About the work
Igor Stravinsky's ballet „Petrushka" was premiered by the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev in Paris in 1911 — Stravinsky's second ballet for Diaghilev (after „The Firebird") and prelude to his most famous third, „The Rite of Spring". The choreography was by Michel Fokine, set design by Alexandre Benois (also co-librettist).
Plot
St Petersburg, around 1830, during the Shrovetide fair on the Admiralty Square. The market square teems with people, food stalls, drunken revellers, gypsies. A booth opens; the magician brings to life three puppets: the Russian peasant Petrushka — a melancholic Pierrot type — the dressed-up Ballerina, and the brutish Moor. The magician makes them dance for the crowd. After the show the puppets retreat into their boxes. In Petrushka's box: he loves the Ballerina, knows he is despised, beats his fists on the wall in anger. In the Ballerina's box: she visits Petrushka briefly, but is afraid of his wild gestures and flees to the Moor's box. In the Moor's box: he plays with a coconut, brutally embraces the Ballerina. Petrushka bursts in, jealous and powerless. The Moor pursues him with a sabre into the public square — strikes him down before everyone. Petrushka dies. The magician convinces the bewildered crowd that it was only a puppet. As the magician leaves with Petrushka's body, the puppet's ghost appears on the booth's roof, mocking him. Curtain.
Cultural significance
Petrushka is one of the most-performed ballets of the twentieth century and a milestone of modernism. Stravinsky's score with the famous „Petrushka chord" (C major plus F sharp major superimposed) was groundbreaking; the music has had its own life as a concert work. Vaslav Nijinsky created the title role at the premiere. Productions by the Mariinsky, the Royal Ballet and the Bolshoi keep the work alive. The figure of Petrushka has become an archetype of the marginalised modern outsider.