Diaghilev's Designers

Nicholas Roerich's first contact with The World of Art group was through Princess Tenisheva, a wealthy patron of the arts who assisted the journal financially. Roerich became an important contributor to the journal and was one of Diaghilev's outstanding pre-war designers.

Born in St Petersburg in 1874, Nikolai Konstantinovitch Roerich entered the Law School at St Petersburg University and the Arts Academy simultaneously in 1893. A painter, poet, anthropologist and stage designer, he was widely respected. His extensive knowledge of the art and religious rites of early Slavic tribes made him an ideal visual interpreter of productions concerned with Russian folklore. Of these, the best known are The Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor (1909) and Le Sacre du Printemps (1913). The costumes and sets he designed for The Polovtsian Dances reflect the colours and boundless expanses of the Russian steppes.

The ballet historian Cyril Beaumont, in his book Bookseller at the Ballet, wrote of The Polovtsian Dances: 'Igor was of the earth, and set you on fire with its stirring ferocity... The reddish brown, earth coloured costumes, the dull red skull caps barbarically sewn with pearls, the weather beaten faces smeared with the soot of the smoking camp fires, were exactly in keeping with Borodin's wild, savage music.’

The success of this ballet was instantaneous. Roerich lived in the United States from 1920, joining the colony of Russian artists in New York. He died in 1947.

The Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor

Scenery and costumes: Nicholas Roerich

Choreography: Michel Fokine

Music: Alexander Borodin

First performance: Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, 19

May 1909

First performed in Australia by Colonel de Basil's Monte Carlo Russian Ballet at the Theatre Royal, Adelaide, 20 October 1936.

Synopsis: This is an excerpt from Borodin's opera Prince Igor. The scene is the camp of the Polovtsi, who have just gained a victory over a Tartar tribe, taking Prince Igor and his son Vladimir prisoner.

Kontchakova, the beautiful daughter of Khan Kontchak, joins Vladimir at nightfall. They are interrupted by the Khan, ruler of the Polovtsi, who has come to propose terms and entertain his royal captives. He gives a banquet in their honour, followed by dances in which the warriors and their women take part. As the rhythm of the music grows faster the scene culminates in a frenzy of movement.

The opera Prince Igor is based on an anonymous ninth-century Russian poem, The Song of Igor. The Polovtsian Dances were performed in Scene II, to entertain Prince Igor after he had refused an offer of freedom in return for a promise of peace.

Costume for a Polovtsian warrior from The Polovtsian Dances

The costume comprises trousers, jacket, blouse, skull cap and sash belt. The trousers are straight legged, of thick cotton, woven in a tartan of red, blue, yellow, green and white, which incorporates bands of ikat weaving in the design of lettering,

The long-sleeved, thigh-length wrapover jacket of bottle-green silk with pink pinstripes is collarless, and is decorated with red and yellow painted trim. On the sleeves are maroon ikat bands. The yellow cotton blouse is gathered at the neck. The cotton skull cap matches the design of the trousers.

Leon Bakst's association with The World of Art and the artistic movement that it represented had a significant influence on his work. His greatest achievements in the arts were his designs for the theatre. These gained him an international reputation and he worked in this field until his death.

Born Lev Samoilovich Rosenburg in Grodno, Western Russia, in 1866, Bakst adopted his mother's maiden name. After attending the Academy of Arts, St Petersburg, he became established as a fashionable portrait painter and decorator through the patronage of the Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovitch, uncle to the Tsar. His work in these fields and his early stage designs attracted considerable attention, but his real success came with the 1909 Russian ballet season in Paris.

Through his understanding of the sensuous and psychological effects to be obtained from the combinations of bright, clear colours, Bakst could induce in the audience a mood in harmony with the ballet. He could evoke the voluptuousness and cruelty of the Orient, as in Schéhérazade, and with a different combination of colour and design he could also capture the spirit of Greece in the ballet after Longus’s Daphnis et Chloë.

The music for Daphnis et Chloë commissioned by Diaghilev in 1911 was completed by Ravel in the following year. Bronislava Nijinska, sister of Vaslav Nijinsky, relates in her Early Memoirs that Diaghilev had failed to have all the new costumes made, and many costumes for Narcisse, also designed by Bakst, had to be used instead. Despite these difficulties Daphnis et Chloë was a success. When the ballet was presented in London in 1914 the Daily Mail described it as ‘A delicate and exquisite thing, with M. Bakst leaving his fierce Oriental harmonies for once, in favour of the refinement of idealized shepherd life...’

In 1912 Bakst took up residence in Paris after being exiled from Russia, reportedly on the grounds of having lost his citizenship. He died in Paris in 1924.

Daphnis et Chloë

Scenery and costumes: Léon Bakst

Choreography: Michel Fokine

Music: Maurice Ravel

First performance: Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, 8

June 1912

Synopsis: The shepherd Daphnis and the nymph Chloë are in love. As they dance in honour of the god Pan, Chloë is captured and carried off by the pirate chieftain Braxis. The young shepherd begs Pan to save his beloved Chloë. Ordered by Pan to release the nymph, Braxis and his pirates flee. The two lovers are reunited and the ballet ends in a joyous dance.

Costume for a Brigand from Daphnis et Chloë

The costume comprises trousers, tunic, blanket cloak and and belt. The straight-legged knee-length trousers and the tunic are of royal blue wool fabric; the tunic is stencilled with white spots. At the hemline are strips of wool fabric printed with red and yellow chevrons. Similar chevrons decorate the belt and the cuffs of the trousers. The broad collar is of orange and yellow strips, which also trim the sleeves. The blanket cloak is of blue wool fabric with stencilled and appliquéd concentric black, maroon and white circles. One edge has a stencilled border of maroon, black and white triangles.

Natalia Gontcharova and her lifelong companion Michel Larionov were among the pioneers of modern art in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. Together they created Rayonism, a unique and powerful form of abstract painting, and both established brilliant careers as stage designers in Paris.

Born Ladyzhino near Tula, in 1881, Natalia Sergeevna Gontcharova studied at the Moscow Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. A prolific painter, she contributed to many exhibitions including those of The World of Art. Through her involvement with young radical artists she attracted Diaghilev’s attention. Following her first one-woman show in Moscow in 1913 Diaghilev commented, ‘The most celebrated of these advanced painters is a woman. She has recently exhibited seven hundred canvases... And you will be interested to know that she has imitators not only of her paintings, but of her person... She has painted flowers on her face. And soon the nobility and Bohemia will be driving out in sledges, with horses and houses drawn and painted on their cheeks, foreheads and necks.’

The following year Diaghilev commissioned Gontcharova to design sets and costumes for his opera-ballet Le Coq d’Or. This production, the most successful of Les Ballets Russes’s 1914 season, was revived many times. Critics at the première said Gontcharova’s designs inaugurated a new phase of stage decoration. Fokine, who choreographed Le Coq d’Or, wrote in his reminiscences, ‘Gontcharova not only provided beautiful decor and costumes 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 on stage was a work of art...’

In 1917 Gontcharova and Larionov settled in Paris and Gontcharova died there in 1962.

Le Coq d'Or

Scenery and costumes: Natalia Gontcharova

Choreography: Michel Fokine

Music: Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov

First performance: Théâtre National de l'Opéra, Paris, 21 May 1914

First performed in Australia as a ballet by Colonel de Basil's Covent Garden Russian Ballet at His Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne, 17 October 1938.

Synopsis. An Astrologer gives old King Dodon a magic Golden Cockerel that will warn him of danger. The King, in return, promises to grant the Astrologer anything he wishes. After his sons are killed in a battle with his enemies Dodon meets the beautiful Queen of Shemakhan and wants to make her his bride. When the Astrologer claims the Queen as his reward the enraged Dodon kills him. The Golden Cockerel avenges his master by striking the King dead. In a brief epilogue the Astrologer returns to explain to the audience that everything, apart from the Queen and himself, has been a dream.

Costume for King Dodon from Le coq d'Or

The costume comprises a Boyar style robe and mantle. The robe of mid-pink silk and cotton rep fabric is ankle length with long sleeves and a round neck. The centre front and hem are decorated with a panel of acid-yellow wool flannel, bordered with a metallic lace trim, to which stylized flowers are appliquéd. Large leaf forms decorate the rest of the robe. The floor-length mantle of red cotton velvet has wide full-length cape sleeves. The outer fabric is appliquéd with large stylized flowers, embroidered and outlined with gold metallic cord. The upstanding cape collar is trimmed with real gold lace braid. The sleeves are lined with a pink fabric, while the main body is lined with white brushed jersey. Ermine tails are sewn to the front panels of this fabric.

Michel Larionov first exhibited at The World of Art exhibition in 1906, the year of his first visit to Paris with Diaghilev, who had invited him to represent the young generation of Russian artists in a survey of Russian art at the Salon d’Automne.

Born at Tiraspol, Bessarabia, in 1881, Mikhail Fedorovich Larionov entered the Moscow Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1898. An artist of great vitality and vigour, he contributed to exhibitions of every kind. His Rayonist Manifesto, published in 1913, is a significant document, summing up the ideas of Larionov and Gontcharova and their preoccupation with breaking down academic pictorial conventions in every possible way.

To further his ideas Larionov turned from painting to the theatre, as did many talented Russian painters of that period, and in 1914 he and Gontcharova travelled to Paris to work with Diaghilev.

Larionov's designs for the ballet Chout were originally commissioned by Diaghilev in 1915, but the ballet was not staged until 1921. Chout was described by Cyril Beaumont as 'the one final orgy of colour'.

Despite Larionov's brilliant designs the ballet failed to make any great impression in Paris and London. The critic of The Observer, 6 June 1921 , wrote: 'the shrillest of colours are painted on the backcloths and dresses... The new art form, as represented by Chout, has not yet learned to walk. It can scream very piercingly while waiting for its bottle.'

Larionov died at Fontenay-aux-Roses near Paris in 1964.

Chout (Buffoon)

Scenery and costumes: Michel Larionov

Choreography: Michel Larionov and Thadée Slavinsky

Music: Serge Prokofiev

First performance: Théâtre de la Gaieté-Lyrique, Paris, 17 May 1921

Synopsis: The young Buffoon is the practical joker of the village. He pretends to kill his wife and then restore her to life with a magic whip. He sells the whip to seven old Buffoons who kill their wives to test its powers. In vain they try to bring them to life and to escape their anger the young Buffoon disguises himself as a cook. A rich merchant wishes to marry the cook, who flees, leaving a goat in 'her' place. The young Buffoon enters with soldiers demanding the return of the cook. The bewildered merchant offers the goat, but the Buffoon forces him to pay a fine. The young Buffoon and his wife enjoy their newly acquired wealth and the soldiers make love to the daughters of the seven old Buffoons.

Costume for a soldier, from Chout

The costume comprises trousers, shirt, and a hat with a mask attached. The trousers and shirt are baggy, cossack style, with asymmetrical panels and appliquéd areas in white, blue, orange, black and magenta flannel and other cotton fabrics, rubberized fabric, and painted buckram. The shirt is also decorated with a stylized breastplate and epaulettes in painted buckram.

The flat-topped hat, in magenta cotton and orange buckram, has an attached buckram mask, painted with asymmetrical colour panels over stylized features.