Jacket of costume designed by Giorgio de Chirico for Serge Lifar in the Italian entrée in the Ballets Russes’ production of Le Bal, 1929, a duet he originally performed with Eugenie Lipovska. It was a dance in which as the critic of the Daily Telegraph wrote ‘M. Lifar is full of life of the vigorous kind in which that dancer excels’. The costumes of the Spanish and Italian divertissements picked up on national characteristics, here peasants dancing a tarantella. Lifar’s costume was completed with breeches white stockings with a cross-gartered detail, dark (black?) shoes a virtically striped undershirt and red head scarf.
Le Bal (The Ball), a modern ballet in one act and two scenes had sets and costumes designed Giorgio de Chirico, was created for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes at the Théâtre de Monte Carlo on 7 May 1929. The musical score was by Vittorio Rieti, the narrative by Boris Kochno, after a story by Count Vladimir Sologub, and it was choreographed in 1929 by George Balanchine. The costumes executed under the direction of Mme A. Youkine. The original ballet had 15 performances being presented only during the last season of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Monte Carlo, Paris, Berlin and London where it was first performed on 26 July 1929 also at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. When Massine created a new version of the ballet in 1935 using the original score, sets and costumes the Italian entrée was danced by Paul Petroff with Tamara Toumanova.