The Ballets Russes

In 1906, the year after Bloody Sunday and a revolution in Russia, impresario Sergey Diaghilev brought an exhibit of Russian art to Paris. Over the next few years he organized other artistic ventures in the city, finally settling on dance, as it was the most popular with Parisian audiences. He founded the Ballets Russes in 1909 and kicked off two decades of innovation in music, ballet, and costume and set design. The productions he mounted were hugely influential in the worlds of both dance and music, and frequently involved top artists including Kandinsky, Picasso, Miró, and Matisse.

“Diaghilev invented Russia for foreigners.”
–Coco Chanel

Parisians were fascinated with foreign art and culture, and had been since at least the 1889 World’s Fair. But Diaghilev brought a particularly enticing mix of avant-garde dance, modern design, and cutting edge music rooted in traditional Russian folk music and fairy tales. Diaghilev first commissioned a little-known composer named Igor Stravinsky for the 1910 season to compose music for a new ballet: The Firebird. The runaway success of the production led Stravinsky to write nine more ballets for Diaghilev over the next 20 years. Stravinsky and Diaghilev shaped the course of Parisian music.

The Firebird, ballet costume, 1910, by Léon Bakst

After staging three blockbusters with music by Stravinsky—Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring—not to mention other productions with leading French composers like Debussy and Ravel, Diaghilev branched out in other directions. The company toured extensively, and Diaghilev was particularly captivated by a trip to Spain in 1916 that led him to explore Spanish music. In 1919 the company performed El sombrero de tres picos with music by Manuel de Falla.

But Diaghilev’s next move took many by surprise: he suggested that Stravinsky compose a ballet based on music by Italian Baroque composer Giovanni Pergolesi—or at least believed to be by Pergolesi. (Much of it was actually written by other Italian Baroque composers.) The result was Pulcinella, a ballet that made Diaghilev at least partly responsible for the 1920s fascination with neoclassicism.

Diaghilev died in 1929, marking the end of the Ballets Russes, just before the Great Depression and World War II changed Europe forever. However, his legacy lives on. He started out promoting Russian art abroad but soon widened his focus and ended up commissioning some of the most famous music of the early 20th century.

Article by Laura Keller