Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2008 - 78

Other stage works
Other works represented in the volume are Picasso's designs for Cocteau's
adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone (1922), directed by Charles Dullin at
the Théâtre de l'Atelier, Paris, and photographs of Mercure (1924), a
series of "poses plastiques" (Satie, Massine) for Les Soirees du Comte
Etienne de Beaumont-not the Ballets Russes. Richard Buckle observes
in his 1979 biography of Diaghilev that Mercure was "striking enough to
worry" Diaghilev, who was always concerned about competition. By 1925,
Picasso's involvement with the ballet was finished, as his marriage was
unraveling.
The last of Picasso's stage works pictured is the 1947 production of
Oedipus Rex at Théâtre des Champs-Elysees, Paris, but Le Rendezvous
(1945) for Les Ballets des Champs-Elysees, Paris, and the 1962 Paris Opera revival of Serge Lifar's Icare, are omitted probably because the exhibit
which prompted this catalog focused primarily on the earlier period.
I read Picasso and the Theater together with John Harrison's new
volume, A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932 (Knopf,
2007). Harrison is knowledgeable about Picasso's life, particularly the
good gossip, while commenting on the huge, creative outpouring during
the period and especially the relationship of the paintings, or not, to his
stage designs. This combination of information and the reproductions in
Picasso and the Theater of many of the artworks mentioned in Harrison's
book (also illustrated) enriched my immersion in Picasso, his relationships with friends and the many people he alienated, or disliked, coupled
with consideration of his prodigious body of work. The publication of
these two volumes could not be better timed since the 100th anniversary
of the première of the Diaghilev Ballets Russes in Paris, May 1909, will be
celebrated by a number of institutions next year. (See sidebar.)
Picasso and Diaghilev were mutual beneficiaries of their partnership
for nearly ten years. As Alexander Schouvaloff says in his essay in Picasso
and the Theater, "Parade made the collaborators famous. Moreover, when
Picasso was commissioned to design Parade, Diaghilev was launched on
his crusade to astonish ballet audiences with the most avant-garde of Gesamtkunstwerk." If dance is the most fragile and ephemeral of the art forms,
Picasso's contributions, in addition to the ballets' scores and the fading photographs, remain the most tangible legacies of the Diaghilev Ballets Russes
and its reputation as the progenitor of twentieth-century ballet.
Iris Fanger, a theatre and dance historian/critic based in the
Boston area, directed the Harvard Summer Dance Center from
1977 to 1995. In 2004 she was co-curator of "George Balanchine:
A Life's Journey in Ballet," an exhibition at the Harvard Theatre
Collection. She is currently at work on an exhibition about the
Diaghilev Ballets Russes for the same venue in spring 2009.

Libraries, museums, and universities in this
country and abroad are marking the 100th
anniversary of the first appearance of the
Ballets Russes in 1909. Here's a selection.
San Antonio The Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts at the McNay Museum is currently showing "The Ballets Russes at 100: Treasures from the Tobin Collection," through 17 August 2008. (www.
mcnayart.org/exhibit_balletrusses.html)
Boston/Cambridge The Harvard Theatre Collection will
host an exhibition, a symposium and performances, 15-16 April
2009. (htc@harvard.edu)
Ballets Russes 2009, an organization based at Boston University,
is coordinating performances by the Boston Ballet and the Boston
Pops, dance films at the Museum of Fine Arts, a three-day academic
conference, an exhibition of posters and memorabilia, puppet performances for children and a traditional Russian street fair. (www.
ballets-russes.com)

Ballets Russes Centennial Celebrations

making it the largest canvas he ever signed.

New York A Ballets Russes exhibition at the New York Public
Library's Library and Museum for the Performing Arts at Lincoln
Center will be called "Diaghilev's Theatre of Marvels" and is scheduled for mid-June to mid-September 2009 in the Donald and Mary
Oenslager Gallery. (www.nypl.org/research/lpa/lpa.html)
Hartford The collection of paintings, set and costume designs,
and costumes owned by Serge Lifar, Diaghilev's last great protégé
dancer, is owned by the Wadsworth Atheneum, which will hold a
Ballets Russes exhibition 16 May to 16 August 2009. (www.wadsworthatheneum.org)
Monte Carlo/Moscow "Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets
Russes," an exhibition focusing on the formative period before
the actual establishment of the Ballets Russes, will include studio
paintings by Bakst and Benois, among others, and costume and set
designs, actual costumes, vintage photographs, posters, and artifacts (Fokine's traveling chest with its labels, fabric samples from
the Nijinsky collection, objects belonging to Diaghilev) drawn from
private and public collections worldwide. It opens at the Nouveau
Musée National de Monaco on 25 June 2009, through late August,
and then travels to Moscow to the State Tretiakov Gallery for showing from September to November.
London The Victoria and Albert Museum, which houses the
Theatre Museum, will hold its Ballets Russes exhibition in 2010
and is seeking original costumes dispersed at the Sotheby's auctions in the early 1970s. (www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/future_exhibs/diaghilev/index.html)

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http://www.mcnayart.org/exhibit_balletrusses.html http://www.ballets-russes.com http://www.nypl.org/research/lpa/lpa.html http://www.wads http://www.worthatheneum.org http://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/future_ex
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2008
