Ivan Bilibin

(1876 - 1942)

Aleksandr Pushkin

Золотой Петушок

The golden cockerel

Moscow: S. Zimin, 1909

240 x 192 mm. 40 pages

Edition: unknown

In 1908, Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera the Golden Cockerel had its premiere at the Zimin Theatre in Moscow. The costumes and décors were designed by Bilibin. It was his most important work in the field of theatrical design. The first designs Bilibin made for the theatre were executed in 1904 when he was commissioned to design the stage-sets for the opera the Snow Maiden also by Rimsky-Korsakov. In these designs he used the techniques he developed for book illustration. The effect that these extraordinary colourful costume and stage sets had on the public was most  striking in the 1908 performance of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov at the Grand Opera in Paris. This performance opened Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons in Paris, which earned world recognition for Russian art. The designs for the Golden Cockerel show the artist as a mature master of his art who is able to transfer the qualities of Russian folk art into a splendid exotic fairy tale that would influence other artists who designed the sets for performances based on fairy-tales. To commemorate the first production of  The Golden Cockerel Zimin published this book with 3 stage-sets (see p.26) and 21 costume designs by Bilibin, mounted on black and white illustrations by I.S.Fedotov.

References:

Golynets 1970, pp. 17-18

Köln 1988, no. 2735

Klimov 1999, pp. 203-213

Paris 1999, p. 27

Petergof 2001, no.35