page_title: Petrushka
section_title: Scenery and costumes
hierarchical_section_title: Petrushka / Scenery and costumes
caption_attribution_description: English: Benois design for the First Street Dancer
context_page_description: Petrushka is a ballet burlesque in four scenes. Alexandre Benois and Igor Stravinsky wrote the story of the ballet. Igor Stravinsky wrote the music. Michel Fokine choreographed the work. Benois designed the sets and costumes. Petrushka was first performed by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Paris on 13 June 1911. Nijinsky played Petrushka, and Tamara Karsavina played The Ballerina. Alexandre Orlov played The Moor, and Enrico Cecchetti played The Charlatan.
  Petrushka tells the story of the loves and jealousies of three puppets. The three are brought to life by The Charlatan during St. Petersburg's 1830 Shrovetide Fair. Petrushka is in love with The Ballerina. She rejects him because she likes The Moor. Petrushka is angry and hurt. He challenges The Moor. The Moor kills him with his scimitar. Petrushka's ghost rises above the puppet theatre as night falls. He shakes his fist at The Charlatan, then collapses in a second death.
  Petrushka brings music, dance, and design together in a unified whole. It is one of the most popular of the Ballets Russes productions. It is usually performed today using the original designs and dances.
context_section_description: The ballet is set during the Shrovetide Fair in St. Petersburg in 1830. Benois had many childhood memories of these fairs. He put these memories — the sideshows, the little theatres, the roundabouts and other fair attractions — into the first and fourth scenes of Petrushka.
  Benois designed eleven productions of Petrushka' over the years. His designs were always based on those of the first production of 1911. He always set the ballet in Admiralty Square, although the actual place of the fair was moved to the Winter Palace Square and finally to the Field of Mars. The fair (infamous for the heavy drinking that took place during its run) was eventually shut down by Prince Oldenburg and the Temperance Society. 
  All productions of Petrushka designed by Benois had several things in common. They all had a proscenium executed in a Russian folk style, and a backdrop showing St. Isaac's Cathedral. The costumes were accurate recreations of the clothing worn in the 1830s. The curtain that was lowered between scenes displayed the Charlatan surrounded by clouds. This curtain was replaced with a night scene of demons and monsters flying over St. Petersburg.
  The second scene of the ballet shows Petrushka's lonely little room. There is a picture of the Charlatan on one wall. The original picture was damaged when the production was moved from St. Petersburg to Paris. It was replaced with a picture of the Charlatan in profile by another designer. Benois did not like this picture. He refused to speak to Diaghilev for a long time.
  The third scene in the ballet is the Moor's room. This scene gave Benois much trouble. He tried many jungle animals — elephants, lions, crocodiles — on the wall covering of the room but was not pleased. He finally settled on a design of palm trees. This exotic design remained the same through all of Benois's later productions. It created a striking contrast to the bareness of Petrushka's room.
caption: Benois design for the First Street Dancer
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