Le Train Bleu, a 1920s View of the Shallowness of Modern Love
Le Train Bleu examined Bronislava Nijinska’s view of the shallowness of modern love. Its title was motivated by the train that took fashionable sun worshipers from Paris to the chic seaside resorts of southern France. The ballet’s characters included a tennis player, based on 1920s French champion Suzanne Lenglen, and a golf player said to be modeled on the Prince of Wales. Other characters in the ballet were described by the librettist Jean Cocteau as “tarts and gigolos.” (Le Train Bleu: music by Darius Milhaud; sets by Henri Laurens; costumes by Gabrielle [“Coco”] Chanel; curtain by Pablo Picasso; choreography by Bronislava Nijinska; premiere on June 20, 1924, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris.)
<em>Le Train Bleu</em> examined Bronislava Nijinska’s view of the shallowness of modern love. Its title was motivated by the train that took fashionable sun worshipers from Paris to the chic seaside resorts of southern France. The ballet’s characters included a tennis player, based on 1920s French champion Suzanne Lenglen, and a golf player said to be modeled on the Prince of Wales. Other characters in the ballet were described by the librettist Jean Cocteau as “tarts and gigolos.” (<em>Le Train Bleu</em>: music by Darius Milhaud; sets by Henri Laurens; costumes by Gabrielle [“Coco”] Chanel; curtain by Pablo Picasso; choreography by Bronislava Nijinska; premiere on June 20, 1924, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris.)