Artist Picasso's Birthday Oct. 25, 1881

Parade was Picasso’s first collaboration with the Ballets Russes and in a letter sent to a friend, Jean Cocteau the librettist said “Picasso amazes me every day, to live near him is a lesson in nobility and hard work” (Rothschild 49).

Picasso’s studio in Rome had a little crate that held the model of "Parade" with its trees and houses, and on a table were the painted characters: the Chinaman, Managers, American girl, and horse.

Cocteau described his friend’s unusual artistic process: “A badly drawn figure of Picasso is the result of endless well-drawn figures he erases, corrects, covers over, and which serves him as a foundation. In opposition to all schools he seems to end his work with a sketch.” The audiences were amazed by the first ballet to have cubist costumes, sets, and choreography.

Jean Cocteau's B-day 7/5/1889 - Ballets Russes Artist

Jean Cocteau was born in Maisons-Laffitte, a small village near Paris. Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright and filmmaker. At the age of fifteen, Cocteau left home. During the Great War, he served in the Red Cross as an ambulance driver. This was the period in which he met the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, artist Pablo Picasso, and numerous other writers and artists with whom he later collaborated.

Diaghilev challenged Cocteau to write a scenario for the ballet which resulted in Parade and was produced by Diaghilev, designed by Pablo Picasso, and composed by Erik Satie in 1917. Jean Cocteau published articles, interviewed its principal dancers, and created posters that featured the dancers Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina. Between 1912 and 1927, Cocteau provided libretti or scenarios for the ballets Le Dieu Bleu, Parade, Le Train Bleu, and the opera Oedipus Rex. Jean Cocteau and Serge Diaghilev on opening night of Le Train Bleu, June 20, 1924.

The Russian ballet-master Diaghilev challenged Cocteau to write a scenario for the ballet which resulted in Parade and was produced by Diaghilev, designed by Pablo Picasso, and composed by Erik Satie in 1917. After his friend and fellow poet Radiguet's sudden death in 1923, he left Paris with Diaghilev for a performance of Les Noces (The Wedding) by the Ballets Russes at Monte Carlo.

Le Dieu Bleu By Artist Jean Cocteau

Le Dieu Bleu is a one act ballet by Jean Cocteau and Federigo de Madrazo. Fokine was the choreographer and music was by Reynaldo Hahn with décor and costume by Leon Bakst. Le Dieu Bleu premiered May 13, 1912 at Theatre du Chatelet in Paris.

Cocteau wrote the scenario for Ballets Russes’s Le Dieu Bleu after working with Diaghilev since 1911, and designing posters for Spectre de la Rose using portraits of Nijinsky and Karsavina, in 1912. Cocteau and Hahn were inspired by Hindu legends, and Fokine the bas-reliefs of Brahman temples and Siamese dancers. Sadly, Le Dieu Bleu was not successful and removed from the repertoire the following year.

Picasso's Parade Ballet Costumes

Parade is a realistic ballet in one scene, based on a theme by Jean Cocteau. The music was done by Erik Satie, choreography by Massine, curtain, décor and costumes designed by Pablo Picasso. The first performance of Parade was at Theatre du Chatelet in Paris on May 18, 1917.

Cocteau says that the first draft of the Parade ballet was a brief ballet project called David, something he had sketched out in 1914. The ballet was to take place in front of the entrance booth of a traveling fair. David was never written, but Cocteau’s first contact with Erik Satie was in 1915, with his collaboration with Picasso beginning the following year.

Diaghilev met Picasso in the spring of 1916 when a mutual friend, Mme. Eugenia Errazuriz brought him to Picasso’s studio. It was then that Diaghilev commissioned Picasso to do the mise-en-scene for Parade. Both Picasso and Cocteau left for Rome in February of 1917, where Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes was dancing. There they met and worked with Massine.

Among the costumes Picasso designed was a horse, initially with a mannequin-rider. During the dress rehearsal, the rider fell off of the horse causing the audience to laugh, so it was removed for the remaining performances. The costume for the American Girl, which Picasso had not sketched, was actually bought the day before at a sporting goods store. The costume for the Female Acrobat that Massine had added at the last minute was made of hand-painted spiral designs Picasso painted directly onto Lydia Lopoukhova’s legs.

After a three year absence, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes returned to Paris’s Theatre du Chatelet with Parade, a pioneer Cubist theatrical spectacular. Satie and Cocteau often disagreed regarding the noises that Cocteau wanted added to Satie’s scores. But, Cocteau was over ruled by Diaghilev and they were left out.

When the curtain went down on Parade, the audience was violent and contradictory. It was acclaimed by many intellectuals, but the public didn’t like it. It was well ahead of its time and was never added to the regular repertoire of the Ballets Russes.

In 1923, when Diaghilev wanted to restage the ballet, he asked Picasso to touch up the curtain which had been taken over by mildew. Picasso refused saying that it resembled the deteriorated frescoes of Pompeii and should remain that way!

Read "DIAGHILEV And the Ballets Russes" by Boris Kochno, 1970.

Picasso; Ballets Russes Artist, Died April 8, 1973

Parade was Picasso's first collaboration with the Ballets Russes and in a letter sent to a friend, Jean Cocteau the librettist said "Picasso amazes me every day, to live near him is a lesson in nobility and hard work" (Rothschild 49). Picasso's studio in Rome had a little crate that held the model of "Parade" with its trees and houses, and on a table were the painted characters: the Chinaman, Managers, American girl, and horse. Cocteau described his friend's unusual artistic process: "A badly drawn figure of Picasso is the result of endless well-drawn figures he erases, corrects, covers over, and which serves him as a foundation. In opposition to all schools he seems to end his work with a sketch." The audiences were amazed by the first ballet to have cubist costumes, sets, and choreography. After World War I, Picasso made a number of important associations and relationships with figures associated with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Among his friends during this period were Jean Cocteau, Jean Hugo, Juan Gris and others.

In the summer of 1918, Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina with Sergei Diaghilev’s troupe, for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, Parade, in Rome; and they spent their honeymoon in the villa near Biarritz of the glamorous Chilean art patron Eugenia Errázuriz. Khokhlova introduced Picasso to high society, formal dinner parties, and all the social niceties attendant on the life of the rich in 1920s Paris. The two had a son, Paulo, who would grow up to be a dissolute motorcycle racer and chauffeur to his father. Khokhlova’s insistence on social propriety clashed with Picasso’s bohemian tendencies and the two lived in a state of constant conflict. During the same period that Picasso collaborated with Diaghilev’s troup, he and Igor Stravinsky collaborated on Pulcinella in 1920.