Antigone (Honegger)

Antigone is an opera (tragédie musicale) in three acts by Arthur Honegger to a French libretto by Jean Cocteau based on the tragedy Antigone by Sophocles. Honegger composed the opera between 1924 and 1927. It premiered on 28 December 1927 at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie with sets designed by Pablo Picasso and costumes by Coco Chanel.

COCO CHANEL. Alex Madsen

“…Charles Dullin produced an adaptation of Cocteau's Antigone. Arthur Honegger wrote the musical score and Pablo Picasso painted the sets. Coco Cocteau proposed that she will design the costumes. When Coco knew that Picasso would collaborate on the production, she accepted the commission to make the costumes. Coco ordered a specialist knitting make one robe to the floor, raw wool, with motifs of Greek jars of brown and black.

Coco was very jealous of the professional success of Picasso. One day, seized by anger and jealousy, she took the stage and broke the tunica apart…’’

Photo by MAN RAY, the actress Genica Athanasiou from 1921. She was playwright Antonin Artaud's muse and in this photo she is wearing the costume Coco Chanel designed for Jean Cocteau's 1922 production of Sophocles Antigone.