Chair: Alessio Francesco Palmieri Marinoni.

The arc of time separating 1862, year of the world debut of The Pharaoh’s Daughter (Дочь фараона) to music by Cesare Pugni, and 1900, year of the debut of Harlequinade (Миллионы Арлекина) to music by Riccardo Drigo, is considered the golden age of the ballet in imperial Russia – and also an epoch-making moment for the history of dance costuming.

The corps du ballet of the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi theatres benefitted from the collaboration of a group of outstanding costumers who definitively influenced and indelibly changed public perception of classical ballet. Alongside large-scale productions set in exotic countries or whose plots were linked to ancient history, several of the ballet companies referenced 17th- and 18th-century elements. Productions such as The Sleeping Beauty (Спящая красавица) or The Nutcracker (Щелкунчик), both to Tchaikovsky’s music, or Michel Fokine’s Le Pavillon d'Armide (Павильон Армиды) to music by Nikolai Tcherepnin, are full of interesting references and direct citations of costumes and clothing proper to the rococo era.

The seminar lays out a historic panorama of costuming for the ballet in the 19th century and conducts stylistic analyses of the premier creations of costumers Ivan Alexandrovich Vsevolozhsky and Aleksandr Nikolaevich Benois.

SEMINAR PROGRAM:

• Brief historical excursus through 19th-century ballet dress
• The neo-rococo in theatre
• Reinterpreting the 1700s: Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker
• Faithful citations of the 1700s: Le Pavillon d'Armide

SUGGESTED BOOK TO READ:

Gavrilovich, D. – Corea, A. (2019) Marius Petipa. Lo zar del balletto classico (1818-1910). Danza, musica, arte e società, Universitalia

Basso, A. (2005) Musica in scena. Vol. 5: l’arte della danza e del balletto, UTET