World Theatre Day
On March 27, the Russian House in Brussels invites you to a lecture organized by the A.A. Bakhrushin Theatre Museum: «Russian Seasons: The Era of Triumph».
Lecturer: Maya Komarova, Deputy Head of the International Activities Department at the Bakhrushin Museum.
May 19, 1909, became a landmark day in the history of world theatre. On this day, the premiere of Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons took place at the Châtelet Theatre in Paris. Journalists attending the performance struggled to find words to describe the indescribable excitement that swept through the audience of the small Parisian theatre: “invasion,” “eruption,” “shock”! After the first act, the hall exploded with applause, and by the end of the performance, the audience was in complete ecstasy.
The success was tremendous! Parisian theatre had never seen anything like it. The stars of the evening were Russian ballet dancers: Vaslav Nijinsky, Ida Rubinstein, Tamara Karsavina, and Anna Pavlova. And, of course, the Russian artists Alexander Golovin, Léon Bakst, Alexandre Benois, and Nicholas Roerich, who created a magnificent Russian fairy tale on stage.
Alexander Golovin, a witness and one of the heroes of this unprecedented success, wrote: «The French saw in Russian art a kind of magnificent barbarism. Europe, aging and cautious, forced into frugality, encountered the unrestrained force of Russian creative energy. Critics wrote that ‘the «young Russians spend their immeasurable wealth without counting», that these «generous Russians are willing to share their treasures with us when the opportunity arises»».
At Diaghilev’s rehearsals and performances in Paris, the elite of French intellectual and aristocratic circles gathered—artists, composers, writers, foreign ambassadors, and ministers. French artists sketched the stage designs and costumes. The critics were overwhelmed with admiration. Parisians remarked that Russian artists had completely revolutionized traditional views on the meaning and importance of theatrical decoration.
Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons played a crucial role in 20th-century global art. Their triumph secured Russian art’s reputation as the most avant-garde, outstanding, and extraordinary theatrical phenomenon for an entire century.
The fascinating story of how Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons came to be is worthy of an adventure novel. The lecture will explore its most vivid chapters.
At the end of the lecture, the A.A. Bakhrushin Theatre Museum will present the opening of the exhibition «The Magician of the Imperial Theatres: Alexander Golovin».
