Explore the L'Oiseau bleu (Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky) of this artwork, The Blue Bird (Metzinger).
L'Oiseau bleu et la Princesse Florine appear in a Pas de deux, Act III of The Sleeping Beauty, a ballet in three acts first performed in 1890. The music was by Pyotr Tchaikovsky (his Opus 66). The original scenario was conceived by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, and is based on Charles Perrault's La Belle au bois dormant. Marius Petipa choreographed the original production. The premiere performance took place at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1890.
Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, working for Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: The Firebird (L'Oiseau de feu) (1910), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913). The rhythmic structure of these compositions were largely responsible for Stravinsky's enduring reputation as a musical revolutionary who pushed the boundaries of musical design.
Stravinsky's admiration for Tchaikovsky is well documented. Stravinsky's music has often been compared with Cubism. His path often crossed with the Cubists, notably Picasso and Gleizes, and through Ricciotto Canudo contributed to and became closely associated with the pro-Cubist publication Montjoie., Gleizes published an article in Canudo's Montjoie entitled Cubisme et la tradition, 10 February 1913. It was through the intermediary of Ricciotto Canudo that Gleizes would meet the artist Juliette Roche (soon to become Juliette Roche-Gleizes); a childhood friend of Jean Cocteau. Stravinsky would later collaborate with both Picasso (Pulcinella, 1920), and Cocteau (Oedipus Rex, 1927).
Albert Gleizes painted the Portrait of Igor Stravinsky in 1914.The connection between Tchaikovsky's L'Oiseau Bleu and Metzinger's L'Oiseau Bleu is not entirely far fetched in light of the close association between Stravinsky and both circles: that of the Russian Ballets and that of the Cubists. At the opening night of the Ballets Russes in Paris, May 1909, Vaslav Nijinsky's performed with Tamara Karsavina in the Bluebird pas de deux.
La Belle au bois dormant The Firebird ballet Pas de deux Albert Gleizes The Sleeping Beauty Mariinsky Theatre Cubism Sleeping Beauty Juliette Roche Ballets Russes Russian Ballets Tamara Karsavina Petrushka Ballet Marius Petipa Pyotr Tchaikovsky Igor Stravinsky Paris Jean Cocteau Ricciotto Canudo Opus Ivan Vsevolozhsky The Rite of Spring Vaslav Nijinsky St. Petersburg Sergei Diaghilev Charles Perrault