Pulcinella
Ballet in one act
- Original producer: Les Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev
- Premiere: 15 May 1920, Théâtre national de l’Opéra, Paris
- Revival producer: Ballet de l’Opéra Russe à Paris
- Premiere: April 1931, Théâtre national de l’Opéra, Paris
- Revival producer: Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo
- Premiere: 1932, Théâtre de Monte Carlo, Monaco
- Costume design: Giorgio de Chirico
- Scenery design: Giorgio de Chirico
- Music: Igor Stravinsky, after Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
- Choreography: Boris Romanov
- Libretto: Igor Stravinsky
- Main characters: Pulcinella, Pimpinella
All the young ladies of the country are in love with Pulcinella. Their suitors are extremely jealous and attempt to kill him but are deceived by his double, pretending to lie dead. Believing to have made a success of their plan, all the young men disguise themselves as Pulcinella and come to woo the young girls. The real Pulcinella, disguised as a magician, ‘revives’ the corpse, reveals the joke and blesses their all marriages. He is then married to the prettiest, his mistress, Pimpinella.
This ballet was originally conceived by Diaghilev following his research into eighteenth-century Italian composers during his frequent visits to Italy during the First World War. He persuaded Stravinsky to develop the ballet story and Pergolesi’s music, stimulating a neoclassical phase in the composer’s work. Picasso was the designer for Diaghilev’s 1920 production, but for the 1931 revival the Italian Surrealist painter, Giorgio de Chirico, was commissioned by the Ballet de l’Opéra Russe à Paris as set and costume designer. Invoking the overdrawn character stereotypes of traditional Italian commedia dell’arte, de Chirico’s costume designs were simplified eighteenth-century models decorated with cartoonish painted and appliquéd designs. The National Gallery of Australia’s costumes, for Death and several other unspecified characters, are most likely from the 1931 and 1932 productions, of which few details are recorded.
