Mardi Gras
Costume Design
1945 (painted)
1945 (painted)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Costume design by Hugh Stevenson for the Girl in Andrée Howard’s ballet, Mardi Gras which showed a young girl lost in a terrifying world of pre-Lenten carnival. The role was created by Anne Heaton, then an emerging ballerina, of whom one critic said, ‘her performance reveals traces of a new Giselle’. The ballet was short-lived only receiving 25 performances and the role of the Girl was also danced by Sheilah O’Reilly. Lionel Bradley was impressed by Mardi Gras noting that ‘in its sense of evil and doom it has inescapable fascination’.
Mardi Gras was choreographed to an original score by Leonard Salzedo with the production’s sets and costumes designed by Hugh Stevenson (He also created the scenario) for Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet and first performed on 26 November 1946.
Mardi Gras was choreographed to an original score by Leonard Salzedo with the production’s sets and costumes designed by Hugh Stevenson (He also created the scenario) for Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet and first performed on 26 November 1946.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Mardi Gras (generic title) |
| Materials and techniques | Pencil, watercolour and gouache on paper |
| Brief description | Costume design by Hugh Stevenson for The Girl created by Anne Heaton in Andree Howard's ballet Mardi Gras, Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, 1946 |
| Physical description | Design for the Girl in Andree Howard's ballet Mardi Gras, depicting a full length faceless girl, the body facing front, the head turned to her left, her left hand raised, wearing a calf-length pink dress with a neck frill, the lower edge of the skirt decorated with three black lines. Around the waist is a deep blue sash tied at the back in a bow with skirt-length tail. The design is identified at top left and signed and dated lower right. |
| Dimensions |
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| Production type | Unique |
| Marks and inscriptions |
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| Credit line | Cyril W. Beaumont Bequest |
| Object history | One of six designs for this ballet from the Cyril Beaumont collection. |
| Literary reference | Mardi gras |
| Summary | Costume design by Hugh Stevenson for the Girl in Andrée Howard’s ballet, Mardi Gras which showed a young girl lost in a terrifying world of pre-Lenten carnival. The role was created by Anne Heaton, then an emerging ballerina, of whom one critic said, ‘her performance reveals traces of a new Giselle’. The ballet was short-lived only receiving 25 performances and the role of the Girl was also danced by Sheilah O’Reilly. Lionel Bradley was impressed by Mardi Gras noting that ‘in its sense of evil and doom it has inescapable fascination’. Mardi Gras was choreographed to an original score by Leonard Salzedo with the production’s sets and costumes designed by Hugh Stevenson (He also created the scenario) for Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet and first performed on 26 November 1946. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | S.140-2000 |
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| Record created | June 20, 2000 |
| Record URL |
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