19 replies to this topic

[dirac]

You're right, lmspear, I remember d'Amboise saying something to that effect.

[rg]

Kirkland may well have been channeling Pavlova who also disliked the music, etc. of FIREBIRD thus leading Fokine to switch casting and choose Karsavina for the 1910 premiere.
to add to some confusion over time, Karsavina danced what was called a 'bird of fire (or light)' in the 1909 divertissement called "L'oiseau de feu" for LE FESTIN, but as we know this was to Tchaikovsky and was in fact his Blue Bird duet from THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.
attached scans show Karsavina in the FESTIN 'l'oiseau' and as Stravinsky's 'bird' (with arms outstretched). (both of these snapped from Andrew Foster's excellent book, TAMARA KARSAVINA, DIAGHILEV'S BALLERINA)
the Bakst sketches both show versions of the Stravinsky ballet.

Attached Files

•  lbakstfirebird1910.jpg   103.56K   35 downloads
•  LBfirebirdSktch.jpg   100.08K   51 downloads
•  TPKlodflfR.jpg   54.93K   54 downloads
•  TPKlodfR.jpg   81.65K   41 downloads

[rg]

additional (final?) FIREBIRD footnotes:
a snap of Chagall's sketch for his Firebird costume and a color photo promoting Capehart television in 1950? - the date on my copy of this loose leaf from a magazine, perhaps LIFE, has the year written in pencil, which may be accurate or may be a guess - documenting, by way of what was then called an "action photo," a moment from a performance of Ballet Theatre's 1945 staging of THE FIREBIRD by Adolf Bolm, with Alicia Markova identified and perhaps with Anton Dolin (unidentified), probably in the Danse Infernale.

p.s. in answer to the query above about a photo of Kirkland as the Nightingale in John Taras's SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE, no, i don't have any, but i fairly recall this Ter-Arutunian-designed costume with its basic unitard-light base arranged with various lengths and curlicues of semi-transparent tubing, meant, it would seem, to indicate spare plummage.

Attached Files

•  MCfSktch.jpg   17.85K   36 downloads
•  BTfCtvWM.jpg   72.8K   35 downloads

[lmspear]

dirac, on 28 January 2013 - 11:09 AM, said:

You're right, lmspear, I remember d'Amboise saying something to that effect.

Thanks for the confirmation, dirac!

[Andfos]

The French historian Philippe de Lustrac has demonstrated that the Firebird costume that Bakst designed for Karsavina in 1910 (as shown in the 2nd photo above, with a modified headdress) was influenced by Siamese rather than Russian folklore. In particular, the 2 golden braids are taken from images of the fantastical Siamese Garuda bird, which always holds 2 golden snakes in exactly the same way. Interestingly, when Karsavina came back to the role in 1919 and reverted to an earlier Bakst costume (the one she wore for the 1909 Bluebird pas de deux with Nijinsky), she insisted on adding the 2 braids.
To confuse matters even more, the first Karsavina photo above, although technically "L'oiseau de feu", is not Firebird. It is the Bluebird pas de deux photographed in the mid 1920s - Karsavina always loved the original 1909 Bakst costume.