

Pavel Mansurov at Lorenzelli

worked for enterprises at home, something that is important to remember in

the context of stage design. It meant, for example, that Diaghilev's designers in

Arte, Milan. Dr. Bowit is a

Paris-Bakst, Goncharova, Georgii Yakulov, and others-were also closely as-

sociated with Moscow and St. Petersburg modernism, were often in direct conProfessor in the Department of

tact with the avant-garde (Malevich, Liubov Popova, Alexander Rodchenko,

Slavic Languages at the

Vladimir Tatlin, et cetera) and, therefore, were always bringing new ideas from

their domestic laboratory to the West via the Ballets Russes-the vulgar energy

University of Texas at Austin

of neoprimitivism, the colored abstractions of rayism, or the geometry of con-

structivism. Diaghilev's avant-garde connection in the field of stage design is,

and Director of the Institute of

indeed, worthy of discussion, and it relates to the still unfamiliar issue of his

Modern Russian Culture at

"industrial" ballets of the 1920s. But before we examine these aspects, we

should turn our attention to a curious artistic community of thefin de siecle

Blue Lagoon, Texas.

that, in an appreciable measure, preordained the course of the Ballets Russes

and the course of modern Russian stage design-the World of Art.

1. A few paragraphs of this text appeared in German translation in the exhibition catalogue Die Maler

und das Theater im 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt: Schirn Kunsthalle, 1986), pp. 39-50.

28 DAPA Summer 1987

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Fig. 1. Lev Bakst, decor for

Scheherazade, variation of the

original design for Sergei

Diaghilev's production in Paris

in 1910, watercolor, 20 x 403/4 in.,

51 x 106 cm. Collection of Mr.

Robert LB. Tobin at the Marion

Koogler McNay Art Museum,

San Antonio, Texas.

(See page 30.)

Diaghilev made his real debut as an organizer, impresario, and critic while

leading the so-called World of Art group in St. Petersburg, and the alliances and

esthetic interests that he formed at that time (late 1890s onwards) were of pro-

found and lasting significance to his ballet career. Any examination of the

Ballets Russes, especially from the standpoint of stage design, must take into

account the activities of this collective of artists, literati, critics, and esthetes-

the World of Art. After all, many of the painters and graphic artists associated

with the World of Art later worked for the Ballets Russes, including Bakst,

Benois, Ivan Bilibin, Mstislav Dobujinsky, Konstantin Korovin, Nicholas

*x ^M jS^ -'6. ' Roerich, Alexandre Shervashidze, to mention but a few (fig. 2).

.', -"The World of Art cannot be identified with any one strongly defined artistic

program since its members explored many historical eras and national cul-

Fig. 2. Nikolai Rerikh (Nicholas tures (just as the Ballets Russes did), but, essentially, they regarded artistic

beauty as a force elevated above the tendentious dictates of social

Roerich), set for Scene I of Le and political commitment-consequently, they were very suspicious of

nineteenth-century realism. They were fascinated by the Wagnerian

Gesamtkunstwerk and considered the theater and the decorative arts in

by Sergei Diaghilev in Paris, general as vital resources for the renewal of esthetic experience-one reason

why they gave substantial attention to the development of the style russe at the

1912, called "A Kiss to the arts and crafts centers of Abramtsevo (headed by Sava Mamontov) and

Talashkino (headed by Princess Mariia Tenisheva). Not surprisingly, many

ah tmpera,x in. World of Art members were drawn to the symbolist esthetic with its emphasis

62 x 94 cm. State Russian on the mystery of creation, the importance of the subjective, the artist as seer,

and the theurgic dimension of art.

Museum, Leningrad.

Some of the distinguishing characteristics of the World of Art group-the as-

piration towards artistic synthesism, new concepts of design, fascination with

past cultures, especially of Greece, Egypt, and the Middle East, the emphasis on

the creative expression of the individuum-can also be identified with the

Ballets Russes, especially during its first phase (1909-14). In fact, as Serge Lifar

affirmed later,2 the Ballets Russes can, indeed, be regarded as the direct

2. See S. Lifar, Diaghilev (Paris: Dom knigi, 1939), especially Book 1, Part 3.

DAPA Summer 1987 29

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extension of the esthetic principles advocated by the St. Petersburg group. It is

important, therefore, to examine the ways in which Bakst, Benois, Diaghilev,

and their colleagues approached the notion of theater in the early days and to

pinpoint possible connections between these early interpretations and the

Ballets Russes. True, the World of Art members were not appreciative "intellec-

tually" of the ballet as such during the period 1898-1906, and the discipline

was hardly discussed in the pages of their magazine Mir iskussta (The World of

Art) (fig. 3). However, as Benois maintained, their "mania for the theater"3

prompted them to visit all manner of productions in St. Petersburg and abroad,

even though, by and large, they seemed to prefer opera over drama and the

ballet.

The general attitude of the World of Art artists and writers towards the function

of theater in its widest sense was closely connected to the esthetic demands

that they made of all artistic activity: they felt that art should reflect the creator's

individuality, that it must be alien to "usefulness," and that it should disclose the

"real reality" beyond the world of tawdry appearances. In the specific context

of stage design, the World of Art again made scant reference to particular prin-

ciples or even productions. In fact, their commentary was limited to a few ap-

..:.,.

':? 5.

praisals of spectacles undertaken by members of the group-Bakst, Benois,

vT

??? ?i
: ? r **

Alexander Golovin. Apparently, at this stage, the World of Art artists had little
;'." ?FV?:

"*

a
understanding of the revolution that was already occuring in western

I*ut

European stage design, especially through the achievements of Appia.

But, in spite of this initial, desultory interest in stage design as such, these St.

Fig. 3. Lev Bakst, cover for the

Petersburg observers were deeply interested in the new in art, even though

their judgements were sometimes rash and one-sided. Like many cultural objournal Miriskusstva (The

servers of their time, they tended to rate western imports more highly than in-

World of Art), St Petersburg,

digenous productions (although they could ridicule the former, too). Their atti-

tude towards the Imperial Ballet, for example, was colored by this view, and

1902

even though Benois's appreciation of the ballet began with his childhood visits

to the Imperial company, the World of Art members saw little of merit in the

state controlled ballet. In fact, Diaghilev's abrupt disengagement from the

Mariinsky Theater after the Sylvia affair in 1901, and his general intolerance of

the cumbersome state bureaucracy, impelled him rapidly towards the estab-

lishment of his own troupe in 1909.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to assume that all was unwell in the Imperial

theaters in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After all, most of

Diaghilev's key dancers received their training within the Imperial ballet sys-

tem and a number of Diaghilev's experimental ballets actually had their pre-

mieres (albeit in tamer versions) on the Imperial stage: for example, Egyptian

Nights, which became Cleopatre in 1909 in Paris, was first produced by Michel

Fokine at the Mariinsky in St. Petersburg (1908) as was Le Pavillon d'Armide

(1907). Furthermore, Enrico Cecchetti, who coached many of Diaghilev's

dancers, was balletmaster for the Mariinsky and ballet teacher for the Theater

Institute, St. Petersburg from 1892-1902. Of course, it would have been impos-

sible for the Imperial Ballet to have staged the avant-garde productions that

Diaghilev realized in Paris such as Schehrazade (1910) (fig. 1) andJeux (1913),

but, as far as dancing and choreographic technique were concerned, Diaghilev

and his colleagues actually maintained and propagated, rather than destroyed,

the Imperial tradition.

3. A. Benois, Memoirs (London: Chatto and Windus, 1964), vol. 3, p. 26.

30 DAPA Summer 1987

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Fig. 4. Boris Anisfeld, cos tume

for an Arab female dancer in

Islamey, produced by Michel

Fokine at the Mariinsky

Theater, St Petersburg in 1912,

gouache, 17 3 x 12 in.,

44. x 30.6 cm. Collection of

Mr. and Mrs. Nikita D.

Lobanov-Rostovsky, London.

It is at this juncture that the real significance of stage design to the Diaghilev

enterprise becomes especially apparent, for it was this that astounded,

angered, or perplexed the Edwardian public as much as, if not more than,

Nijinsky's leap or Stravinsky's brave discordance. Yet the success was paradoxi-

cal because not one of Diaghilev's Russian designers (Boris Anisfeld, Bakst,

Benois, Goncharova, Larionov, et cetera) was actually trained as a designer or

decorator, and all came to the stage by way of studio painting (fig. 4). Moreover,

most of the artists were graduates not of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts,

but of less prestigious private schools such as those of Mariia Tenisheva and

Elizaveta Zvantseva in St. Petersburg; and some, especially Benois, were simply

brilliant amateurs. Undoubtedly, this spontaneity and freshness added much to

the distinctive collective psychology of the Ballets Russes.

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Fig. 5. Alexandre Benois, back-

drop for Armide's Garden in

Scene II of Le Pavilion

d'Armnnide, version of the 1909

original for Sergei Diaghilev's

production in Paris, watercolor,

8 %x 1 /4 in., 21.9 x28.1 cm.

Collection of the Fine Arts

Museums of San Francisco.

, As the supporters of two different, often conflicting, approaches to stage de-

sign, Benois and Bakst deserve particular attention (figs. 5 and 7). While, like

r - Bakst, (but less imaginatively), able to move from century to century, from

France (La Pavilion d'Armide, 1907) to Russia (Petrouchka, 1911) to China (Le

Rossignol, 1914) (figs. 6 and 9), Benois was always consistent in his historical

', evocation of a given epoch and, correspondingly, was outraged when a de-

signer, e.g., Golovin, preferred "irrelevant" luxury of ornament to an ethno-

graphically correct reconstruction. On the other hand, Benois's sense of his-

tory was so acute that he knew exactly when and how to enliven a certain

costume or set and how to invest it with the spirit of its time. Consequently,

with his encyclopedic knowledge of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century

France and his personal passion for Versailles, Benois was an ideal interpreter

of the ballet Le Pavillon d'Armide staged by Fokine in 1907 and then taken to

Fig. 6. Alexandre Benois

, cos- Paris in modified form by Diaghilev in 1909. With the exception of a few de-

signs for an unrealized production of his own ballet, The Prodigal Son (Spring

tume for a dancer in the

pro- 1907), Le Pavillon was Benois's first professional theatrical engagement since

cession of the Chinese E

:nperor 1903 (when he had designed the Mariinsky production of Die

Gotterddmmerung), and it was one of his most successful. As Fokine recalled:

in Le Rossignol produce

id by Alexandre Nikolaevich seemed to be-immediately and exclusively-a

Sergei Diaghilev in Pari:

s in theatrical artist. All his colors, his lines related directly and obviously to the

particular juncture on stage. The costumes, the sets, the lighting-every-

1914, watercolor, 18 x 12 i

x 30.5 cm. Collection of I

in., 47.8 thing was aimed at expressing the content of the piece.4

the Benois's interpretation of Le Pavilion was a striking one. He demonstrated

clearly how well he understood the historical era-especially in his celebrated

State Russian Museum,

decor for Scenes I and III and his numerous costumes such as for the Vicomte

and Armide's Favorite Slave.

Leningrad.

4. M. Fokine, Memoirs ofa Ballet Master (London: Constable, 1961), p. 188.

32 DAPA Summer 1987

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Fig. 7. Lev Bakst, costume for a

Jewish dancer and Black

slave, 1921, drawing based on

the original designs for Sergei

Diaghilev's Paris production of

Cleopatie in 1909, watercolor,

245/ x 181/2 in., 622 x 47 cm. Col-

lection of the Fine Arts

Museums of San Francisco.

Although Benois was sometimes guilty of pedantic compilation of historical de-

tail, this failing was not evident in Le Pavillon or in any early production such as

Le Festin (1909), Giselle (1910), Petrouchka (1911), and Le Rossignol (1914). For

example, Benois's designs for Giselle were so well received at its Paris pre-

miere that the original Benois version was reconstructed many times thereaf-

ter. Benois's lyrical evocation of Giselle, his fantastic castle and romantic ceme-

tery of the Wilis became images enjoyed by many audiences-in spite of

Diaghilev's initial unwillingness to produce this particular ballet. Still, both

Diaghilev and Benois knew quite well that the French also expected a measure

of "barbarism" from the Russians, and, of course, Diaghilev satisfied this desire

with his productions of Petrouchka (1911) and Le Sacre du Printemps (1913,

with designs by Roerich), presenting the "pagan" music of Igor Stravinsky to

Paris audiences. Petrouchka (fig. 9) was especially close to Benois's heart

since he associated it with fond childhood memories of a time when

DAPA Summer 1987 33

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-N

t..

34 DAPA Summer 1987

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Fig. 8. Pavel Dmitriev, diorama

illustrating an event from

I
-A

Russian history, ca. 1872, water-

color, 121/8 x 161/2 in., 31 x 42 cm.

t\ , f4.

Collection of Mr. and Mrs.

Nikita D. Lobanov-Rostovsky,

I/

London. Dioramas, like the ba-

A.'

lagany, were popular forms of

... '" . .. , ,..' . . . .

entertainment in St. Petersburg

and Moscow.

the bazaars, fairs, and halagany (Punch andJudy booths) were still part of

St. Petersburg folk life (fig. 8). Benois recalled:

As for the personality of Petrouchka himself, well, I immediately felt a kind

.4

of obligation "for the sake of our old friendship" to immortalize him on a

real stage. But I was tempted still more by the idea of depicting Shrovetide

Fig. 9. Alexandre Benois, coson the stage of a theater-those sweet balagany, that great pleasure of my

childhood which had also been pleasure for my father.5

tume for Petrouchka, drawing

Benois managed not only to express the charm and simplicity of a childhood

based on the original 1911 de-

fantasy in the Paris production of Petrouchka, but also to enhance Stravinsky's

music in an especially appropriate fashion. Benois's stylization and emphasis

sign for Sergei Diaghilev's

on the angular character of the decor was an ideal visual parallel to the discor-

Paris production in 1911, water-

dant syncopations of Stravinsky's music and to the rigid, abrupt patterns of

Fokine's choreographic system.

color, 103/4 x 71/2 in., 27.5 x 19 cm.

In the introduction to his Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet Benois stated:

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Ni-

It is with particular pleasure that I have accepted the suggestion that I

kita D. Lobanov-Rostovsky,

should write my reminiscences of the ballet; yet I am not, strictly speaking, a

devotee of the ballet, or even a balletomane.6

London.

Although, justifiably, Benois felt that he had, nevertheless, contributed much to

the global success of the Russian ballet, it is important to realize that at heart he

remained an illustrator and studio painter and gave his first attention to the

"picture." Bakst, however, understood that the set and costume designer, the

dancer, the actor, the singer, et cetera, were of equal importance within the

spectacle, and he perceived the stage in three dimensions, not as a mere exten-

sion of the easel-something that is immediately apparent from his major

achievements such as Cleopatre, Scheherezade, or Le Dieu Bleu. True, Bakst did

not believe in audience participation, and he still distinguished emphatically

5. A. Benois, "Vospominaniia o balete" in Russkie zapiski, Paris, 1939, no. 29, p. 124.

6. A. Benois, Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet (London: Putnam, 1941), p. v.

DAPA Summer 1987 35

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between the proscenium and the auditorium, but his concentration on ele-

*I'

ments such as diagonal axis, occult symmetry, rhythmicality of the body broke

the pictorial, i.e., painterly, convention of nineteenth-century stage design, and,

hd I b

therefore, built a solid bridge between artiste and public-both parties came

to share in a real, constructive space.

/1

Bakst's approach to stage design was an exciting one because his sets and cosr-U ).

tumes relied on the total interaction of decoration and the human figure. Like

the constructivist designers of the 1920s, especially Alexandra Exter, Popova,

Fig. 10. Lev Bakst, costumes for

and Varvara Stepanova, Bakst regarded the body as a kinetic force that was to be

Jeux produced by Sergei

exposed and amplified in its movements, not enveloped and disguised. Instead

of the constrained, static unit that the body tended to represent on the aca-

Diaghilev in Paris in 1913.

demic stage (a tradition that Benois never finally rejected), Bakst tried to make

the body itself as expressive as possible. He also supplemented the physical

Reproduced in V. Krasovskaia,

motions of the body either by attaching appendages such as veils, feathers, and

Russkii baletnyi teatr nachala

jewelry, or by creating intricate abstract patterns of dress-so as to extend and

emphasize the body's movement through space. While Bakst liberated the

XX veka (Leningrad: Iskusstvo,

body from its traditional, fixed role on stage, he did not expose it merely for

erotic appeal, and he did not sympathize with the trend towards nudity on
1971), vol. 1, between pp. 432

stage that Nikolai Evreinov and other St. Petersburg theater producers were try-

and 433.

ing to promote in the 1910s. However much Bakst loved the human anatomy, he

saw its beauty to lie in the tension between the seen and unseen; and this he

communicated in his evocations of Ancient Greece and the Near East such as

Cleopatre (1909), Scheherazade, Narcisse (1911), and L'Aprs-midi d'un Faune

(1912).

One of the Diaghilev productions that provided Bakst with an opportunity to

apply his novel concepts of design to an equally novel ballet wasJeux.

Presented to the Paris public in May 1913,Jeux (music by Debussy, choreo-

graphy by Nijinsky, decor by Bakst) carried a schematic, "modern" narrative

about a flirtation during a game of tennis "placed in the year 1925."7

Against a romantic set of stylized trees, rambling villa, and electric lanterns,

Bakst placed his tennis players, clothing them in simple, economical, utilitarian

costumes that anticipated the constructivist dress designs of the 1920s by

Liubov Popova and Varvara Stepanova (fig. 10). It is not very distant from the

monochrome, functional sportswear of Bakst to the sportodezhda (sports

. w>j

clothes) designed by Stepanova in 1923 (fig. 11)-or even to Popova's blue

denims for the workers in Vsevolod Meierkhold's production of The

Magnanimous Cuckold (Moscow, 1922) and Rodchenko's coverall of 1925.

Furthermore, Bakst's knee-length skirt for the female tennis player represented

an audacious development in fashion, at once enhancing her sexuality and, at

Fig. 11. Varvara Stepanova, ex-

the same time, symbolizing woman's freedom from the structures of her

amples of designs for sporto-

nineteenth-century social round. In this respect, Bakst was actually continuing

his search for a new haute couture begun in 1912. As in his histrionic costumes

dezhda (sports clothes), 1923.

for Cleopatre and Schehrazade, Bakst endeavored to present movement as the

common denominator of the ensemble and to regard the human body as a

Reproduced in T. Strizhenova, Iz

kinetic generator The dynamism of sports, therefore, attracted Bakst no less

istorii sovetskogo kostiuma

than the dynamism of the dance. Perhaps Bakst even wondered whether sports

might one day replace ballet.

(Moscow: Sovetskii

As far as the visual esthetic ofJeux is concerned, there is one element in parti-

khudozhnik, 1972), p. 96.

cular that connects this piece to the productions of the avant-garde in the 1910s

and 1920s, and that is the restrained use of color and the consistent application

7. Unsigned article entitled "Gowns of the Sexes" in Daily Mirror, London, 3 April 1913.

36 DAPA Summer 1987

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Fig. 12. Natalia Goncharova, de-

sign for Act I of Le Coq d'Or

produced by Sergei Diaghilev

in Paris in 1914, watercolor,

281/2 x 411/2 in., 72.5 x 105.5 cm.

Collection of Mr. and Mrs.

Nikita D. Lobanov-Rostovsky,

London.

of contrast between white and black (or, at least, white and dark colors). The

critic A.E. Johnson even referred to the cinematographic quality ofJeux, al-

though he was thinking in terms of the sequence of stills that go to make up a

film rather than the particular formal resolutions in each still.8 Anticipating the

exercises in black and white of Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov, Bakst and

Nijinsky dismissed color from the dance composition (except for the male

player's red necktie), providing a visual compensation in sharp formal juxtapo-

sitions-not in the sensuous exuberance or ethnographic illusion of the usual

Ballets Russes productions. This, plus Nijinsky's reliance on geometric move-

ments in his choreography and performance, brings to mind parallel develop-

ments in the visual arts-Tatlin's uncolored reliefs, Kazimir Malevich's Black

Square of 1915, Rodchenko's black on black paintings of ca. 1918 and his photo-

graphs of 1923 onwards, even of Naum Gabo's translucent constructions. Fas-

cination with black and white, with economy of form, with mechanical ac-

Fig. 13. Natalia Goncharova, de-

curacy, with urban civilization (the game of tennis takes place in a London

sign for Act I of Le Coq d'Or

garden), with the exposition of the instrinsic elements of the medium itself was

a main stimulus to the establishment of constructivism and of the international

produced by Sergei Diaghilev

style of the 1920s-and all these ideas were identifiable withJeux already in

1913.

in Paris in 1914, watercolor and

In our search for those designers who really made a determined effort to con-

gouache, 19/s x 271/8 in.,

struct rather than to paint the sets and costumes for the Ballets Russes, we must

give first attention to the work of Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov,
49.2 x 68.9 cm. Collection of the

even though some of their key commissions for Diaghilev (e.g., Liturgie,

Fine Arts Museums of San

HistoiresNaturelles, 1915-16) were not actually realized. Drawing on their

knowledge and appreciation of indigenous art forms such as the lubok (cheap,

Francisco.

handcolored print), the peasant toy, and the icon, Goncharova and Larionov

suddenly transformed the Russian stage into a primitive buffoonery. With their

bright colors, distorted perspectives, and love of play, they imbued the theater

with an effervescence and vitality that reminded spectators of the balagany, the

fairground, and the circus. This was true, for example, of Goncharova's first un-

dertaking for Diaghilev, i.e., her designs for Le Coq d'Or in 1914 (figs. 12,13, and

8. A.E. Johnson, The Russian Ballet (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1913), pp. 195-96.

DAPA Summer 1987 37

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; ,i, , -

, 7.j - .. : : -

.Adift

Fig. 14. Natalia Goncharova, de-

tails forthe decor of LeCoq

d'Or produced by Sergei

Diaghilev in Paris in 1914, wa- 2

tercolor and gouache, 21 x 73/

in., 55 x 20 cm. Collection of Mr.

Robert L.B. Tobin at the Marion S

Koogler McNay Art Museum,

San Antonio, Texas.

14). Critics who saw the premiere agreed that Goncharova's "setting inaugu-

rated a new phase of stage decoration,"9 since she implemented Benois's pro-

posal that the opera Le Coq d'Or actually be staged as a ballet-opera with the ac-

tion mimed by the dancers while choirs sang on steep ramps on either side of

the stage. Fokine, who choreographed Le Coq d'Or and who, because of

Goncharova's notoriety as a futurist, had grave misgivings about Diaghilev's

selection of her as the designer, quickly changed his mind. He wrote:

Gontcharova not only provided beautiful decors and costume designs, but

she also manifested an extraordinary, fantastic love for her work....It was

touching to see how, with their own hands, she and Larionov painted all the

props. Each piece was a work of art.'0

After her debut with the Ballets Russes, Goncharova immediately set to

work on four other ballets (through the end of 1916), not one of which was

9. C. Beaumont, Five Centuries of Ballet Design (London: Studio, 1939), p. 127.

10. Fokine, op. cit., p. 316.

38 DAPA Summer 1987

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Fig. 15. Mikhail Larionov, cos-

tume for a cricket in Histoires % ......

Naturelles prepared by Sergei ^ i ,

Diaghilev in Lausanne in 1916 , ..

(but not produced), pochoir,

191/2 x 123/4 in., 49.7 x 32.2 cm. ^ ;: .. '

Collection of Mr. and Mrs.

Nikita D. Lobanov-Rostovsky, . fr ? :.,' '

London.

implemented-Liturgie, Espana, Triana, and Foire Espagnole. This intense

activity produced not only numerous designs for sets and costumes, but also

three portfolios of pochoirs-Liturgie (Lausanne, 1915), Album de 14 Portraits

Theatraux (Paris: La Cible, 1916), and L'Art TheatralDecoratifModerne (Paris:

La Cible, 1919), the last two of which were joint enterprises by Goncharova and

Larionov. As far as Liturgie was concerned, Goncharova's labors were in vain.

Diaghilev hoped that Stravinsky would write a score for the ballet (invented by

Goncharova and Larionov), but the composer refused to be party to a theatrical

presentation of the holy story. Leonide Massine, who had been invited to cho-

reograph the piece, recalls that Diaghilev then tried to obtain copies of some

ancient chants from Kiev, but because of the upheavals of the war, he never re-

ceived them. Still, Goncharova worked diligently on the project creating at

least sixteen costume designs which, cleverly, she regarded as interchangeable

components of a sequence, as in a game of cards. During the 1920s,

Goncharova continued to work for Diaghilev and integrated her visual ideas

with the daring choreographies of Bronislava Nijinska (e.g., LesNoces, 1923;

L'Oiseau de Feu, 1926), although it was her companion, Larionov, who seems to

have stolen the show.

Larionov restored the element of farce to the professional stage, achieving this

not through a confirmation of historical or ethnographical fact, but rather

through a contradiction of it. His projects for Le Soleil de Nuit (1915), Contes

Russes (1917), the HistoiresNaturelles, Chout (1921), and LeRenard (1922) rely

for their effect precisely on this tension between narrative or choreographic

sequence and unexpected visual displacements (fig. 15). Larionov was not

averse to low taste, to fooling around, to eclecticism and plagiarism, but he

combined these qualities in a vivid, clever manner that seemed very distant

from the staid elegance ofLe Pavillon dArmide and Giselle.

With his interest in primitive art, especially the lubok, and his abstract system

known as rayism, Larionov produced sets and costumes that were at once

vulgar and sophisticated-"popular art in a renewed and vigorous form.""

11. D. Kobiakov, "Sovremennaia zhivopis. Larionov" in Zemlia, Paris, 1949, no. 2, p. 16.

DAPA Summer 1987 39

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Fig. 16. Mikhail Larionov, set for

Scene I in Chout produced by

Sergei Diaghilev in Paris in

1921, gouache, 191/2 x 271/2 in., 50

x 69 cm. Collection of

Mr. and Mrs. Nikita D.

Lobanov-Rostovsky, London.

Fig. 17. Mikhail Larionov, set for

Scene V of Chout produced by

Sergei Diaghilev in Paris in

1921, watercolor and gouache,

19 x 251/2 in., 48.5 x 64 cm.

Collection of Mr. and Mrs.

Nikita D. Lobanov-Rostovsky,

London.

From a practical standpoint, Larionov's costumes were unwieldy, and Diaghilev

was forced to threaten the dancers with penalties in order to make them dance

in clothes that interfered with the very movements of their dancing; and even

though Diaghilev spoke of Chout (figs. 16, 17, and 18) in laudatory terms, refer-

ring to its "new principle" and "highest modernity,"1 it had a cool reception in

12. Interview given by Diaghilev to The Obsenrer, London, 5June 1921. Quoted in N. MacDonald,

Diaghilev Observed by Critics in England and the US 1911-1929, New York: Dance Horizons, 1975,

p. 262.

40 DAPA Summer 1987

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Fig. 18. Mikhail Larionov, cos-

tume for the merchant in Chout

produced by Sergei Diaghilev

in Paris in 1921, gouache,

193/4 x 141/2 in., 50 x 37 cm.

Collection of Mr. and Mrs.

Nikita D. Lobanov-Rostovsky,

London.

Paris and London, causing the critic of The Times to observe that "one hardly

finds in it a touch of that art which has made the Diaghilev ballet famous

throughout Europe and beyond it."3

Even so, Chout and Le Renard (of the following year) (fig. 19) really marked a

new departure in Diaghilev's ballet endeavor, for, thereafter, his productions

became increasingly experimental as he gave attention to new composers, new

dancers, untried choreographic systems, and radical styles of art. For Larionov,

this period was a happy one, a mood reflected in the "exclusive vitality and

13. The Times, London, 10June 1921. Quoted in MacDonald, op. cit., p. 263.

DAPA Summer 1987 41

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I,

t. ,

Fig. 19. Mikhail Larionov, decor

for Le Renard produced by

Sergei Diaghilev in Paris in

',~ * - : r'- -P.

It4~

1922, watercolor, 15 x 213/4 in., 38

rt

,;~~~ k

x 54.5 cm. Collection of Mr.

%? a

Robert LB. Tobin in the Marion

Koogler McNay Art Museum,

r'. VI

San Antonio, Texas.

saturation of color, in the distinctive dynamism" of his designs.14 But Larionov's

days were numbered. Even though Serge Lifar rechoreographed Le Renard for

a new production in 1929, Larionov, with his Russian ingenuousness and bois-

terous disposition, seems to have appealed less and less to Diaghilev after 1922.

The change coincided with Diaghilev's new orientation towards a more com-

plex, more cerebral, more mechanical conception of ballet and stage design,

prompting him to draw on the expertise of a new generation of artists, among

them Gabo, Pavel Tchelitchew, and Georgii Yakulov.

It is a tribute to Diaghilev's unfailing curiousity about the new in art and to his

instant recognition of authentic innovation that his most experimental produc-

tions were staged at the end of his life-La Chatte (1927), Le Pas d'Acier (1927),

and Ode (1928). These ballets integrated new concepts of music, choreography,

and visual resolution, and actually have much more in common with develop-

ments in ballet today than they do with the heyday of Bakst and Benois.

Fig. 20. Naum Gabo and Antoine

La Chatte, choreographed by George Balanchine, premiered in Monte Carlo in

Pevsner, decor for La Chatte,

April 1927 and then in Paris the following month (fig. 20). Telling the story of a

young man in love with a cat who becomes a woman only to change back into a

produced by Sergei Diaghilev

cat, La Chatte deals with the central theme of metamorphosis and instability. In

order to emphasize these qualities, the designers, Gabo and Antoine Pevsner,

in Monte Carlo and Paris in

applied their abstract principles of constructivism: by building transparent and

refractive surfaces from talc, mica, celluloid, black oilcloth, et cetera, they
1927. Photograph of the recon-

created a plastic, variable decor and costumes that reflected and magnified the

struction at the Tate Gallery,

movements of the dancers. The shapes distributed on stage were deprived of

figurative value (except for Pevsner's towering statue of Venus), and the circular

London.

stage itself revolved, thereby changing its appearance.

La Chatte was one of several "industrial" spectacles inside and outside Russia

that relied for their scenic effect on modern, hi-tech materials and streamlined

actions. Meierkhold's constructivist presentations such as The Maganimous

14. A. Maslovsky, "Balety S. Diaghileva i russkie khudozhniki" in Teatr, Berlin, 1922, no. 9, p. 6.

42 DAPA Summer 1987

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Fig. 21. Frame from Yakov

Protazanov's movie Aelita, 1924.

Collection of the Institute of

Modern Russian Culture at

Blue Lagoon, Texas.

Cuckold of 1922, the movie Aelita (1924, with designs by Exter and Isaak

Rabinovich), Bronislava Nijinska's Le Train Bleu (1924, decor by Henri

Laurens), and, of course, Leonide Massine's Le Pas d'Acier were other expres-

sions of this esthetic (figs. 21, 22, and 23). The latter, in particular, symbolized

Fig. 22. Alexandra Exter, cos-

Diaghilev's wish to relate ballet, still regarded by many as a "classical" art, to

twentieth-century concerns. Produced in Paris inJune 1927 with music by Serge

tume for the Queen of the

Prokofiev and sets and costumes by Georgii Yakulov, Le Pas dAcier portrayed

Martians in Yakov Protazanov's

the new Socialist Russia with her glorification of the factory and the machine.

Naturally, Diaghilev was criticized for this "Communist" tendency, and he was

movie Aelita, 1924, gouache, 27

also accused of encouraging musicians to make noise, not music. The visual

resolution was no less provocative, for Yakulov introduced mechanical moving

x 18 in., 68.6 x 46.7 cm.

parts, including real hammers, to describe the proletarian environment and to

Collection of Mr. and Mrs.

generate a choreography not only of factory workers but also of machines. Mas-

sine was enthused:

Nikita D. Lobanov-Rostovsky,

The wheels and pistons on the rostrums moved in time to the hammering

London.

movements of the young factory workers, and by strengthening the tableau

with a large ensemble group in front of the rostrums, so evolving a

DAPA Summer 1987 43

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A-

design for a group of figures i

in Ode produced by Sergei

Diaghilev in Paris in 1928, India

ink, 164 x 14 in., 42.5 x 35.5 cm.

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. ^

Nikita D. Lobanov-Rostovsky, t / _

'f f

London. '

multi-level composition which welded together the scenic and the bodily

movements, I was able to create a climax of overwhelming power.15

Actually, Diaghilev, Yakulov, and Massine did not seem especially interested in

the political interpretations of Le Pas d'Acier. For Yakulov, at least, it provided an

opportunity to emphasize what he regarded as the simplest and most basic in-

gredient of the theater-"the principle of perpetual motion, the kaleidoscope

of forms and colors."'6 Yakulov conveyed this through his involved system of

kinetic machines that "moved forward some parts, removed others, rolled out

platforms, let down ladders, opened up traps, constructed passageways."'7

There was something of the circus and the happening in all this, but what pro-

voked good humor and amusement in proletarian Moscow did not find quite

the same sympathy in bourgeois Paris.

15. L. Massine, My Life in Ballet (London: MacMillan, 1968), p. 172.

16. Quoted in the exhibition catalogue Teatralno-dekoratsionnoe iskusstvo za 5 let (Kazan, 1924),

p. 45.

17. A. Efros, Kamemyi teatr i ego khudozniki 1914-1934 (Moscow: VTO, 1934), p. xxxvi.

44 DAPA Summer 1987

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The last of Diaghilev's truly experimental ballets was Nicolas Nabokov's Ode,

produced in Paris in June 1928 with designs by Tchelitchew and choreography

by Massine (fig. 23). Although relying on occult and alchemical sources, specif-

ically on the hermetic schemes of the universe that Tchelitchew was exploring

avidly at the time, Ode (which tells the story of Nature and one of her pupils)

was also "modern" and "technological." In fact, some of Tchelitchew's requests

were so audacious-movie cameras and neon lights representing a "galaxy of

celestial manifestations"18 and a spotlight to be beamed at the audience-that

Diaghilev had to reject them. Even so, Diaghilev seems not to have been unduly

perturbed by the "unadorned white all-over tights" that the dancers wore.19

Unfortunately, this was Tchelitchew's only contribution to the Ballets Russes, al-

though he had been involved in many stage productions since his initial train-

ing with Exter in Kiev in 1918-19 and, after Diaghilev's death, returned to the

ballet working with Balanchine, for example, on the 1936 production of Orfeo.

The success of the Ballets Russes, and not least of its experiments in design, de-

pended fundamentally on the inspiration of Diaghilev, and with his passing the

company disbanded. Its artists, dancers, and choreographers diversified their

interests, a fission that stimulated the formation of many smaller troupes in

Europe and the United States. The direct heir to the Diaghilev legacy, Colonel

Wassily de Basil's Ballets Russes (1931-52), never really attained the synthetic

level of the Diaghilev enterprise, even though it boasted many famous names

and was well organized. Ultimately, it merely crystallized prior discoveries and,

scenically, never produced the equals of Scheherazade,Jeux, Contes Russes, or

La Chatte. [

18. P Tyler, The Divine Comedy ofPavel Tchelitchew (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967), p. 331.

19. Ibid.

DAPA Summer 1987 45

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