Stage Design
Stage Design
Stage Design
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Russes
ByJohn E. Bowlt
La Chatte (1927), and many others. Diaghilev and his dancers, musicians, art-
ists, and patrons revolutionized the concept of ballet on all levels, but particu-
the Russian artists who worked for the Ballets Russes, especially Lev Bakst,
Alexandre Benois, Natalia Goncharova, and Mikhail Larionov, provide the focus
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-
Italian, and German colleagues. Through his ballet company, Diaghilev ex-
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
the context of stage design. It meant, for example, that Diaghilev's designers in
sociated with Moscow and St. Petersburg modernism, were often in direct conProfessor in the Department of
their domestic laboratory to the West via the Ballets Russes-the vulgar energy
indeed, worthy of discussion, and it relates to the still unfamiliar issue of his
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.
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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,
*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
Roerich), set for Scene I of Le and political commitment-consequently, they were very suspicious of
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
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,
Museum, Leningrad.
past cultures, especially of Greece, Egypt, and the Middle East, the emphasis on
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.
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and their colleagues approached the notion of theater in the early days and to
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-
..:.,.
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Alexander Golovin. Apparently, at this stage, the World of Art artists had little
;'." ?FV?:
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a
understanding of the revolution that was already occuring in western
I*ut
But, in spite of this initial, desultory interest in stage design as such, these St.
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-
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
Mariinsky Theater after the Sylvia affair in 1901, and his general intolerance of
the cumbersome state bureaucracy, impelled him rapidly towards the estab-
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
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
and his colleagues actually maintained and propagated, rather than destroyed,
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gouache, 17 3 x 12 in.,
Lobanov-Rostovsky, London.
It is at this juncture that the real significance of stage design to the Diaghilev
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,
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
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Scene II of Le Pavilion
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-
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,
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
, 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
pro- 1907), Le Pavillon was Benois's first professional theatrical engagement since
in Le Rossignol produce
s in theatrical artist. All his colors, his lines related directly and obviously to the
1914, watercolor, 18 x 12 i
in., 47.8 thing was aimed at expressing the content of the piece.4
Leningrad.
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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-
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
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t..
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I
-A
t\ , f4.
Nikita D. Lobanov-Rostovsky,
I/
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and Moscow.
the bazaars, fairs, and halagany (Punch andJudy booths) were still part of
.4
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
Benois managed not only to express the charm and simplicity of a childhood
on the angular character of the decor was an ideal visual parallel to the discor-
kita D. Lobanov-Rostovsky,
London.
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-
5. A. Benois, "Vospominaniia o balete" in Russkie zapiski, Paris, 1939, no. 29, p. 124.
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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
therefore, built a solid bridge between artiste and public-both parties came
/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
and Varvara Stepanova, Bakst regarded the body as a kinetic force that was to be
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-
demic stage (a tradition that Benois never finally rejected), Bakst tried to make
motions of the body either by attaching appendages such as veils, feathers, and
emphasize the body's movement through space. While Bakst liberated the
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
(1912).
Against a romantic set of stylized trees, rambling villa, and electric lanterns,
Bakst placed his tennis players, clothing them in simple, economical, utilitarian
Liubov Popova and Varvara Stepanova (fig. 10). It is not very distant from the
. w>j
Furthermore, Bakst's knee-length skirt for the female tennis player represented
the same time, symbolizing woman's freedom from the structures of her
his search for a new haute couture begun in 1912. As in his histrionic costumes
Reproduced in T. Strizhenova, Iz
than the dynamism of the dance. Perhaps Bakst even wondered whether sports
(Moscow: Sovetskii
As far as the visual esthetic ofJeux is concerned, there is one element in parti-
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.
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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-
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
Square of 1915, Rodchenko's black on black paintings of ca. 1918 and his photo-
cination with black and white, with economy of form, with mechanical ac-
curacy, with urban civilization (the game of tennis takes place in a London
garden), with the exposition of the instrinsic elements of the medium itself was
1913.
In our search for those designers who really made a determined effort to con-
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,
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.
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; ,i, , -
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.Adift
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
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
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
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London.
activity produced not only numerous designs for sets and costumes, but also
La Cible, 1919), the last two of which were joint enterprises by Goncharova and
Diaghilev hoped that Stravinsky would write a score for the ballet (invented by
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-
Goncharova continued to work for Diaghilev and integrated her visual ideas
L'Oiseau de Feu, 1926), although it was her companion, Larionov, who seems to
Larionov restored the element of farce to the professional stage, achieving this
through a contradiction of it. His projects for Le Soleil de Nuit (1915), Contes
Russes (1917), the HistoiresNaturelles, Chout (1921), and LeRenard (1922) rely
sequence and unexpected visual displacements (fig. 15). Larionov was not
combined these qualities in a vivid, clever manner that seemed very distant
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
11. D. Kobiakov, "Sovremennaia zhivopis. Larionov" in Zemlia, Paris, 1949, no. 2, p. 16.
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x 69 cm. Collection of
Lobanov-Rostovsky, London.
Nikita D. Lobanov-Rostovsky,
London.
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.
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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
Even so, Chout and Le Renard (of the following year) (fig. 19) really marked a
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.
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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,
It is a tribute to Diaghilev's unfailing curiousity about the new in art and to his
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.
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
order to emphasize these qualities, the designers, Gabo and Antoine Pevsner,
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
figurative value (except for Pevsner's towering statue of Venus), and the circular
London.
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
14. A. Maslovsky, "Balety S. Diaghileva i russkie khudozhniki" in Teatr, Berlin, 1922, no. 9, p. 6.
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Cuckold of 1922, the movie Aelita (1924, with designs by Exter and Isaak
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
Prokofiev and sets and costumes by Georgii Yakulov, Le Pas dAcier portrayed
Naturally, Diaghilev was criticized for this "Communist" tendency, and he was
also accused of encouraging musicians to make noise, not music. The visual
Nikita D. Lobanov-Rostovsky,
The wheels and pistons on the rostrums moved in time to the hammering
London.
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A-
Nikita D. Lobanov-Rostovsky, t / _
'f f
London. '
multi-level composition which welded together the scenic and the bodily
Actually, Diaghilev, Yakulov, and Massine did not seem especially interested in
opportunity to emphasize what he regarded as the simplest and most basic in-
of forms and colors."'6 Yakulov conveyed this through his involved system of
kinetic machines that "moved forward some parts, removed others, rolled out
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
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.
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The last of Diaghilev's truly experimental ballets was Nicolas Nabokov's Ode,
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)
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
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,
La Chatte. [
18. P Tyler, The Divine Comedy ofPavel Tchelitchew (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967), p. 331.
19. Ibid.
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