Ballets Russes by Diaghilev in the Tretyakov Gallery

The most anticipated project of the new season – an exhibition of a collection of artifacts associated with the name of Sergei Diaghilev, an outstanding impresario, a man who did an incredible amount to popularize Russian art in the world, started in the New Tretyakov Gallery.

The exposition presents sketches of costumes and scenery, photographs of ballet performances and rehearsals, portraits of choreographers Leonid Myasin, Serge Lifar, Mikhail Fokine and famous étoiles Tamara Karsavina, Olga Spesivtseva, Anna Pavlova, Irina Baronova and others from the collection of Mikhail Larionov. The “icing on the cake” of the exposition is the original costumes for Diaghilev’s ballets, designed by Alexander Golovin, Lev Bakst, Natalia Goncharova, Nicholas Roerich, and the scenery for one of the most famous performances, Roerich’s Polovtsian Dances.

The exposition includes 13 stage costumes, more than 200 graphic works, photographs, materials from the Tretyakov Gallery’s Manuscript Department and Mikhail Larionov’s Ballet Library.

“What we’re showing here is graphic sheets and costumes that can’t be shown for a very long time. We are planning this hall in such a way as to be able to rotate,” said Zelfira Tregulova, director of the Tretyakov Gallery, at the opening.

Basically, the exhibition presents graphics (sketches of artists for performances), and for this reason this exhibition is especially important, since graphics cannot always be shown in the permanent exhibition, they need to be given a “rest”.

“We can be grateful to the failure of some of the ballets, thanks to which the costumes are so well preserved. The Blue God refers to these not very successful ballets. The Golden Cockerel is an extremely successful ballet, so look how worn out the knees are on the Astrologer’s jumpsuit,” Irina Shumanova, curator of the exhibition, told reporters.

The recording of The Golden Cockerel was made during a tour in Australia, after the death of Sergei Diaghilev. The ballet was then restored, and success was restored – as triumphant as during the first production. And this is the rare case when photos and videos at this exhibition are about the same time. But the decoration, although it looks like in the picture, is quite modern. “It is rather a kind of symbol – a fantasy on the theme of the performances of the late Diaghilev entreprise. We initially had the idea that maybe we would make a reconstruction of this scenery, and then we thought that this was some kind of sign. The same greetings to Diaghilev and his artists, which we convey from the present. Not a stylization, not a copy, but quite free,” shared the curator of the exhibition Evgenia Ilyukhina with the media.

There are also many archival photos and other documents in the project. The main rarities of the exhibition are a collection of authentic stage items acquired by the museum in 2021 with the support of BP Russia. Zelfira Tregulova, director of the museum, said at a press conference that this collection had been traded in Britain for several years, the starting price was 1 million pounds, but through persistent negotiations she managed to reduce it several times. So now the museum collection has real Diaghilev props.

Diaghilev staged (and left unfulfilled) a huge number of performances, but the exhibition presents the most legendary ones, those for which the best sketches were created by those artists who are now considered the pillars of Russian art.

Bakst’s costumes for “Tamara” and “The Blue God” in which Nezhinsky and Karsavina danced are genuine fabrics. But there is also “Spain” to the music of Ravel and Albeniz, from which Goncharova’s chic sketches remained. In the hall dedicated to Roerich’s works for Prince Igor, there are two priceless rarities: Karsavin’s pointe shoes and the prince’s boots. And the largest (in terms of volume) in the exposition is Roerich’s giant curtain, about twenty meters. It is now under restoration, but at the entrance to the exhibition – in a round enclosure – a fragment of it is reproduced.

Looking at the bright colors of the exhibits and costumes, you realize how much the photographs and miraculously preserved videos do not convey the effect. But the artists’ sketches convey the entire palette of the creators’ fantasies.

Exhibition “Diaghilev. Dress rehearsal” will last until February 5, 2023.

Svetlana Yurieva.

Photo – Sergey Vinogradov.