Nijinsky wore a cream body suit with brown piebald patches to represent the coat of an animal. The dancers' costumes were designed to stand out against the muted background. Ī design by Léon Bakst for the stage setting Baskt organized the lighting to emphasise the flattened look of the dance. From there, it was green to the back of the stage. The stage floorcloth was black as far back as the mound which the Faun lies upon. It was hung at the line of the second wings rather than the back of the stage to deliberately narrow the performance space. The splashes of muted greys, browns, and greens on the backcloth mirrored the fluid music, suggesting the scene rather than defining it precisely. Léon Bakst designed the stage setting which was more impressionist than representational. Bronislava would later choreograph her own ballets for the Ballets Russes. There, he began work on the choreography with the help of his sister, Bronislava Nijinska, who was herself a senior dancer. After the summer season in Paris, Nijinsky returned to St Petersburg for the new Russian season. Claude Debussy's symphonic poem, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, was used for the orchestral music. Jean Cocteau, a French poet, explained the Mallarmé poem to Nijinsky who spoke little French, and helped develop an outline for the ballet's acts. In his portrayal of the faun, Nijinsky managed to reproduce exactly the figure of a satyr shown on Greek vases in the Louvre. Nijinsky's aim was to reproduce the stylised look of the ancient artworks on the stage. Bakst, Nijinsky, and Diaghilev transferred these concepts to a ballet format in Faun. Bakst had previously worked with Vsevolod Meyerhold who was an innovative theatre producer and director that had introduced concepts like two-dimensionality, stylized postures, a narrow stage, and pauses and pacing to emphasise significant moments into his productions. The artwork on ancient Greek vases and Egyptian and Assyrian frescoes, which they viewed in the Louvre museum, was their source of inspiration. Louvre museum, Campana collection acquired 1861ĭiaghilev, Nijinsky, and Bakst developed the original idea for The Afternoon of a Faun. Menelaus intending to strike Helen is struck by her beauty instead. Diaghilev began looking around for an alternative to the style which Fokine customarily delivered before deciding to allow his senior male dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky, to try his hand at choreography.
The Ballets Russes used this time to stage their own ballets and operas in Paris.
Summertime madness midi free#
Initially, the Ballets Russes took advantage of the 3 months summer break when the Imperial ballet closed and its staff were free to do other things. In addition to Fokine, all the different specialists for the new ballet company had also come from the Imperial Russian Ballet company. Fokine had originally worked as a choreographer with the Imperial Russian Ballet.
Michel Fokine choreographed most of the dances that the company performed. The ballet was developed as a possible new production for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. L'Après-midi d'un Faune is considered one of the first modern ballets and proved to be as controversial as Nijinsky's Jeux (1913) and Le Sacre du printemps (1913). The piece also led to the dissolution of a partnership between Nijinsky and Michel Fokine, another prominent choreographer for the Ballets Russes, due to the extensive amount of time required to train the dancers in what was then an unconventional style of dance. This led to a controversial reception from both audience and critics, and the quality of the ballet was debated widely through multiple news reviews. The work had an overtly erotic subtext beneath its façade of Greek antiquity and ended with a scene of graphic sexual desire. The ballet was presented in bare feet and rejected classical formalism. They often moved across the stage in profile as if on a bas relief. In the original scenography designed by Léon Bakst, the dancers were presented as part of a large tableau, a staging reminiscent of an ancient Greek vase painting. The style of the 12-minute ballet, in which a young faun meets several nymphs and proceeds to flirt with and chase them, was deliberately archaic.
The costumes, sets and programme illustrations were designed by the painter Léon Bakst. Both the music and the ballet were inspired by the poem L'Après-midi d'un faune by Stéphane Mallarmé. The music is Claude Debussy's symphonic poem Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. The ballet, The Afternoon of a Faun (French: L'Après-midi d'un faune), was choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky for the Ballets Russes, and was first performed in the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on. L'Après-midi d'un faune by Stéphane Mallarmé Programme illustration by Léon Bakst for the ballet
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