The Director's Prism: E. T. A. Hoffmann and the Russian Theatrical Avant-Garde

Posner, Dassia N.

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Portrait of Hoffmann, head and shoulders, full front, eyes gazing to one side.

E. T. A. Hoffmann, self-portrait

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

E. T. A. Hoffmann, self-portrait. Frontispiece to E. T. A. Hoffmann, Fantasy Pieces in Callot’s Manner: Pages from the Diary of a Traveling Romantic, 2nd edition. Bamberg, 1819. Oak Grove Library Center, call number: 833.6 H71f. Courtesy of Northwestern University Library. Photo by the author.

Pencil drawing of Hoffmann, dancing, one knee lifted, smoking a long pipe.

Kapellmeister Kreisler in Insanity, drawing

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

E. T. A. Hoffmann, Kapellmeister Kreisler in Insanity (Berlin, February 1822). Drawing for the first edition of The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, volume 3. Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, Art.f.23ga. Photo: Gerald Raab.

Watercolor of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler in a brown dressing gown and red hat, smoking a long pipe, standing before a writing table, on which lies Hoffmann’s opera Undine.

Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler in a Dressing Gown, watercolor

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

E. T. A. Hoffmann, Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler in a Dressing Gown, After a Life Drawing by Erasmus Spikher (Berlin, January/February 1815). Original watercolor. Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, I R 65. Photo: Gerald Raab.

Title page to Fantasy Pieces with an illustration, center, of a harp player and a sphinx.

Title page for Fantasy Pieces in Callot’s Manner

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

Title page for E. T. A. Hoffmann, Fantasy Pieces in Callot’s Manner: Pages from the Diary of a Traveling Enthusiast. Bamberg: C. F. Kunz, 1814. Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, L.g.o.1135/1. Photo: Gerald Raab.

This drawing consists of a single whimsical line that wanders, curves, and loops back on itself.

Parodic illustration of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

E. T. A. Hoffmann, parodic illustration (c. 1804, Plock) of the narrative structure of Laurence Sterne’s novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759–1767). Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, L.g.o.391e/B19. Photo: Gerald Raab.

Playbill for Columbine’s Veil

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Playbill for the December 10, 1910 performance of Columbine’s Veil, based on the pantomime Pierrette’s Veil by Arthur Schnitzler, music by Ernő Dohnányi, adapted by Doctor Dapertutto (Vsevolod Meyerhold), directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, House of Interludes, Saint Petersburg (premiere: October 12, 1910). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 998, op. 1, ed. khr. 2762: 1–1 verso.

This journal cover, painted in blue, beige, and orange, depicts a lavishly curtained stage on which a commedia dell’arte actor stands with three enormous oranges as three other actors peek out from the wings.

Cover design for the journal Love for Three Oranges

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Alexander Golovin, design for the front cover of Love for Three Oranges: The Journal of Doctor Dapertutto, no. 1–3 (1915). PN2007.L5 1915 no. 1/3. André Savine Collection, Rare Book Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill.

This vivid design features several individually curtained balconies from which figures peer into the room below where Olimpia sits, center, playing a harp. A third level is populated by figures in masks positioned against a ceiling painted like the sky.

Scene design for the Olimpia act of Tales of Hoffmann (Sudeikin)

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Sergei Sudeikin, scene design for the Olimpia act of Tales of Hoffmann, by Jacques Offenbach, directed by Fedor Komissarzhevsky, Zimin Opera Theatre, Moscow (1915, production unrealized). КП 60434. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

This costume design, with its background of blues, pinks, and whites, reveals the set’s vivid, colliding, deliberately skewed planes. In the foreground stands an actor in gray with an enormous bowtie, his eyes replaced by dark blue smudges that stand out against his unnaturally white, painted skin. In the production, the actors wore dark blue paint around their eyes.

Costume design for Tales of Hoffmann (Lentulov)

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Astriarkh Lentulov, costume design for Tales of Hoffmann, by Jacques Offenbach, directed by Fedor Komissarzhevsky, KhPSRO (Artistic-Instructive Union of Workers’ Organizations) Theatre-Studio, Moscow (1919). КП 289402. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.