Carnaval (ballet)

Carnaval
Michel Fokine in costume for Carnaval, circa 1910
Choreographer	Michel Fokine
Music	Robert Schumann
Libretto	Michel Fokine
Premiere	20 February 1910 Pavlov Hall, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Original ballet company	Imperial Ballet
Characters	Columbine Harlequin Chiarina Estrella Papillon Pierrot Florestan Eusebius
Design	Léon Bakst
Setting	anteroom of a ballroom

Carnaval (Russian: Карнавал) is a ballet based on the music of Robert Schumann's piano suite Carnaval, Op. 9, as orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Tcherepnin. It was choreographed by Michel Fokine to his own libretto, with costumes designed by Léon Bakst, and premiered in Pavlovsk on 5 March (old style, 20 February) 1910.

The leading dancers of the Imperial Ballet were engaged in the production: Tamara Karsavina (Columbine), Leonid Leontiev (Harlequin), Vera Fokina (Chiarina), Ludmila Schollar^[] (Estrella), Bronislava Nijinska (Papillon), Vsevolod Meyerhold (Pierrot), Vasily Kiselev (Florestan), and Aleksandr Shiryaev^[] (Eusebius).

The ballet became world-famous due to its production by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (Theater des Westens, Berlin, 20 May 1910), with new sets and costumes by Bakst, with Lydia Lopokova as Columbine and Vaslav Nijinsky as Harlequin.

Carnaval was created in three spontaneous rehearsals in 1910 for a charity performance in Pavlov Hall, St. Petersburg, to benefit the magazine Satyricon.