The leading dancers of the Imperial Ballet were engaged in the production: Tamara Karsavina (Columbine), Leonid Leontiev (Harlequin), Vera Fokina (Chiarina), Ludmilla Schollar (Estrella), Bronislava Nijinska (Papillon), Vsevolod Meyerhold (Pierrot), Vasily Kiselev (Florestan), and Alexander Shiryaev (Eusebius).

When Michel Fokine was approached by two young men involved in the publication (Mikhail Kornfeld, later to be its publisher, and the later-famous poet Grigory Potemkin) they gave him free rein, although they mentioned that the theme of the event was to be carnival.

[1] The score has musical references to Frédéric Chopin and Niccolò Paganini, literary ones to the four commedia dell'arte characters Harlequin, Columbina, Pierrot and Pantalone, and stage directions written in after it was completed.

The libretto was put together by Michel Fokine and Léon Bakst and has no real plot; rather it is a series of light, humorous, and joyous incidents combined with some moments of poignancy and an undercurrent of satire.

The simple set—the ante-room of a ballroom delineated by a curtain running all around the stage and up to the flies, with two chandeliers and two small striped sofas—as well as the costumes, were designed in the style of Biedermeier.

It was the infusion of lightness, gaiety, coyness, and self-absorption, combined with an underlying sadness—all of which must be contributed by the dancers—that resulted in what most critics of the time regarded as a most effective adaptation of Schumann's music and characters.