Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes meets Matisse in side-by-side exhibitions in Worcester

Never before seen costumes, programmes and other ephemera from Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes will be on display at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum this spring, opening on February 2, 2019.

Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes features items from a unique private collection of costumes and ephemera telling the stories of the Ballet Russes, the most spectacular and scandalous ballet company of the early 1900s.

Critical opinion agrees that Serge Diaghilev (1872-1929) was the driving force behind the renaissance of dance in Western Europe. His was the sharp eye that discovered the amazing dancers Valslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina; and designers Picasso, Bakst, Benois, Gontcharova, Braque, Derain whose designs electrified Europe and changed the nature of both music and colour appreciation in the West.

Diaghilev’s was also the musical ear that discovered Stravinsky and brought Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin and the great Russian opera singer Chaliapin into prominence in the West. He was known for being generous and sensitive when necessary, but also ruthless in his judgements when it came to artistic excellence.

Diaghilev’s was also the musical ear that discovered Stravinsky and brought Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin and the great Russian opera singer Chaliapin into prominence in the West. He was known for being generous and sensitive when necessary, but also ruthless in his judgements when it came to artistic excellence.

A man of taste and learning who, in his youth, had aspired to be a composer (Tchaikovsky was one of the branches on his family tree), Diaghilev was one of the greatest arts exports from Russia to the West there has ever been. He staged the first great exhibitions of Russian art in Paris, and founded Mir Isskutsva, the celebrated Russian art magazine which drew upon many Western artists.

In a letter to his stepmother in 1895, he observed, “I am, first, a great charlatan, though with dash, second a great charmer, third cheeky, fourth with a lot of logic and few principles, and fifth, someone afflicted, it seems, with a complete absence of talent. But I have found my true vocation: to be a patron of the arts. For that-I have everything that I need – except the money, mais, ca viendra….”

[box type=”custom” bg=”#c0dcf9″ radius=”10″]“Diaghilev didn’t pay his dancers much. If you got 2 francs a performance you were lucky. You couldn’t pay for an hotel room. The boys used to take a downstairs room together. Maybe five in a room! When they left the hotel in the early morning, they used to simply throw their luggage out onto the pavement and do a quick one to the railway station. Diaghilev did it too!”

Michel Pavlov, dancer, corps de ballet, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, speaking in the 1970s, and one of many Ballets Russes anecdotes included in the exhibition interpretation.[/box]

Certain books have a particular resonance in the exhibition, since they reflect a specific era when the illustrated book was very much an important part of this country’s culture, when signed copies of books were valued as precious items in a way that has been lost to us today.

During his great European tours, Diaghilev would make purchases from reputable booksellers in cities where the Ballets Russes might be performing. The books travelled with him in large travelling trunks as his company danced both here and abroad

The Ballets Russes used hundreds of costumes during its many years of staging productions. Some still survive in private collections, others were destroyed by fire or damp, still others were seized as security assets when Diaghilev could not pay his debts. The exhibition includes a costume made for Le Bal and used either by Diaghilev production or by the Russian Colonel de Basil, who took over after Diaghilev’s death, re-naming it Colonel de Basil’s Ballet Russes.

[box type=”custom” bg=”#c0dcf9″ radius=”10″]”I was 14 years old and I had lost my father. I joined the Ballets Russes as one of the ‘baby ballerinas’. I was due to dance in The Nightingale in Paris in the 1925 season. I was very shy and nervous. Diaghilev sat me on his knee while Stravinsky played the new score. Then Stravinsky suddenly stopped playing. “What is the matter Igor?” said Diaghilev. “She is chewing gum. She is distracting me”, replied Stravinsky. “She is becoming American, she is fashionable what do you expect!” said Diaghilev.” Stravinsky made a despairing gesture and then continued to play on”.
Dame Alicia Markova in conversation with Richard Edmonds, speaking about her beginnings in the Ballets Russes.[/box]

The programmes designed for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and later for the Ballet Russes de Colonel de Basil were luxury items with magnificent covers by artists such as Bakst, Bilibin, Picasso, Andre Derain, Natalia Gontcharova, “Bibi” Berard and many more. Although subsidised by advertising, only the best advertisers were allowed showing a luxury lifestyle of motor cars, perfumes, hotels  and haute couture to appear in these lovely publications.

Among Midlands connections are Leonid Massine’s coming to The Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon to oversee a revival by the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet (now Birmingham Royal Ballet), of Massine’s comedy ballet La Boutique Fantasque, which had originally been created for Diaghilev. Massine had worked extensively with Diaghilev as lead dancer and choreographer with the Ballets Russes.

The Ballets Russes exhibition runs alongside Matisse: Drawing with Scissors, a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition from the Southbank Centre London, that features 35 lithographic reproductions of the famous cut-outs that he produced in the last years of his life including iconic images such as The Snail and the Blue Nudes. Matisse was one of many artists commissioned to create costumes and scenery for the company. The exhibition also includes work by other great artists of the period including Dame Laura Knight.

Philippa Tinsley, curator at the Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum says, “We are very excited to bring these two fabulous exhibitions to Worcester. We are very proud to be the first venue in the UK to show the Ballet Russes collection, it is an extraordinary collection of objects illustrating just how spectacular the Ballet Russes was in the early 1900s. Matisse: Drawing with Scissors will be a visual delight for all visitors; spring will be an exciting time to visit Worcester Art Gallery & Museum.”

Both exhibitions run from 2 February until 27 April.
Open Monday – Saturday 10.30am – 4.30pm.
Entry free.
Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum, Foregate Street, Worcester WR1 1DT.

Hear more about Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes from the exhibition’s curator on Tuesday March 12 at 1pm. Tickets, £3 per person, may be booked in advance by calling 01905 25371.

For more information visit www.museumsworcestershire.org.uk.