This drawing by Ethelbert White is the design for one of the plywood souvenirs of the Ballets Russes which Cyril Beaumont commissioned and sold in the 1910s and 1920s. It shows the ballerina Lydia Lopokova in the costume designed by Léon Bakst ca.1915 for The Firebird which she wore on the tour by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes of the USA and when the company returned to London. Cyril Beaumont complained that this costume ‘possesses little of the charm and fantasy of the older model and, secondly, the hat is unpractical. Its height renders it difficult to keep on, and it is a constant discomfort to the dancer’s partner.’ Photographs of Lopokova show that the headdress has been modified and reduced in height in White’s design.
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Beaumont liked Lopokova’s interpretation of the Firebird elsewhere described as being like a hummingbird rather than a bird of prey. ‘Can you forget the dainty steps sur les pointes with which she approaches the tree, the moment of terror when she is caught in the embrace of the prince- those pleading eyes half-filled with tears, the quivering of her breast, the pitiful fluttering of her arms.’
