Cléopâtre (ballet)

[1] Cyril W. Beaumont writes that Cléopâtre is a largely based on a ballet called Une Nuit d'Égypte that was first produced by Fokine at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1908.

The soloist costumes were instead designed by Léon Bakst, and the sets, borrowed from an opera performed at the time at the Mariinsky, were retouched by Oreste Allegri.

For this version, Fokine decided to cast Ida Rubinstein, one of his students, for the main role, and Alexandre Benois suggested Léon Bakst for the sets and costumes design of the entire production.

They meet in the grounds of a temple, when the high priest interrupts them, announcing the arrival of the Queen Cleopatra and her court.

The dancers’ bodies gave life to his reduced costumes, that glittered like precious stones against a scenery of desert and Egyptian architecture.

He used gold, lapis blue, malachite green, pink, orange and violet to embellish the characters’ costumes, jewels and weapons, imitating the motifs of what was believed to be Egyptian at the time.

The artists were instead wearing ‘fleshings’, a skin-colour silk or jersey inserts to shorten the time required for body make-up.

This technique was used until 1912, but unfortunately most of these inserts didn’t survive, and don’t appear to be evident in any retouched stage photography of the time.