Le Coq d’Or ( The Golden Cockerel)
Tatiana Riabouchinska as the Golden Cockerel in Le Coq d’Or, Ballets Russes, c. 1930s — photographed by Maurice Seymour.
QUICK F A C T S
- ✦ Original Title: Le Coq d’Or (The Golden Cockerel)
✦ Based On: Alexander Pushkin’s 1835 fairy tale, The Tale of the Golden Cockerel
✦ Music: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
✦ Ballets Russes Premiere: Paris, May 24, 1914
✦ Choreography: Michel Fokine
✦ Design: Natalia Goncharova, whose costumes and scenery drew heavily on Russian folk art and traditional imagery
Tamara Karsavina as the Queen of Shemakha in Le Coq d’Or, 1914.
S U M M A R Y
A chicken that warns you of danger? Absolutely—and in The Golden Cockerel, that strange idea becomes the center of a fantastical Russian fairy tale. Based on Alexander Pushkin’s The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, the story follows the foolish Tsar Dodon, who receives a magical golden cockerel capable of warning him whenever danger threatens his kingdom. But when Dodon encounters the beautiful Queen of Shemakha and begins following his desires instead of the warnings around him, the story takes a darkly comic turn. Beneath its colorful fairy-tale surface, The Golden Cockerel is also a satire of foolish rulers and political power.
Costume from The Golden Cockerel, designed by Konstantin Korovin for the 1934 production in Vichy, France.
A later performance of The Golden Cockerel, 1938 — showing the ballet's fantastical Russian-inspired stage world.
In 1914, the Ballets Russes transformed The Golden Cockerel into an extraordinary opera-ballet, with choreography by Michel Fokine and costumes and scenery by the visionary Russian artist Natalia Goncharova. Goncharova drew inspiration from Russian folk art, traditional decoration, and icon painting, creating a stage filled with bold patterns, unusual shapes, brilliant colors, and fantastical characters. Rather than simply illustrating the story, her designs became part of the storytelling itself, making the entire stage look like a living Russian fairy-tale painting.
Premiering in Paris on May 24, 1914, The Golden Cockerel appeared during the Ballets Russes' final prewar season. The production became remarkable not only for its wonderfully strange story—a golden chicken that foretells danger!—but for the way music, choreography, painting, costume, and folklore collided onstage. It demonstrated the Ballets Russes' extraordinary ability to take an old story and turn it into something visually radical, theatrical, and completely modern for its time.
Original stage set for The Golden Cockerel, designed by Konstantin Korovin for the 1934 production at the Casino Theatre in Vichy, France.
E N C O R E
✦ A Fairy Tale with Teeth
Behind its colorful characters and magical cockerel, The Golden Cockerel is also a satire about foolish rulers, desire, and the consequences of ignoring warnings.
✦ A Living Painting
Natalia Goncharova's designs transformed the stage into a fantastical world of Russian folk-inspired shapes, patterns, and colors, making the visual design as important as the music and dancing.
✦ The Ballets Russes
The 1914 production appeared during the company's final prewar season, just before World War I dramatically changed the cultural world in which the Ballets Russes had flourished.