Historical stage costume

Historical stage costumes are by their very nature fabulous. Rarely understated they needed to communicate the nature of a character as soon as they step onto the stage. Some are ridiculous intentionally, some not (I fear poor Andreas Dippel was supposed to look heroic but fell rather short of that), and some are simply wonderful like the gold-breastplated Brunhilda and Bertha in Ondine.

I have no idea why that lady is dressed as a chicken – I really hope it wasn’t from a rendition of Swan Lake but I applaud her pluck (see what I did there?). Which of these is your favourite?

Above: Mizzi Hajos, Hungarian-born American stage performer, 1914.

Historical stage costume

Fanny Davenport looking rather swashbuckling, late 1800s

Historical stage costume

Kate Josephine Bateman, late 1800s

Historical stage costume

884 photograph of Toole in the the title role of F C Burnand’s burlesque ‘Paw Claudian’

Historical stage costume

Coquelin aîné (Benoît-Constant Coquelin, 1841-1909) as Mascarille in Molière’s Les Précieuses ridicules.

Historical stage costume

Cabinet Card photo of stage and screen actress Louise Beaudet in harem costume

Historical stage costume

Theatre actor Max Devrient as “Zawisch” at the Burgtheater in Vienna, late 1890s

Historical stage costume

Gerda Grönberg in 1894

Historical stage costume

Andreas Dippel in the title role of Wagner’s Siegfried. 1898

Historical stage costume

Lillian Nordica as Brünnhilde in Richard Wagner’s The Ring, 1898

Historical stage costume

Enrico Caruso as Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca, 1902

Historical stage costume

Geraldine Farrar as Elisabeth, 1920

Historical stage costume

Norwegian revue artist Lalla Carlsen performing a cabaret at the Chat Noir theatre in Oslo. 1920

Historical stage costume

Marian Seldes, as Bertha in Ondine by Jean Giraudoux. 1954

Jean_rier_as_Pellas_2

French operatic baritone Jean Périer (1869-1954) as Pelléas in Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. Early 1900s

 

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