Molière’s Dom Juan was the first collaboration between Alexander Golovin and Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874–1940) for the Imperial Theatres. The designer and director recreated the atmosphere of splendour and festivity in the “scented and gilded kingdom of Versailles”. Dom Juan was resolved in the spirit
of a theatre at the court of King Louis XIV. There was no curtain, the prompters were located in full view of the audience, and the auditorium was lit. Golovin was well acquainted with the artists of the Alexandrinsky Theatre and designed the costumes with specific performers in mind. His outstanding creations helped the artists to fit lightly and naturally into the scenic images.

Golovin Alexander

Golovin, Alexander Yakovlevich
1863, Moscow - 1930, Detskoe Selo (Leningrad Region)
Theatrical designer, painter, graphic artist. Studied under Illarion Pryanishnikov and Vasily Polcnov at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1881-89) and at the Academic de Filippo Colarossi (1889) and Academie Witti (1897) in Paris. Academician (1912). Member of the World of Art (1902) and the Union of Russian Artists (1903). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1893, 1895), Moscow Fellowship of Artists (1894, 1901-02), World of Art (1899-1903, 1906, 1911-12, 1924), Union of Russian Artists (1903-09, 1916), New Society of Artists (1907, 1908), Expositions Universelles in Paris (1900; gold and silver medals) and Brussels (1910), Esposizione Internazionale in Venice (1907) and Rome (1911) and the Exhibitions of Russian Art in Paris (1906) and Berlin (1906). Designed for the Bolshoi Theatre and Moscow Arts Theatre in Moscow, Mariinsky and Alexandrinsky Theatres in Si Petersburg and Sergei Diaghilev''s Saisons Russes (1908,1910).