The Stone Guest

In 1917, Alexander Golovin and Vsyevolod Meyerhold returned to the legend of Don Juan, collaborating on a production of Alexander Dargomyzhsky’s opera The Stone Guest. Russian theatre critic Ivan Sollertinsky described the show as a “tragic mascarade set in a nominal Spain, woven from the dreams of the Romantic poets of France and Russia and interlaced with erotic passion, farcical buffoonery and the fear of death chilling the soul.” Golovin was familiar with Spain, a country he had visited on a number of occasions. He knew the language and showed the actors and actresses how they should wear their cloaks, hats and mantels. The costume designs were regarded as one of the pinnacles his career, capturing all the drama of the opera and referred to by contemporaries as “poems dressed up in finery.” The Stone Guest premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1917.