La réforme des «metteurs en scène-scénographes» du cercle de Mamontov. Marius Petipa et le «Monde de l’Art» (Mir iskusstva)

At the end of his artistic career Marius Petipa was at the center of a dispute for power and prestige, without realizing it. Alexandre Benois and Sergei Diaghilev, members of the World of Art group (1898-1904) in St. Petersburg, lashed out against the directors-designers, Alexandre Golovin and Konstantin Korovin, members of the Savva Mamontov Circle in Moscow. They had been appointed artistic directors of the Imperial Theatres in order to reform the theatrical scene as like as Mamontov did at his Private Opera of Moscow (1885-1904). The article presents the reconstrution of the events, analyzing the causes that pushed Djagilev and Benois to spread false accusation against the director of Imperial Theatres, Vladimir Teljakovskij and the Muscovite artists. For this reason, even today, these false claims justify the inglorious exit of Marius Petipa from the Imperial Theatres.