I first performed Igor Stravinsky’s L’oiseau de feu, or The Firebird at an orchestral summer camp at Oberlin College when I was thirteen years old. At the time I had little understanding of the piece, except that it accompanied a ballet, and that it was extremely difficult to play. I embraced the tender evensong of the Berceuse, marveled at the bombastic horns and rushing string passages of the Danse Infernale and reveled in the broad Russian theme of the Finale - yet I possessed little understanding of how the work translated into a ballet performance. When I performed the work again as the concertmaster of the DePauw Symphony orchestra, I wore red feathers in my hair. Though there was not a dancer in sight, no Firebird, no Prince Ivan, no Tsarevna or evil Kastchei, I was content to have brought a small visual element of the ballet to the stage. 

George Balanchine, former member of Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes and the father of the New York City Ballet described the Firebird in his 101 Stories of the Great Ballets as “bright, glorious, and triumphant... her entrance is as strong and brilliant as the bright red she wears... Her arms and shoulders are speckled with gold dust and the shimmering red bodice reflects spangles of brilliance about her moving form... the Firebird refuses to be earth-bound and seems to resist nature by performing dashing movements that whip the very air about her” (Balanchine, 172-173).

Stravinsky’s music gave flight to my imagination - by this time I knew the narrative of The Firebird well but I felt as though the orchestra was attempting to illustrate an invisible story. I was disappointed by the musicians’ general ignorance of the ballet’s rich history as a Russian fairy tale, the plot line, and the ballet company that first premiered the work. This is not an uncommon issue in undergraduate orchestras, where important facts about works themselves are obscured by the technical aspects of the music. It might not occur to the musicians that, were the ballet to be performed as a whole, they would not even be in the spotlight. This feeling fueled my desire to study not just the music of the ballet, but the dancers, artists, designers and costumes that make up the multi-faceted gem that is a complete performance.

In viewing the exhibition, Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes 1909-1929: When Art Danced with Music, I naturally gravitated toward those parts of the show that I was most familiar with in performance. Upon entering the show I was immediately attracted to the costumes and set designs of Schéhérazade, my favorite orchestral suite by the great Russian composer Rimsky Korsakov. I was most impressed by the opulent costume designs by Leon Bakst for the Blue Sultana, Odalisque, and Eunuch; these sketches were such works of art as to stand alone. The organic nature of the flowing silks and the rich colors and ornate patterns clearly catered to the exotic flavor of the ballet. Bakst’s designs shamelessly emphasized the naked form, catering to the pervasive oriental fetish of the early twentieth century. It is easy to see why critics questioned the amount of inspiration that Paul Poiret drew from Bakst’s designs. While Poiret objected to the comparison of his designs with Bakst’s creations for the Ballet Russes, “the heightened sensuality of the vibrant, and sometimes shockingly revealing, stage garments gave Poiret’s designs an additional frisson by association" (Wilcox, 64-64). Because of his strong association with exotic style and the Ballet Russes, Bakst would go on to contribute to the development of fashion, textiles, and furniture design throughout his career.

I also admired Bakst’s costumes, executed by Marie Muelle, for the Eunuch. The luxurious satin, silk, and imitation jewels have survived for over a century, and the costume is a marvelous example of a successful translation of design from the page to the stage.

Another striking segment of the exhibition was dedicated to Bakst’s costume design for Vaslav Nijinsky as the Rose in Le Spectre de la rose in 1911. The costume was exhibited on a mannequin that was suspended in the iconic grande jeté, with arms and legs extended mid-leap in a romantic expression of joy. Though many of the original silk petals fell off during the performance and had to be re-sewn or recreated (imagine the Rose losing his petals onstage!), the costume still provokes a romantic response. 

I appreciated the Impressionist style of the designs for Debussy’s L’Après-midi d’un faune and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe, consistent with the musical and artistic style of the time. I recall performing both of these ballets at DePauw while studying the work of Monet and Cézanne, and imagining the shifting patterns of light and color as the dancers brought the music to life on the stage. If only we had an actual dance department! Both Debussy and Ravel contributed to the Impressionist movement through their compositions, focusing more on the color and timbre of chord progressions than the formalist structure that was popular at the time. The resonant dissonances in their works gave a sense of urgency and movement to music that was more true to the unpredictability of modern life than their predecessors, and was thus instrumental to the reconstruction of ballet in the early twentieth century.

Nicholas Roerich’s designs for the infamous Rite of Spring were incredibly well researched. The dancers wore thick wool in the tradition of Russian ‘pagan’ peasants, most of which survived due to their durability. Several costumes for the “maidens” were arranged in a circle in the middle of the space, behind which a video clip of the Rite was playing on a loop. This organization is also reminiscent of the formation of the corps de ballet as they perform the sacrificial rite.

Further on were spaces dedicated to costume and set pieces designed by Matisse and Picasso, which I found to be visually stimulating - however, I wondered how the dancers would be able to move in their costumes! Picasso’s cubist works must have posed a major challenge to dancers, though he claimed to have built the costumes around them.  It was especially fascinating to see the way that different art movements such as Cubism and Surrealism were applied to the costumes of the Ballet Russes as time progressed.  

I was disappointed to see that the portion of the exhibit for The Firebird was very sparse. I would have loved to see more costumes from this ballet, which I have grown to love throughout my work as a musician. However, the original back cloth by Natlia Goncharova was exquisite. It's a shame that the majority of costumes have not survived over the years, but I would have liked to see even a replication of the costume described by Balanchine in his summary of the work.

As a whole, I very much enjoyed the exhibit. Though there is much more that could be said about the individual artists who contributed to the great repertoire and legacy of the Ballet Russes, I feel that this kind of analysis is better suited to a research paper. I hope that the National Gallery of Art will continue to support such deep and expansive exhibits, and I look forward to viewing more exhibits about the ballet in the future.

Bibliography

Balanchine, George and Francis Mason. 101 Stories of the Great Ballets. New York: Anchor Books, 1989. 

Bowlt, John E. “Leon Bakst, Natalia Goncharova, and Pablo Picasso,” in Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes 1909-1929, edited by Jane Pritchard, 104-119. Washington DC: National Gallery of Art, 2013.

Wilcox, Claire. “Paul Poiret and the Ballet Russes,” in  Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes 1909-1929, edited by Jane Pritchard, 64-65. Washington DC: National Gallery of Art, 2013.