The Ballet Russe Scenery Collection
of the
Butler Ballet

A pictorial exhibit of famous ballet drops, by Stephan Laurent, Chair, Butler University Department of Dance

Standard Act Curtain of the Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo, by Bernard Lamotte

The Butler Ballet in Indianapolis, IN, has long been privileged to house a very valuable collection of scenery and costumes coming from the famed Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. This collection was accumulated over the span of several years during the mid-sixties through the diligence of the late George Verdak, himself a former dancer with the Ballet Russe, who for many years was a most influential member of the dance faculty at Butler University. "Mr. V"., as he was fondly called by those who knew him, later left Butler to found the Indianapolis Ballet Theatre, which today is known as "Ballet Internationale" in Indianapolis, IN.

This page provides access to many photographs of the scenery collection, with brief historical references about each piece.

After Mr. Verdak's departure from Butler, the collection lay dormant for nearly two decades, and was housed in various storage locations - basement of university buildings (where humidity conditions were not always controlled), quonset huts, unused storage rooms, etc. In the Summer of 1997, through the support of the Dean of the Jordan College of Fine Arts, a major three-week effort involving the management and staff of Clowes Memorial Hall, the author of these pages, and some wonderful volunteers from IATSE local 30 members and from the student body at JCFA, resulted in sorting through the collection drop by drop, hanging each piece on stage, identifying and photographing them, re-tagging as necessary, and finally transporting them into a brand new, air-conditioned storage facility recently allocated by the university to the Butler Ballet.
After that came the long travail of scanning each photograph, and in some cases reconstructing different shots into one composite image - for often one piece belonging to a set would appear and be hung one day, while the corresponding backdrop would only emerge from the huge pile of sets a week later. Then came the research work - identifying choreographer, composer, and designer for each ballet, as well as a synopsis of the libretto if applicable.
The result can be found in the extensive collection of pages accessible from here. In some pages, a musical excerpt from the ballet (in MIDI format) accompanies the pictures of the scenery.

Many of the sets are still in excellent condition and continue to be used on a regular basis in Butler Ballet productions. Others, unfortunately, have greatly suffered from the vicissitudes of poor storage conditions or have simply faded to nothingness. In rare occasions, the sets are complete; in many other instances, they are only partial. In all cases, only the soft scenery (backdrops, cut drops, legs and borders) are in our possession; any hard scenery accompanying the soft goods have been lost.

Click on the thumbnails to get to the page detailing each piece.

BALLET RUSSE DROPS

	7th Symphony (Leonide Massine / Beethoven) - Decor by Christian Berard			Bacchanale (Leonide Massine / Richard Wagner) - Decor by Salvador Dali
	Le Beau Danube (Leonide Massine / Strauss) - Decor by Etienne de Beaumont			Bogatyri (Leonide Massine / Borodin) - Decor by Natalia Goncharova
	Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (George Balanchine / Richard Strauss) - Decor by Eugene Berman			Capriccio Espagnol (Leonide Massine / Rimsky-Korsakov) - Decor by Mariano Andreu
	Coppelia (Nicholas Sergeyev after Merante / Delibes) - Decor by Pierre Roy			Devil's Holiday (Frederick Ashton / Paganini arr. by Tommasini) - Decor by Eugene Berman
	Etude (Bronislava Nijinska/J.S. Bach) - Decor by Alexander Borowski			Ghost Town (Marc Platoff / R. Rodgers) - Decor by Raoul Pene du Bois
	Giselle (Serge Lifar, after Coralli / Adam) - Decor by Alexander Benois			Harlequinade (Boris Romanov / Drigo) - Decor by Rolf Gerard
	Harold in Italy (Leonide Massine / Berlioz) - Decor by Bernard Lamotte			Magic Swan (Alexandra Fedorova / Tchaikovsky) - Decor by Eugene B. Dunkel
	The Mikado (Antonia Cabos / Sullivan) - Decor by Bernard Lamotte			The Nutcracker (Alexandra Fedorova, after Ivanov / Tchaikovsky) - Decor by Alexander Benois
	Petrushka (Michel Fokine / Stravinsky) - Decor by Alexander Benois			Prince Igor (Michel Fokine / Borodin) - Decor by C. Korovine
	Quelques Fleurs (Ruthanna Boris / Auber) - Decor by Robert Davison			Raymonda (Alexandra Danilova & George Balanchine, after Petipa / Glazunov) - Decor by Alexander Benois
	The Red Poppy (Igor Schwezoff / Gliere) - Decor by Boris Aronson			Rouge et Noir (Leonide Massine / Shostakovich) - Decor by Henri Matisse
	Saratoga (Leonide Massine / Jaromir Weinberger) - Decor by Oliver Smith			Scheherazade (Michel Fokine / Rimsky-Korsakov) - Decor by Leon Bakst
	Swan Lake (Alexandra Fedorova after Ivanov / Tchaikovsky) - Decor by Alexander Benois			Virginia Sampler (Valerie Bettis / Leo Smit) - Decor by Charles Elson

OTHER DROPS IN THE COLLECTION

	Karl Kaufman's Cinderella			"Cityscape"
	Dickens			Heddy Green
	The Mohicans			George Verdak's Spalicek

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UNIDENTIFIED DROPS

	Unknown Black & White set (3 pieces)			Unknown Castle drop (small & faded)
	Unknown cut drop, attributed to Karl Kaufman			Unknown Nutcracker or Wizard of Oz backdrop
	Unidentified Red Swag Portal			Backdrop for an unidentified ballet attributed to Ruth Page

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Anderson, Jack - The One and Only: The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. New York: Dance Horizons, 1981.

Balanchine, George - Balanchine's Complete Stories of the Great Ballets, ed. Francis Mason. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1954.

Kirstein, Lincoln - Movement and Metaphor. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970.

Koegler, Horst - The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Dance. London: Oxford University Press, 1977.

... - Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo [Souvenir Book], Sergei Denham, Director - Season 1946-47. New York: Concert Program Magazines, 1946.

... - Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo [Souvenir Book], Sergei Denham, Director - Season 1949-50. New York: Longacre Press, 1949.

... - Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo [Souvenir Book], Sergei Denham, Director - Season 1956-57. New York: Gallery Press, 1956.

... - Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo [Souvenir Book], Sergei Denham, Director - Season 1957-58. New York: Gallery Press, 1957

... - Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo [Souvenir Book], Sergei Denham, Director - Season 1961-62. New York: Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 1961.

This page is maintained by Stephan Laurent. E-Mail: laurent@butler.edu

Go to the Department of Dance Homepage

Last updated 2/27/02