“Petruška”, 1911

Fragmentation and Unity

Abstract

Elena Randi explores the first staging of the ballet Petruška (Ballets Russes, Paris 1911, choreography by Fokine, scene design and costumes by Benois, music by Stravinskij). Mainly through the analysis of the characters’ actions and of the décor, the author demonstrates that the little theatre in which a large part of the story takes place represents an ideal microcosm, a space of harmony as well as of ideal performance where dance, music and picture merge; at the same time, it would be a metaphor of Eden. When one of the three beings living in the little theatre allows himself to be led by passions (by subjectivity), harmony is destroyed: Man plunges into the modern era, the age of conflict and dis-order, the age of the loss of original Unity.