Le Pavillon d’Armide was a one act ballet in the baroque style with a libretto and designs by Alexandre Benois, after Théophile Gautier’s Omphale. An earlier, longer version of the ballet had been created for the Imperial Ballet as the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg on 25 November 1907. The score was by Nicholas Tcherepin and choreography by Mikhail Fokine.

A tightened adaptation was presented as the first ballet in Serge Diaghilev’s Saison Russe at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris on 19 May 1909 and with further adaptations it entered the repertory of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. It was first performed by the Ballets Russes in London on 21 June 1911 at the Royal Opera House and significantly seen at the coronation gala on 26 June. It remained in the active repertory of the Ballets Russes until the South American tour in 1913 and appears to have been last seen in London at Drury Lane on 14 July 1913. It was revived for the season at the Century Theatre, New York, USA in January 1916 when dancers in the costumes were photographed by White in New York.

In essence the ballet concerns an apparent dream the Vicomte de Beaugency experiences housed for the night in an annex to a marquis castle, ‘Le Pavillon d’Armide’ in which a tapestry of that name is housed. The tapestry comes to life and the Vicomte assumes the role of the missing Rinaldo. When he awakes he finds he still has Armida’s scarf and the fatal enchantment kills the young man. Although initially presented with the full story after the first London season the ballet appears to have been restricted to the animated tapestry. The Times 3 July 1912 noted that the company was dancing the shortened version ‘adopted last year for all performances after the first. By confining it merely to the revels of Armide and other figures of the Gobelin tapestry M. Fokine gives us the essence of the work in the formal dances and the best of M. Tcherepnin’s music….What is chiefly lacking in the ballet is an harmonious colour scene. Many of M. Benois’s details are beautiful in themselves, but the ensemble of willow greens, electric blues, lemon yellows, and pinks is seldom harmonious and sometimes crude.’

The costumes appear to have been originally made by Caffi in St Petersburg. Surcoats such as this are shown being worn by a line of possibly 6 kneeling women holding garlands in the on stage posed photograph at the time of the Paris premiere and more clearly in a photograph by White, NY, showing Vera Nemchinova (reproduced in MacDonald p.149) where the Surcoat is worn over a dark calf-length dress with light sleeves.