細節
THE BALLET COSTUMES
Rudolf Nureyev was the most celebrated male dancer of his generation and perhaps the most active in the history of ballet. From the moment of his famous 'leap' to the West at Le Bourget airport on June 16, 1971 to the mid to late 1970s he had already danced over 100 different toles, performed with over 30 different companies throughout the world and choreographed major productions of La Bayadère, Raymonda, Swan Lake, Tancredi, Don Quixote, The Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet and The Nutcracker. In a six month period alone, from September 1975 to February 1976 he gave no less than 113 performances in 18 different cities.
Against a background of such prolific and diverse performance the collection of costumes seems almost modest in its scope. To some extent it can be seen as a working wardrobe of convenience from which the peripatetic dancer was able to extract adn pack what was required as he travelled from one city to another, from one ballet compnay to another, and from one role to another. However, many costumes relate to olsolete and superseded productions and others, in purely physical terms, are so evidently past their performing life due to the noticeable wear and tear of repeated use, that they can only have been kept as mementos of performances and productions to which the greatest importance and indeed sentiment was attached.
The full ballet costumes offered in the immediate following lots relate to many of Nureyev's key roles, performances and productions. They ahve been grouped by ballet in alphabetica order. Each group is headed with a description of the relevant ballet with details of the accepted 'original' production listed under the categores of Composer, Choreographer, Designer, Company and Première. It would be impossible to detail in similar fashion all subsequent productions and the attempt has only been made to describe those later 'new' productions which are significant in the history of the ballet, which seem clearly to relate to the costumes subsequently described and for which relate to Nureyev's debut in either the role or that specific production. The categories of Composer, Choreographer, etc. are not repeated in the descriptions of these 'new' productions where the information from earlier to later productions remains constant or when it has proved difficult if not impossible to obtain the requisite information from the available literature.
The subsequent description of each individual costume is headed with details of Ballet, Act, Role and Production. When a specifically dated production is given then reference should be made to the initial description of the balet and its productions in order to obtain fulller detials. If no production date is given then this is because it has not been possible to pinpoint the costume to a specific production. It should be noted that the frequency with which Nureyev performed some roles in certain productions meant that costumes were regularly replaced as they becametoo worn and fragile for further use. The costumes offered in this sale may or may not be those used in the debut or première perormances just as they may or may not be the specific costumes illustrated in the cited literature.
The identification of specific productions to which the costumes relate has proved extremely difficult not least because of the highly active nature of Nureyev's career. Information has been gleaned from the early literature on the dancer, from contemporary periodicals and other sources. While much of the literature is excellent in ints commentary and the quality of its illustrations it cannot be relied on for the accuracy and completeness of its captions. Research was complicated by the knowledge that Nureyev sometimes used the same costume for different productions of the same role, and by the fact that he often had the costumes of one ballet company either adapted or copied by the costume department of another. Against a background of such profound activity and inadequate sources we owe much gratitude to Alexander Schouvaloff and Françoise Boudet for their help in making the following descriptions as full and detailed as they are.
Literature:
K. Money, Fonteyn - The Making of a Legend, W. Collins, London, 1973
J. Percival, Nureyev - Aspects of the Dancer, Faber & Faber, London, 1975
A. Bland, The Nureyev Image, Studio Vista, London, 1977
A. Bland, Fonteyn and Nureyev, Orbis Publishing, London, 1979
C. Barnes, Nureyev, Obolensky Enterprises Inc., New York, 1982
L'Avent-Scène Ballet Danse, no. 11, Rudolf Noureev, Paris, 1983
A. Bland, Observer of the Dance 1958-1982, Dance Books Ltd., London, 1985
H. Koegler, The Concise Dictionary of Ballet, Oxford University Press, Second edition (updated 1987)
H. Brown, Nureyev, Phaidon, London, 1993
LE CORSAIRE
(The Corsair)
Based on Lord Byron's poem The Corsair, a complicated tale of a Greek girl, Medora, sold into slavery before being rescued by a pirate, Conrad, her future lover. An early interpretation of the tale in ballet was presented in 1837 in London but the 1856 production cited below is accepted as the starting point for all subsequent productions.
ORIGINAL PRODUCTION
Composer: Adolphe Adam and others
Choreographer: Joseph Mazilier
Designer: Martin, Edouard Despléchin, Charles Cambrom and Joseph Thierry (sets); A. Albert (costumes)
Company: Théâtre impérial de l'Opéra, Paris
Première: January 23, 1856
NEW PRODUCTION
Composer: additional music by Riccardo Drigo, Léon Minkus
and Cesare Pugni
Choreographer: Marius Petipa
Company: The Russian Imperial Ballet
Première: January 13 (25) 1899, Maryinsky Theatre, St.
Petersburg
NEW PRODUCTION
(Pas de Deux)
Composer: Riccardo Drigo, orchestrated by John Lanchberry
Choreographer: Rudolf Nureyev, after Petipa
Designer: André Levasseur (costume for Margot Fonteyn); Rudolf Nureyev (his own costume)
Company: The Royal Ballet
Première: November 3, 1962, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London
The full ballet, in three acts and five scenes, is today rarely if ever performed. However, the 'slave' pas de deux and solo, with music by Drigo, are frequently seen. Nureyev's performances have been considered by many as the quintessential interpretation that show at the same time and to the best effect the extraordinary range and bravura of his classical technique. His early displays prompted audiences to rapturous acclaim. He was obliged to perform a partial and almost unprecedented encore of the solo when winning a students' competition in Moscow in 1958, he astounded the audience of the Opéra in Paris in May 1961 when the solo was inserted into the Kirov's production of the third act of La Bayadère and created no less of an effect on his London début with Fonteyn as Medora, on November 3, 1962: 'The curtain came down at Covent Garden last night to cheers, shouts and flying carnations. The Fonteyn-Nureyev combination ... has brought off another knock-out performance. Nureyev, lithe and hungry looking ... stunned the audience with what was probably the finest piece of male dancing seen on the Covent Garden stage in this generation. Leaping and turning like a salmon, soft as a panther, prouda nd cruel, never for a second relaxing his classical control - this was a spectacle which made one believe (the comparison is inevitable) those legends of Nijinsky' (Alexander Bland, op. cit, 1985, pp. 49-50)
The harem trousers and low slung belt, offered in the lot described overleaf, remain constrant to many of the early performaces exectued by Nureyev after his defection to the West in June 1961. They, as well as the two alternative 'bodices' also included and the headband, were presumably based on designs used in Kirov productions. For a vivid illustration of both dance and costume see the film An Evening with The Royal Ballet, British Home Entertainment, 1965.
COSTUME FOR LE CORSAIRE, 1962 Production
A pair of harem trousers of green cotton ruched at the knees and elasticated at the ankles; a low slung belt trimmed with Afghan chain decoration; two alternative bodices, one a gilt leather chain with simulated jewelled clasp of blue paste, the other a full chain bodice trimmed with coral and turquoise beads; and a jewelled headband (4)
出版
K. Money, op. cit., p.301
J. Percival, op. cit., after p.96
A. Bland, op. cit., 1977, pp. 56, 163-7
A. Bland, op. cit., 1979, pp. 74, 96, 98-9, 101
C. Barnes, op. cit., after p. 160 and pp. 163, 178, 180, 183
H. Brown, op. cit., pp. 95-6, 175
