A fantasy on insectile life: The dancers were costumed as bug-inspired, winged beings with antennae, in a decor of light-reflective coat hangers and Chinese panels. The adagio featured a beetle, inspired by Kafka, and a sort of butterfly; the finale was dominated by dancers in giant wings. A principal theme in Hindemith’s score is based on a Chinese melody used by Weber. Along with those of other elaborately produced ballets, including Tyl Ulenspiegel and Renard, costumes for Metamorphoses were destroyed in a warehouse fire in 1953; all three ballets were lost.