Stage photograph by Bert of Le Spectre De La Rose performed by Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, 1911.

Le Spectre de la rose was choreographed by Mikhail Fokine to the score 'Invitation to the Dance Opus 65' by Carl Maria von Weber, orchestrated by Hector Berlioz. It was inspired by two lines from the opening stanza of a poem written in 1837 by the French poet and ballet librettist Théophile Gautier: ‘Je suis le spectre d’une rose, Que tu portais hier au bal’ ['I am the spirit of a rose you wore yesterday at a ball').The subject was suggested by Jean-Louis Vaudoyer and the set and costumes were designed by Léon Bakst. It was a 14-minute duet, created for Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina for the first season of the Ballets Russes, being premiered on 19 April 1911 at the Opera House in Monte Carlo.

A Young Girl returns home from her first ball, carrying a rose, She falls asleep in a chair in her bedroom and the Spirit of the Rose appears through an open window. In her dream they dance together but as she sinks back into the chair he soars away. The Girl awakes, picks up the rose that has fallen to the floor and, with a half-smile, recalls her dream. According to Fokine, although he ‘utilised all the resources of the classic ballet, I still consider this work as belonging in the classification of “new ballet”. It contained no dances staged to display technique…and the dances were expressive at all times.’

The photograph shows the right hand side of the set (ie 'stage left); a Biedermeyer bedroom of the 1830s, the curtained bed tucked into the alcove stage left. The walls are decorated with a blue wallpaper with a floral motif and the woodwork is painted white. From left to right can be seen the edge of a window frame; a round table with a white cloth on which stands an urn of roses; a sofa with cushions covered in blue and white chintz; the open right hand tall French windows with sills about a foot from the ground through which may be glimpsed pink and red rose-bushes and the warm dark-blue of a moonlit summer-night sky. In the curtained alcove is a bed at the foot of which is a tapestry frame. In the foreground is a comfortable library chair in which Tamara Karsavina as the girl is sleeping with the Spirit of the rose (Nijinski) hovering behind her,

The full-stage photograph was taken by Auguste Bert at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, in June 1911, probably at the dress rehearsal. See also S. 10-2017.