Search Results: Performing Arts: Theatre and Dance from PY Rare Books

First separate edition of Tolstoy's answer to Chekhov – a very good example of this large-format edition, unopened in the charming art-nouveau wrappers and illustrated with plates celebrating the author: three portraits and a view of his tomb in the woods. Edited by Vladimir Chertkov, Tolstoy's literary executor, author of the preface and a major figure in Tolstoy's late publishing history.
According to Tolstoy's daughter Alexandra, the impetus for the birth of the play was Tolstoy's response to Chekhov's Uncle Vanya at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1900. Noting that it 'lacked action', Tolstoy was "suddenly seized with the desire to write a play which had been in his mind since the middle of the nineties. He immediately made an outline, based on a [true] story. … It concerned a decent, upright woman married to a weak man, a drunkard. Abandoned by him, and in love with another man, the woman persuaded her husband, when he reappeared, to pretend suicide in order that she might remarry. When the fraud… Read More

A two-page letter, beautifully signed, where Diaghilev is chasing a significant amount of money due by the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.
38,524 francs is the amount Diaghilev is expecting following a charity gala, where his Ballets Russes performed "absolutely outside the usual cycle of [our] performances given in your theatre". He emphasizes the fact that both accounts, for the gala and for the regular performances, are "absolutely different [and] can't be mixed up".
The theatre mentioned is the celebrated Théâtre des Champs Elysées, where Diaghilev produced his most famous ballets before the World War in the 1910s. The gifted Jacques Hébertot became its director in 1920 (at the age of 34, 14 years younger than Diaghilev), and developed there the Ballets Suédois, a new competition for the Russians. It is however during this gala event on June 20, 1924, that the Ballets Russes created "Le Train Bleu", by Jean Cocteau and Darius Milhaud, with a choregraphy by Nijinsky.
Diaghilev's polite but… Read More

COPY NUMBER 1 (out of 315 for the UK) of the first edition of this celebrated work, especially remarkable for presenting also Bakst's drawings, sketches, paintings, portraits and theatre settings next to his famous costumes for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.
Uncut example, with the striking fragile vellum publisher's binding in very good condition.
Description
Folio (37.5 x 29 cm). Leaf with publisher's mark, 240 pp. incl. half-title, title and 68 plates, [1] leaf with tipped-in colour illustration, most plates in colour, numerous engravings and illustrations in text
Binding
Publisher's full vellum by Hoyer, large brown lettering to upper cover, spine with raised bands lettered and decorated in brow.
Condition
Binding minimally soiled or rubbed, very rare internal light stains too; overall a fine example.

An exceptionally fresh example of this limited edition, with only the binding very lightly stained, the cloth bright and fresh and immaculate inside.
This famous work, finely produced, is a record of Bakst's extensive contribution to Diaghilev's revival of La Belle au Bois Dormant at the Alhambra Theatre in London in 1921. It shows Bakst's sets and costumes, which present a beautiful mix of his early Russian inspiration and 18th-c. French tradition. The work is prefaced by an 18-page introduction by Levinson regarding Bakst and Tchaikovsky's ballet.
Diaghilev's production was so lavish (and not so successful) that it nearly bankrupted him. One of the ballerinas, Lydia Lopokova, was noticed by a member of the audience, who repeatedly came to see her: this was John Maynard Keynes. Lopokova soon became Mrs. Keynes, later Baroness and spent the rest of her long life in England.
This is copy num. 8 out of 500 copies for the USA, from an overall limitation of 1000.
DescriptionFolio. With a full-page… Read More

BEAUTIFUL EXAMPLE OF THIS MAJOR LUXURY WORK ON BAKST'S ART, THE FIRST ONE OF ITS KIND, AND THE MOST IMPRESSIVE, especially attractive thanks to its art-déco publisher's binding, here in great condition. It focuses on Bakst's costumes for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes together with a few set designs, gathering most of his most famous creations. Interestingly, it occasionally mentions the owner of the costume itself, usually British or French.
Alexandre contributed a critical essay, while the 24-year old Cocteau authored notes on the various ballets.
"Born in Russia in 1866, Léon Bakst belonged to that young generation of European artists who rebelled against 19th century stage realism, which had become pedantic and literal, without imagination or theatricality. There were no specialist trained theatre designers, so painters like Léon Bakst turned their painting skills to theatre design. Bakst's fame lay in the ballets he designed for the Diaghilev Ballets Russes, and huge pageant spectaculars for… Read More

With the impressive and fragile original gilt-decorated card box, usually lacking, and which kept here the copy in excellent condition. This is copy num. 26 out of only 500, signed both by Bakst and Brunoff.
This famous work - described by Bakst himself as a 'magnifique édition pleine de bon goût' - is a record of his extensive contribution to Diaghilev's revival of Tchaikovsky's ballet at the Alhambra Theatre in London in 1921 and Paris in 1922. It shows Bakst's sets and costumes, which present a beautiful mix of his early Russian inspiration and 18th-c. French tradition. The work is prefaced by an 18-page introduction by Levinson regarding Bakst and Tchaikovsky's ballet.
Diaghilev's production was so lavish (and not so successful) that it nearly bankrupted him. One of the ballerinas, Lydia Lopokova, was noticed by a member of the audience, who repeatedly came to see her: this was John Maynard Keynes. Lopokova soon became Mrs. Keynes, later Baroness and spent the rest of her long life in England.… Read More

FRESH EXAMPLE OF THE DELUXE VERSION ON JAPON IMPÉRIAL (№10 OF ONLY 18 COPIES), WITH THE TWO ADDITIONAL SUITES AND SIGNED BY SCHIFFRIN, who translated and published the work. One suite is in colour, like in the book, the other in black and white; the total print run was only 445 copies.
Shukhaev (1887-1973) studied at the Higher Artistic School of the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg from 1906 to 1912 under Dmitrii Kardovskii, who taught him the art of fine draughtsmanship.
The artist's collaboration with Schiffrin started with his illustrations for Pushkin's Queen of Spades, which met success upon publication in 1923. For his Godounov, Shukhaev drew on the Russian icon painting tradition, contemporary with the actual Boris Godunov, and managed to combine it with dramatic shapes and bold colours so representative of Russian art in Paris in the 1920s. The striking result demonstrates artist's extraordinary ability to visually communicate the atmosphere of the written work.
Shukhaev's Godounov was not… Read More

Colorful collection of original drawings showing costume designs for world famous ballets and operas by various artists for the Odessa, Kharkov, Kiev and Baku theatres.The collection includes costume designs for dancers in the Walpurgis Night scene from Faust; for Patriarch and Boris Godunov in Boris Godunov by Modest Mussorgsky; for the ladies-in-waiting of Elsa von Brabant in Lohengrin by Richard Wagner; for the Pharaoh's daughter Amneris in Aida by Verdi; for Onegin, Tatiana and Lenskii in Eugene Oneginby Petr Tchaikovsky. The most impressive and detailed are multiple costume designs for the ballet The Maiden Tower choreographed by Vakhtang Vronskii (1905-88) for Odessa, Kiev and Baku theatres. This ballet, with music by Afrasiyab Badalbayli, premiered in 1940 and was the first Azerbaijani ballet and the first ballet in the Muslim East. A very unusual group opening several angles for further research.DescriptionCollection of 29 works on paper, one double-sided, various sizes: from app. 29 x 19 cm… Read More

Rare broadside for an impressive kinetozographic theatre of 400 animated figures in Moscow, by a hot-air balloon enthusiast now in the Guinness World Records.
Forerunners of cinema ("kino" in Russian), kinetozographic (from the Greek, kinetos – "moving", zoon
– "animal" and grapho – "write") or, as it was often called, optical theatres specialized in showing images in motion. They appeared in Russia in the late 18th century, using light and images placed on a small stage, often only in a box, with side mechanisms animating various objects. In 1805, a Moscow student writes that he went to a New Year's Eve kinetozographic show and was absolutely amazed with the very lively and radiant scenes he saw in that "tiny theatre" (Zhikharev, 174).
Iordakii Kuparenko (also Jordaki, 1780-1844) brought the show to another level and became one of the main innovators in this field: no "tiny theatre" anymore on this broadside, but a rich show with firing canons, an erupting Vesuvius, 400 animated figures, and… Read More

First edition, very rare: OCLC locates the Harvard copy only.
Nikolai Protasov (1865–1903), an active member of the Eastern Siberian section of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, was the first to go about a proper collection of the folk-songs of Siberia. In 1901 he recorded, on a phonograph, almost 150 songs, writing some of them out in notation. It is twenty of these songs which are published here as indicated in the long title: "From [the songs] collected in 1900 in the province of Irkutsk and the Transbaikal region by Nikolai Protasov. Arranged by Aleksei Petrov. Published … by the Song Commission of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society".Protasov's complete collection did not appear in his lifetime, and it has even been suggested that he burned his manuscripts in despair at not being able to see his work in print.
According to the preface, it was thanks to Rimsky-Korsakov that these songs appeared at all. He gave them to the Commission set up by the Tsar in 1897 to collect Russian… Read More

The great actor and director at the height of his powers.
A fine cabinet photograph of Konstantin Stanislavskii (born Alekseev, 1863-1938), the great actor and director, who revolutionised modern theatre in a series of innovative productions at the Moscow Arts Theatre in the pre-war years, developing his famous 'system'. The recipient, Andrei Pavlovich Petrovskii (1869-1933) was a fellow actor and director.
The image can be dated by comparison with another surviving portrait by Sherer, Nabholz from the same sitting, in the same suit and tie, with the same distinguished moustache and wave of white hair, but facing the other way and slightly more forwards. We could trace an example of this other portrait, inscribed to Aleksandra Sergeevna Kiseleva, and dated 4 January 1911.
By 1911, Stanislavskii had already achieved world-wide fame. In 1898, he co-directed with Nemirovich the first of his productions of Chekhov: the MAT production of The Seagull has been described as "one of the greatest events in… Read More

Drink on stage: the first edition of Tolstoy's first play. A rare appearance of this fragile booklet, in the original wrappers.The First Distiller is a comedy on the evils of drink. Its first performances, in an open-air theatre, are said to have been so popular that censors became concerned and banned subsequent performances.Tolstoy's The Power of Darkness – the only other play published in his lifetime – was written later in the same year. Tolstoy would have published more plays, but found censors particularly critical of his dramatic works.
Provenance Aleksandr Bogodurov (1873-1952, Nizhny Novgorod landowner; stamp and manuscript shelf mark on the front wrapper; stamp in the margin of p.1) – 'O' (stamp on the front wrapper and margin of p.1); Eden Martin (prominent American collector of Russian, American and English literature).
Description16mo (17 x 11.8 cm). A few leaves coming loose; some creases. Original illustrated pink paper wrappers printed in red and black (some creasing and light… Read More

First edition of this socio-political play, admired by the Tsar and banned by the tsarist censorship for the stage until 1895.
The play was based on the criminal case of a peasant from the Tula province, Efrem Koloskov, whom Tolstoy visited in prison. According to the materials of the criminal case, considered in the Tula district court, Koloskov was convicted for the murder of the baby whom he had from his own stepdaughter. Alexander III, after hearing the play being read for the Royal family, called it "A marvellous piece!".
In 1888, before the play was staged in Russia, it appeared in major European theatres, including the "Theatre libre" in Paris, under the title "La Puissance des Tenebres". The social focus of the play links it to the exploration of working classes by Hugo and Zola, the writers Tolstoy greatly admired.
DescriptionSmall 8vo (16.8 x 11.3cm). 198 pp. including title; occasional staining, mostly foxing, minor tear to one leaf without loss of text, a few leaves dog eared at bottom.… Read More

FINE EXAMPLE OF THE DELUXE VERSION ON JAPON IMPÉRIAL (№24 OF ONLY 35 COPIES), WITH AN ORIGINAL WATERCOLOUR BY ZVORYKIN AND TWO ADDITIONAL SUITES, one in colour, like in the book, the other in black and white; the total print run was only 995 copies.
Zvorykin (1872 - 1942) was a Russian artist, graphic designer, icon painter, and translator. In 1915, along with other major Russian artists (Bilibin, Vasnetsov, Makovsky, Nesterov, Roerich), he founded the "Society for the Revival of Artistic Rus", an organization that aimed "to spread a wide acquaintance with ancient Russian art in all its manifestations" – an aim very visible throughout his style and especially in his Boris Godounov, in sharp contrast with Shukhaev's own Godounov published just two years earlier by the competing publishing house of J. Schiffrin. Zvorykin here placed half-titles and text within decorative frames in the Old Russian style featuring vyaz' typography, taken from old Cyrillic (Church) calligraphy.
In 1917-18 Zvorykin… Read More