Renard (Stravinsky)

Renard, Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée (The Fox: burlesque tale sung and played) is a one-act chamber opera-ballet by Igor Stravinsky, written in 1916. The Russian text by the composer was based on Russian folk tales from the collection by Alexander Afanasyev.

The full Russian name of the piece is: Ба́йка про лису́, петуха́, кота́, да барана́. Весё́лое представле́ние с пе́нием и му́зыкой – (Bayka pro lisu, petukha, kota da barana. Vesyoloe predstavlenie s peniem i muzykoi – The Fable of the Vixen, the Cock, the Cat and the Ram. A burlesque for the stage with singing and music).

In April 1915 Winnaretta Singer, aka la Princesse Edmond de Polignac, commissioned Stravinsky to write a piece that could be played in her salon. She paid the composer 2,500 Swiss francs. The work was completed in Morges (Switzerland) in 1916, and Stravinsky himself made a staging plan, trying to avoid any resemblance to the operatic staging or conventions. He created rather a new form of theatre in which the acrobatic dance is connected with singing, and the declamation comments on the musical action. However the piece was never performed in the salon of the princess. It was not staged until 1922.

The premiere (a double bill with Mavra) was given on May 18, 1922 by the Ballets Russes at the Théâtre de l’Opéra, Paris It was conducted by Ernest Ansermet; the choreography was by Bronislava Nijinska and the decorations and costumes were by Mikhail Larionov. Stravinsky remained pleased with Nijinska's "acrobatic Renard, which coincided with my ideas...Renard was also a real Russian satire. The animals saluted very like the Russian Army (Orwell would have liked this), and there was always an underlying significance to their movements."

In 1929 Diaghilev staged a revival with the Ballets Russes, choreographed by Michel Fokine. "[It] was ruined chiefly by some jugglers Diaghilev had borrowed from a circus" Stravinsky regretted Chagall's refusal of a commission to do the sets.

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