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Le Antique Ballet photos -3


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I finally got a scanner!! Heres somepix - Most of them I scanned from books I have, some I bought of off ebay. I put them here for those who havent seen some of them. When I first saw the Kschessinkaya/Gerdt Shades photo (below) my eyes got really BIG....gorgeous picture!

To bad it's retouched though.

Kingdom of the Shades 1900, w/ Mathilde Kschessinskaya & Pavel Gerdt. (check out how they hold thier veils, and that they dont come out of buns but are on top of thier heads)

http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/9475/laba...theshadesma.jpg

Ekaterina Vazem as Nikiya, 1877

http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/2394/la...terinavazem.jpg

Nutcracker 1892, Act I w/ Sergei Legat as Nutcracker & Stanislava Stanislavovna Belinskaya as Clara. (Does anyone know what the little boy in the middle is supposed to be? Its a realy nice costume. I was thinking perhaps one of the gingerbread soldiers or one of the mechanical dolls? But I think the dolls were al played by adults.)

http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/5518/nutc...actisergeil.jpg

The first Herr Drosselmeyer, Timofei Stukolkin, 1892

http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/5425/nutc...ertimofeist.jpg

The first Suger-Plum Fairy, Antoinetta Del-Era, 1892

http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/4253/era18921ut.jpg

Maestro Cesare Pugni -

1. Circa 1830-ish? http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/325/cesar...irca18404df.jpg

2. Circa 1860-ish? http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/7397/cesa...irca18604su.jpg

Arthur Saint-Leon, circa 1865?

http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/4087/arth...obybbraqueh.jpg

What role is Anna Pavlova dancing here? #2 photo w/ Mary Pickford

1. http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/5017/anna...rca192018mt.jpg

2. http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/4496/an...fordcirca19.jpg

Kschessinskaya & Preobrajenskaya in 'Le Jardin Anime', I believe. Not a very good quality photo....circa?

http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/1516/le...nimemathild.jpg

Students of the Imperial School in the Children's Polonaise & Mazurka from Act II of "Paquita", late 1800's?

http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/9988/sp...irca19000pf.jpg

Heres Vaganova (#1) and Trefilova? (#2) in the same costume, though I have seen the Vagova photo credited as the Dryad Queen in "Don Quixote", and the Trefilova photo as Esmeralda in "La Esmeralda" (a little :wink: , but I find it really interesting that every time Petipa mentions Vaganova in his diaries her name is usually followed by 'awful' or 'terrible' when commenting on her performance.)

1. http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/2564/laes...avaganova19.jpg

2. http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/1294/zzzzz8pc.jpg

Pretty photo of Lubov Egorova in I believe Pavel Gerdt's revival of the Pugni/Petipa "The Blue Dahlia"

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/4670/th...gorova19054.jpg

The Pharoah's Daughter -

-Platon Karsavin (father of Tamara Karsavina) as either Taor or the Nile King? I don't know who the danseuse is, anyone know? Rosati perhaps?

http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/6406/sdau...cenecarolin.jpg

-Mathilde Kschessinskaya as Aspicia in the Pas de Fleche, Petipa's revival of 1898. What a cool costume!

1. http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/214/sda...emathildeks.jpg

2. http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/214/sdaug...emathildeks.jpg

3. http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/3518/sdau...mathildeks1.jpg

-Sofia Fedorova in the Pas des Caryatids. Shes a playing a character called Hita??

http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/1602/sd...atidshitasl.jpg

-Anna Pavlova playing a character called Vint-Anta?

http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/2528/sd...anta19066ji.jpg

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I finally got a scanner!! Heres somepix - Most of them I scanned from books I have, some I bought of off ebay. I put them here for those who havent seen some of them...

Kschessinskaya & Preobrajenskaya in 'Le Jardin Anime', I believe. Not a very good quality photo....circa?

http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/1516/le...nimemathild.jpg

Preobrajenskaya is quite recognisable. the other dancer does not strike me as MK.

Thanks for the pictures Solor, there were a number I do not recollect seeing before.

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too bad these soviet produced books have such grainy reproductions, but i suspect doug is correct, as usual here. here's one from a slim vol. by bakhrushin on 'history of russian ballet' - it's captioned as p.gerdt and p.legnani as conrad and medora in CORSAIRE.

post-848-1145923129.jpg

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I dont understand why some of the old ballet photos are doctored up to look like cartoons. For example the photos provided in Garafola's "Diaries of Marius Petipa". Ive seen some of these same photos and they look really nice the way they were originally. For example heres 2 photos. The first 2 are of the same photo of Pavlova in "La Fille Mal Gardee", the second 2 are of Kschessinskaya in "La Esmeralda" with her pet goat Djali.

Pavlova Original - http://img280.imageshack.us/img280/6535/ma...avlova19011.jpg

Pavlova Re-done - http://img271.imageshack.us/img271/8440/ma...avlova19012.jpg

Kschessinskaya Orignal - http://img280.imageshack.us/img280/8039/la...kschessinsk.jpg

Kschesinskaya Re-done - http://img280.imageshack.us/img280/6100/ks...sinskaya1zq.jpg

Why is/was this done to these old photos?

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the over-painted and/or retouched examples we often see come, for the most part, from the annals of the imperial theaters, yearbooks of activities by the drama, opera, and ballet theaters under imperial auspices. the speads of these pages are decorated with painted ornaments and borders, etc. the painting over the photos often helps put the look of the stage settings, etc. in the pictures. the 'clean' photos were taken in studios and therefore cannot give much of an idea of the look to be found on the stage. (sometimes props from the photo studios were added to help identify the production's atmosphere, but these tended to be minimal and more decorative than specific to the staging.)

shots of full stage groupings are more rare, probably b/c getting the full cast to such a call and setting up the photo equipment was much more involved. i think in some cases the full stage panoramas were made in segments and pieced together after to present the full sweep.

the touched-up smaller photos are much more usual. among others, i have a 'clean' photocard of pavlova as a 'persian' dancer in the opera DEMON and i also have in the one copy i own of an imperial yearbook, in which DEMON is featured, the same photo onto which something like the opera's setting has been painted in the background, i.e. a rough ground and stone wall.

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Another trick of the wet-plate days of photography was to make large montages of groups of people who had never, in fact, been all together at once. Other tricks included cut-and-paste, to stick someone into a photograph, then the "edited" photograph was rephotographed! Most blatant of all these was found in a group portrait of Civil War officers I have. One Old Boy lived about 300 miles from all the others, so when the time came for a group portrait at discharge, he had a "body double" stand in for the picture, then the facial features of the double were erased, and the face of the missing man was drawn in in fine pencil, only detectable under very high magnification.

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i imagine these doctoring tricks came in most handy during the stalin era when he wanted eventual non-persons to disappear- as any number i gather did from photos of the time.

i sense that the painted-out photos for the imperial theater annals came in some measure from the reverence at the time in which (hand-work) painting was held, opposite the low regard the 'mechanical art' of photography was then held.

i have no objection to these fill-ins except when the artisan w/ the brush lets the paint strokes distort or deform the dancer himself.

i've always been a non-fan of so-called silhouetting because of this. the big knopf nycb book for the co's 25th anniv. is a nightmare of silhouetted 'art' - flattening further the flat space of photographs in general.

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to continue a little look at the ways of russian/soviet ballet photography, i'm posting a few scans of photos i bought a number of years ago - each said to have been in the collection of margaret bourke white - the great LIFE mag. etc. photographer w/ an interest in soviet russia. (these undated shots of THE SLEEPING BEAUTY - document - i THINK the korovin remakes of vsevolozhsky's original design scheme, the one against which akim volyinsky so railed.) i think they also show the sense of 'piecing together' that went on to get the full stage panorama. one shows the oddly cut edge to fit atop the other half of the stage; another shows the glue that remains after the second half got removed.

as noted i have no precise dates and know nothing of the casts' indentity.

post-848-1145990497.jpg

post-848-1145990529.jpg

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i cannot say if this is moscow or petrograd.

i guess it's more likely moscow as bourke-white was known for her stays and work in moscow.

all i can say regarding restagings of petipa's BEAUTY is that there was a new production at the maryinsky either by nicholas sergeyev (if one goes by the russian ballet encyclopedia) or by gorsky (if one goes by borisogleboky's 2 vol. work on the history of the st. petersburg ballet from 1738 - 1938). both books agree that k. korovin was the 1914 production's designer.

(lopukhov's 1922 petrograd re-do also used korovin designs.)

my books don't give the designer for the 1924 moscow/bolshoi restaging by tikhomirov.

(scholl's book addresses the petrograd prod. esp. in the appendices w/ the complaining essays by volinsky). apparently the occasion of the new production was a corps de ballet benefit and karsavina danced aurora.

the '24 moscow aurora was geltzer.

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i cannot say if this is moscow or petrograd.

i guess it's more likely moscow as bourke-white was known for her stays and work in moscow.

all i can say regarding restagings of petipa's BEAUTY is that there was a new production at the maryinsky either by nicholas sergeyev (if one goes by the russian ballet encyclopedia) or by gorsky (if one goes by borisogleboky's 2 vol. work on the history of the st. petersburg ballet from 1738 - 1938). both books agree that k. korovin was the 1914 production's designer.

(lopukhov's 1922 petrograd re-do also used korovin designs.)

my books don't give the designer for the 1924 moscow/bolshoi restaging by tikhomirov.

(scholl's book addresses the petrograd prod. esp. in the appendices w/ the complaining essays by volinsky). apparently the occasion of the new production was a corps de ballet benefit and karsavina danced aurora.

the '24 moscow aurora was geltzer.

The Tikhomirov production used the 1899 designs by Anatoli Fedorovich Geltser (1852-1918) with credit for the Panorama to Karl Fedorovich Valtz(1846-1929) the Bolshoi's legendary machinist who was also a 'decorator'. As Geltser shared the same patronymic as Vassili Geltser the Bolshoi dancer/mime (Father of Yekaterina Geltser)and they were born six years apart perhaps they were brothers? The designs appear to be a pastiche of the 1890 originals.

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So that is circa 1910 or so?

Maybe it's just the way that the old dancers are posed in the many photos Ive seen of Petipa's orignal "Fille", but it seems that perhaps the staging was alot more 'Egyptian-esque' regarding costumes and other little touches like props, etc. than Lacotte's revival?

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gorsky's DOCH' FAROANA was first given in 1905 w/ grimaldi in the title role. (karalli would seem to have taken on the role sometime after that.)

Gorsky's version was premiered on 27 November 1905 and six weeks later Anna Pavlova appeared at the Bolshoi in the title role on January 15 1906. Vera Karalli did not graduate until later that year. Keith Money's book on Pavlova reproduces 12 photographs of her in this role. Less than two weeks later she made her debut in the Petipa production at the Maryinsky

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