Backcloth designed by Natalia Goncharova for scene ii of the ballet, The Firebird, revived by Diaghilev Ballets Russes, Lyceum Theatre, London 1926

Backcloth showing a stylized Russian city of towers and minarets painted in bold reds, blues and ochres with gleaming golden onion domes rising above a blue-grey castillated wall with swallowtail battlements.

The set was used for 46 performances by Diaghilev’s Company (21 of which were in London) with the last performance at Monte Carlo on 4 May 1929 (it was also danced in Milan, Paris, Geneva and Marseilles). The set was inherited by Colonel de Basil’s Ballets Russes and revived for them at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London in 1934. For much of the time the sets for this successor company were cared for by Michel Baronov (the father of Irina Baronova). Firebird was a popular ballet in de Basil’s company’s repertory.

When the company folded in 1952 the sets and costumes were stored until they re-emerged in the 1960s. Who owned the sets and costumes at de Basil’s death remains something of a mystery but it was understood to be a non-profit-making organization, the Diaghilev and de Basil Ballet Foundation, which developed from the Russian Ballet Development Company Ltd . Anthony Diamantidi became controlling director of the organisation on the death of de Basil and Tom Bischoff in 1951 and de Basil’s widow, Olga Morosova was also a director. The Foundation’s purpose was to support the development of Russian ballet as created by the two companies between 1909 and 1951. In 1964 a supplement to its mission allowed it not only to ‘acquire, own, maintain or preserve’ materials related to the Ballets Russes companies but to ‘buy, sell, hire out, exhibit, dispose of, or otherwise deal’ with the collection. Having stored sets and costumes at considerable expense for a decade and a half and following the first successful auction by Sotheby’s of Ballets Russes material in June 1967 Diamantidi proposed the sale of the collection he was caring for.

On 20 September 1967 Buckle joined David Ellis-Jones and Thilo von Warzdorf of Sothebys at a warehouse at Bagneux near Montrouge in southern Paris to assess the items for auction (previously material had been stored at Pantin) and there was more in the USA. They were amazed by the sets and costumes they found and after an initial survey the sets and costumes were transferred to a Fulham warehouse and prepared for auction. The Firebird cloth was sold along with the cut cloth for Act 1 Scene 1 (the orchard at night) and the curtain of the cut out grill which protects Kostchei’s castle (Act 1 Scene 2 at the sale by Sotheby of costumes and curtains from Diaghilev & de Basil Ballets at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 19 December 1969; it was Lot 33 It was purchased by The Friends of the Museum of Performance, one of a number of groups hoping London would establish a Theatre Museum. They felt it was important that Britain should have a good collection of Ballets Russes material given that the company was so influential on the development of dance in Britain and, indeed, gave almost half their total number of performances in this country. In 1976 the Friends of the Museum of Performance donated their substantial collection of Ballets Russes material to the V&A.

Until Miss Saigon in 1989 the Ballets Russes cloths were stored at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane after which they moved to Dean Hill.

The Firebird cloth is a challenge to display as it is so large.

The cloth has been shown at a special display for the Antiques Fair, Olympia 1981

At the V&A, London 25 September 2010 – 9 January 2011 in Diaghilev and the Golden age of the Ballets Russes 1909-1929

At The National Gallery, Washington 12 May – October 2013 When Art Dances with Music; Diaghilev and the Golden age of the Ballets Russes 1909-1929

The backcloth for the final scene of the 1926 revival of The Firebird was described by Cyril Beaumont as ‘a medley of towers and spires massed in tiers, in the manner of a mediaeval representation of a walled town, to form a richly decorative pattern' and it was praised by The Times 26 November 1926 as 'one of the most beautiful spectacles which this company has provided either before or since the war.'

Natalia Goncharova’s backcloth has become an iconic image for the Ballets Russes’ on-going influence and one that is immediately conjured up for theatregoers by Goncharova name. The cloth was used for the final scene, the coronation of Ivan and the Tsarevna, and shows a city of churches with gold onion-domes surrounded by a distinctive wall of a Russian Kremlin. The scene encapsulated all there was to say about Holy Russia (in 1926 apparently lost to the world by the rise of the Soviet state) and aptly reflected Igor Stravinsky’s hymn of thanksgiving. It supports Goncharova’s belief that set designers should seek the truth and spirit of productions avoiding literal representation. As she noted ‘Décor is above all an independent creation, supporting the spirit of the work to be performed; it is an autonomous art form …subject to its own laws.’

The set was created for the revival of Mikhail Fokine’s The Firebird at the Lyceum Theatre, London, on 25 November 1926. As no alternative scene painter is credited in the programme and, knowing Goncharova and her partner Mikhael Larionov liked to paint their own sets, it is safe to assume it was at least partly painted by the artist herself. Significantly the sets created by Goncharova used cloths which were far easier for touring than the original (1910) constructed set by Alexander Golovin.

The Firebird (L'Oiseau de feu) was an archetypal 'Diaghilev' ballet, and one of the most successful of the early works of the Diaghilev Ballets Russes. Premiered in Paris in 1910, it was distinguished not only by Mikhail Fokine's imaginative and magical choreography and production, but by being Serge Diaghilev's first commissioned score from Igor Stravinsky. It was the beginning of a distinguished collaboration between Stravinsky and Diaghilev's company.
Initially the ballet was designed by Alexander Golovine except for the leading dancers' costumes, which were by Léon Bakst. By the mid-1920s, when Diaghilev wished to revive the ballet, the original designs were seen as old-fashioned. Diaghilev therefore commissioned new sets and costumes from Natalia Goncharova, whose style, deriving from icons and Russian folklore, with bold colours (bold reds, blues and ochres) and simplified shapes, was admirably suited to the folk tale elements in the ballet.

The Firebird remained in the repertory until Diaghilev's death and in the 1930s was acquired, along with the remaining Diaghilev repertory, by the De Basil Ballets Russes and was performed by them in London and internationally during the 1930s and 1940s.

S.455-1980