Debussy at the Omega Workshops

Following the outbreak of war in 1914, Roger Fry encouraged a series of Friday concerts at the Omega Workshop at 33 Fitzroy Square to raise funds for Belgian refugees. Poorly documented in any detail, these events nonetheless included some remarkable feats of organisation. This essay will look in particular at a staged production of Debussy’s Boite à Joujoux in early 1915, four years before its acknowledged premiere at the Théâtre Lyrique du Vaudeville in Paris. Debussy’s piano score was complete by the end of 1914, but the orchestration was only partially finished on the composer’s death in 1918. In spite of this, Norwegian artist Roald Kristian gathered a small orchestra of Belgians for a performance complete with dancing puppets made and worked by Omega artists. The production provides further intrigue for the radical use of marionettes made by Kristian, which Debussy himself recommended to French designer André Hellé for the French premiere but which were never adopted. Kristian’s marionettes are lost, however designs by Winifred Gill offer insight into Omega’s fascination with marionettes and children’s toys, suggesting one possible reason for their inclusion in this production. This essay also sets the production in a wider context of Bloomsbury’s long-standing interest in Debussy, from Duncan Grant’s drawings around the Ballet Russe production of Jeux in 1913, his costumes for a production of Pelléas and Mélisande at New York’s Garrick Theatre in 1917-1919, and Virginia Woolf’s provision of financial assistance for an exhibition of decoration for a Music Room by her sister Vanessa Bell and Grant in 1932 at the Lefevre Gallery, in which Debussy had a prominent place.