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Alicia Markova


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the cover photo of nichols is a performance shot. [i've looked through the program itself and can't find a credit for the picture's photograher.]

the wings were light, attached somehow on the shoulders. i have no idea what material they were made of, maybe a lame-covered styrofoam?

it's important to rem. that the pas de deux in this prod. was not that we see nowadays in the ballet at nycb - robbins reinstated the current one - a reconstruction of tallchief's the year after balanchine's death.

balanchine changed the role for each ballerina and her costume.

there was no glaring problem or trouble for the prince in these versions. i didn't see kirkland's version; von aroldingen's was almost all stately posing and parading if mem. serves. nichols was more active balletwise but i don't recall any blatant difficulties per se for her w/ the costume, including the wings.

REPERTORY IN REVIEW no doubt has some details to offer from interviews and contemporary reviews.

it's the way the photo is lighted and the less-than-precise quality of the reproduction, but nichols is indeed wearing ribbons on her shoes.

the standing leg's foot is better lit and the ribbons show if you look hard; the extended leg's foot catches some shadow and makes the neatly tied, snug ribbons almost invisible.

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as this title role in THE FIREBIRD was one of nichols's first big balanchinean challeges, she noted in an interview the problems working out the choreography for this costume presented.

i don't recall her saying that she felt she never quite overcame the challenges, but maybe she chose, near the end of her career, to downplay such difficulties, or at least so chose in the context of my interview.

all i can recall is that she knew how fond balanchine was of the costume and how much he liked to show it off when she was backstage in it.

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rg wondered about Chagall's involvement with Markova's costume.

According to her memoir, Markova Remembers, the head-dress was made to Chagall's design, so that the head and beak of the Firebird were on one side of her head. The feathers were bird of paradise.

For the costume, Markova and Chagall met in costumier Edith Lutyens studio. Lutyens had made a gold lame leotard onto which Chagall pinned fragments of net in various colours which had been cut to look like feathers. Once they were placed to his satisfaction, they were stitched down.

The whole look was completed with dark body make-up onto which patches of grrease were applied and then gold dust was applied to the grease patches.

She recalls that she had to buy the gold dust by the pound and it was so difficult to remove that the ballet always had to be scheduled for the last item on the bill. If she was going out after the show with friends she wore a black cashmere sweater which covered her arms and back.

During the busiest tours, when leaving immediately after the show for the next date, she often had to wear the make-up on the plane or all night on the bus.

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thanks for the info from markova's book; i should have looked there myself.

i suspect as the years went on things got altered to markova's satisfaction or to various directors' taste. the fishnet tights in the undated foto i have, plus the sequin anklet and the upper arm bracelet seem like further adaptations.

perhaps the best way to look at this costume is say it's based on chagall's design.

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