L'Orchestre de l'Opéra

This looks like a scene from a ballet, but it is really a portrait of a bassoon player. The man in the middle of the orchestra pit, turned toward us with his instrument, is Desire Dihau, a friend of Degas who played bassoon at the Paris Opera and commissioned the picture. Degas filled the pit around him with other friends and musicians he knew, real faces rather than invented ones. And he did something cheeky with the dancers. Up on the stage behind, the ballerinas everyone came to see are sliced off by the top edge of the canvas, cut at the shoulders and hips, all bright legs and tutus with no heads. The musicians usually hidden down in front get the whole picture, and the stars are reduced to a strip of coloured movement above.