Romeo and Juliet / ballet | William Shakespeare / Max Ernst / Joan Miro (1926)

Costume design by Joan Miro for Romeo et Juliette, 1926

"When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun."


William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 1595
(Act 3, Scene 2)

^ Man Ray, Serge Lifar as Romeo in Romeo et Juliette, 1926. Costume design by Joan Miro 

                                                                       

1926, Romeo & Juliet Music by Constant Lambert. Choreography by Bronislava Nijinska. Curtain by Max Ernst. Set by Max Ernst and Joan Miro. Costumes by Joan Miro.

Max Ernst and Joan Miro had taken the liberty of creating the sets for the fashionable Diaghilev ballet of Romeo and Juliet.

The Paris premiere of the ballet was disrupted by a group of whistle-blowing protesters, organized by Breton and the writer Louis Aragon, who accused Ernst and Miró of betraying the ideals of Surrealism by selling out to commerce.

...When the curtain rose to reveal Miró’s décor, a shower of leaflets fell from the upper balconies. Written in red ink by two founding members of the surrealist movement, Louis Aragon and André Breton, the leaflets were captioned “Protest!”


< Set design by Joan Miro for Romeo et Juliette, 1926