Costume worn by Stanislas Idzikowski as 'the bluebird' in Aurora's Wedding as performed by Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1922. After the closure of The Sleeping Princess (1921-22) In London many of the costumes were impounded. To mount a ‘divertissement’ from the ballet (Aurora’s Wedding included the fairy variations from the prologue, the fairy-tale characters from the final act and some of the social dances) new costumes had to be found, designed and made.
The costume is an interpretation of that designed by Léon Bakst for the performance of the pas de deux as L'oiseau de feu in Le Festin in 1909 which was danced by Vaslav Nijinsky. At that point the status of the two dancers had been changed from Marius Petipa's original so that the male dancer was no longer the bird (as in the fairytale of Princess Florine and the Bluebird) but a prince, leaving Nijinsky's partner to be the firebird.
It had long believed that this costume was a second version made for Nijinsky (possibly for his independent season in 1914 at the Palace Theatre London) but the only evidence of any dancer wearing the costume was an image of Stanislas Idzikowski. This created further challenges as, by the time Idzikowski danced the ballet with the Ballets Russes, the pas de deux had been redesigned as The Enchanted Princess and a different costume worn (see S.965-1982). Research in 2023 suggests that a new version of the Festin costume was made for Idzikowski to wear for Aurora's Wedding at the Paris Opera in 1922 although dancers in the role soon returned to a blue version of Bakst's 1916 costume.