Costume Design
ca. 1916 (made)
| Artist/Maker |
Costume design by Natalia Goncharova for a silver-scaled fish, one of the sea creatures in the ballet Sadko created for Serge Diaghilev Ballets Russes at the Eugenia-Victoria Theatre, San Sebastian, Spain, 19 August 1916. Signed lower right-hand side.
In the ballet Sadko the Sea Princess is so enamoured of the music played by the merchant-musician Sadko that she lures him to the sea-bed and then returns to the surface with him.
Sadko was choreographed by Adolph Bolm for the second Ballets Russes tour to the USA and performed to music for the ballet sequence from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera seems to have been much enjoyed by audiences although it was short-lived. The critic of The Times 4 November 1918 loved this underwater Orpheus and described the ballet: ‘Sadko, the minstrel, woke a passion in the Sea-King’s daughter. To win him, she drowned him; and when he came below he set all the sea-folk madly dancing in their green depths, with the pulse of his music countering violently their waving finny stillness. The Sea-King himself, for all his splendid sheeny robe, had to dance and twirl like any little lobster or mermaid of them all. And Sadko, seeing what harm he was like to do, broke the strings of his maddening gusli [harp-like instrument] and went up again to the ordinary daylight worlds.'
In the ballet Sadko the Sea Princess is so enamoured of the music played by the merchant-musician Sadko that she lures him to the sea-bed and then returns to the surface with him.
Sadko was choreographed by Adolph Bolm for the second Ballets Russes tour to the USA and performed to music for the ballet sequence from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera seems to have been much enjoyed by audiences although it was short-lived. The critic of The Times 4 November 1918 loved this underwater Orpheus and described the ballet: ‘Sadko, the minstrel, woke a passion in the Sea-King’s daughter. To win him, she drowned him; and when he came below he set all the sea-folk madly dancing in their green depths, with the pulse of his music countering violently their waving finny stillness. The Sea-King himself, for all his splendid sheeny robe, had to dance and twirl like any little lobster or mermaid of them all. And Sadko, seeing what harm he was like to do, broke the strings of his maddening gusli [harp-like instrument] and went up again to the ordinary daylight worlds.'
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | pencil, watercolour and silver foil |
| Brief description | Costume design for a Fish by Natalia Goncharova, Sadko, Eugenia-Victoria Theatre, San Sebastian, Spain, August 19th 1916 |
| Physical description | Full-lngth image of a dancer facing the front with a silver fish-head with eyes on the head. The dancer wears a tabbard of appliqued silver foil and blue painted scales over green and white layered trousers and green-blue fins attatched to the arms. signed by the artist in the lower right corner. |
| Dimensions |
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| Gallery label | COSTUME DESIGN FOR A FISH IN SADKO
1916
Adolph Bolm choreographed the underwater opera-ballet Sadko for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Goncharova’s design transformed human bodies into sea creatures so the arms of the dancers became fish fins. She appliquéd foil to this design to indicate the silver lamé to be used for the fish scales and head.
Ballet choreographed by Adolph Bolm
to music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, 1916
Eugenia-Victoria Theatre, San Sebastian, Spain, and touring
Paper, watercolour, pencil and silver foil
Designed by Natalia Goncharova (1881–1962)
Given by the British Theatre Museum Association
Museum no. S.578-1987(October 2013) |
| Credit line | Given by the British Theatre Museum Association |
| Object history | Acquired by the British Theatre Museum Association at the Sotheby's Sale, 15 December 1969 (Lot no.102). |
| Summary | Costume design by Natalia Goncharova for a silver-scaled fish, one of the sea creatures in the ballet Sadko created for Serge Diaghilev Ballets Russes at the Eugenia-Victoria Theatre, San Sebastian, Spain, 19 August 1916. Signed lower right-hand side. In the ballet Sadko the Sea Princess is so enamoured of the music played by the merchant-musician Sadko that she lures him to the sea-bed and then returns to the surface with him. Sadko was choreographed by Adolph Bolm for the second Ballets Russes tour to the USA and performed to music for the ballet sequence from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera seems to have been much enjoyed by audiences although it was short-lived. The critic of The Times 4 November 1918 loved this underwater Orpheus and described the ballet: ‘Sadko, the minstrel, woke a passion in the Sea-King’s daughter. To win him, she drowned him; and when he came below he set all the sea-folk madly dancing in their green depths, with the pulse of his music countering violently their waving finny stillness. The Sea-King himself, for all his splendid sheeny robe, had to dance and twirl like any little lobster or mermaid of them all. And Sadko, seeing what harm he was like to do, broke the strings of his maddening gusli [harp-like instrument] and went up again to the ordinary daylight worlds.' |
| Other number | 1969/A/122 - BTMA accession number |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | S.578-1987 |
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| Record created | May 12, 2011 |
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