Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 137 h Diaghilev’s Scheherazade and Russian Orientalism One of the best examples of such a spontaneous Russian Orientalist blend could be Valentine Serov’s stage curtain, which he was commissioned by Diaghilev to produce for the se­ cond Paris season of the Scheherazade in the Théâtre du Châtelet (1911). This curtain was designed to be watched du- ring the overture of the ballet, when the spectators would be visually reading the story ‘written’ by the images and ‘told’ by the music, by means of seve­ ral quotations from iconographically recognisable Persian episodes. These were the Persian Prince Bahram Gur and his entourage hunting the gazelles, i. e. Shahriyar and Shahzaman leaving for a fake hunt); semi-naked Shirin bathing in the lake while Prince Khos- row was watching her (see Pl. 11): Ida Rubinstein, as Scheherazade, known for her other dances of St Sebastian and Salome, during which she was unveiling herself in public). This image of Shirin had strong connotations with Serov’s revolutionary portrait of Rubinstein, which he was painting at the same time and in the same Parisian church as he was produ­ cing the curtain (Pl. 12). In the centre of the composition there were several harem ladies on top of the tower waiting for their master to disappear (iconography bor- rowed from a manuscript miniature depicting a besieged fortress). At the very top of the curtain, Serov put several very Bilibin-style Russian, or evenViking-looking boats recalling the origins of Rimsky-Korsakov’s music as a sea suite 13 . Diaghilev’s success was in Paris. In St Petersburg, he was accused of sel­ ling pseudo-Russia to foreigners for his own profit, while he was supposed to be organising real Russian Seasons in the Russian provinces 14 . 12 https://cameralabs.org/12722-velikolepie-kostyumirovannogo-bala-romanovykh-v-raskra­ shennykh-fotografiyakh-1903-goda (дата обращения: 15.05.2023). 13 Melville F. Rêves D’Orient. Monaco, 2017. P. 50–51; Ласикова Г. Занавес Валентина Серова к балету «Шехерезада». Источники образов в искусстве Ирана и Индии. Доклад, прочитанный на Луконинских чтениях, Государственный Эрмитаж, 24 января 2019 г. (unpublished). 14 Rabinowitz S. J. From the Other Shore: Russian Comment on Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes // Dance Research. 2009. P. 1–27, esp. 27. Pl. 9. Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alex- andra in the costumes of the 1903 Ball, Photograph by S. Levitsky, 1903 12