Yuval Sharon—one of the most innovative directors of stage music, movement, and dramaturgy in Los Angeles—was tasked by LACMA to design the exhibition CHAGALL—FANTASIES FOR THE STAGE.

Sharon enlisted his Young Caesar collaborator, projection designer Jason H. Thompson, and together they’ve created a suitable dreamscape to appreciate and study Marc Chagall’s costumes and set designs for ballet—Aleko (1942, Mexico City), The Firebird (1945, New York City), and Daphnis et Chloé (1956, Paris)—and his only work for opera, the landmark 1967 staging of The Magic Flute at the Met.

The forty-one costumes are accompanied by nearly 100 preparatory sketches. There’s music in each section, film footage of Aleko’s original production, and a group of related paintings by Chagall from around the world, including Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers (from the Stedelijk in Amsterdam), and Green Violinist (from the Guggenheim).

The LACMA show was adapted from the recent Montreal Museum of Fine Arts exhibition Chagall—Colour and Music. The Gallimard/Montreal catalogue, Chagall and Music, is available.

CHAGALL—FANTASIES FOR THE STAGE, through January 7, 2018.

RESNICK PAVILION, LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles.

lacma.org/chagall#landing

unframed.lacma.org/2017/08/01/marc-chagall-and-twentieth-century-designs-stage

Top: Exhibition catalogue. Bottom: Marc Chagall, stage curtain design for The Firebird, 1945, private collection, © 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo © 2017 Archives Marc et Ida Chagall, Paris.