Viktor Vasnetsov's 'The Flying Carpet'

The optimist picks this fairytale...

This is Viktor Vasnetsov's The Flying Carpet (1880), showing Ivan Tsarevich (Prince Ivan) returning on a magic carpet with the Firebird in a cage. Strangely very few Russian fairytales have made their way into the European consciousness the way French and German ones have done. The stories of Vassilisa and Baba Yaga, The Snow Maiden (Snegurochka), the bogatyrs (medieval heroes) and Ivan Tsarevich are as evocative as Vasnetsov's paintings.

This is your ballet...