Diaghilev And The Ballets Russes

In the history of twentieth-century ballet, no company has had so profound and far-reaching an influence as the Ballets Russes. Under the direction of impresario extraordinaire Serge Diaghilev (1872–1929), the Ballets Russes radically transformed the nature of ballet—its subject matter, movement idiom, choreographic style, stage space, music, scenic design, costume, even the dancer's physical appearance. From 1909 to 1929, it nurtured some of the greatest choreographers in dance history—Fokine, Nijinsky, Massine, and Balanchine—and created such classics as Les Sylphides, Firebird, Petrouchka, L'Après-midi d'un Faune, Les Noces, and Apollo. Diaghilev brought together some of the leading artists of his time, including composers Stravinsky, Debussy, and Prokofiev; artists Picasso, Braque, and Matisse, and poets Hoffmansthal and Cocteau. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes is the most authoritative history of the company ever written and the first to examine it as a totality—its art, enterprise, and audience. Combining social and cultural history with illuminating discussions of dance, drama, music, art, economics, and public reception, Lynn Garafola paints an extraordinary portrait of the company that shaped ballet into what it is today.

"This book was published to coincide with the exhibition Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballet Russes 1909-1929 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 25 September 2010-9 January 2011"--Title page verso.

Beautifully illustrated and drawing on unpublished images and memorabilia, this book illuminates the ways in which innovations by the Ballets Russes in dance, music, sets and costume both mirrored and invigorated contemporary culture. --Book Jacket.

Catalogue of an exhibition held at two venues in Monaco during the summer of 2009, and at the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Oct. 27, 2009-Jan. 25, 2010.

In the history of twentieth-century ballet, no company has had so profound and far-reaching an influence as the Ballets Russes. It existed for only twenty years--from 1909 to 1929--but in that brief period it transformed ballet into a vital, modern art. The Ballets Russes created the first of this century's classics: Les Sylphides, Firebird, Petrouchka, L'Après-midi d'un Faune, Le Sacre du Printemps, Parade, Les Noces, Les Biches, Apollo, and Prodigal Son, all of which continue to be performed today. It nurtured many of the century's greatest choreographers--Fokine, Nikinsky, Massine, Nijinska, and Balanchine--and through them influenced the direction of dance to this day. It brokered the century's most remarkable marriages between dance and the other arts, forging partnerships between composers such as Stravinsky, Debussy, Falla, Ravel, Prokofiev, and Satie, painters like Picasso, Bakst, Matisse, Derain, Braque, Gris and Rouault, and poets on the order of Hoffmansthal and Cocteau. From the dancers who passed through its ranks emerged the teachers and ballet masters who continued its work in cities large and small throughout the West. And, as if all this were not enough, the company also created a following for ballet that anticipated today's popular audiences. The era of the Ballets Russes is probably the most chronicled in dance history, yet this book is the first to explain the company as a totality--its art, enterprise, and audience. Taking a fresh look at familiar sources and incorporating fascinating archival material previously unexamined by Diaghilev scholars, Lynn Garafola paints an extraordinary portrait of the Ballets Russes, one that is bound to upset received opinion about the wellsprings and impact of early modernism. She traces the company's origins not only from Diaghilev and his circle but also from Fokine's revolutionary secession within the Russian Imperial Ballet, shows for the first time how the art of the Ballets Russes reflected its status as a complex economic enterprise, and reveals how Diaghilev created an audience that in turn shaped his company's changing identity. It is an amazing story with characters from all walks of life--titans of art, grandes dames of Continental society, anonymous stagehands, long-forgotten dancers, and theater managers from Monte Carlo to Tacoma--and Garafola tells it brilliantly. Anyone interested in our century's dance, music, art, fashion, and cultural history will have to read it.

The Ballets Russes was perhaps the most iconic, yet at the same time mysterious, ballet company of the twentieth century. Inspired by the unique vision of their founder Sergei Diaghilev, the company gained a large international following. In the mid-twentieth century - during the tumultuous years of World War II and the Cold War - the Ballets Russes companies kept the spirit and traditions of Russian ballet alive in the West, touring extensively in America, Europe and Australia. This important new book uncovers previously-unseen interviews and provides insights into the lives of the great figures of the age - from the dancers Anna Pavlova and Alicia Markova to the choreographers Leonide Massine, George Balanchine and Anton Dolin. The dancers' own words reveal what life was really like for the stars of the Ballets Russes and provide fascinating new insights into one of the most vibrant and creative groups of artists of the modern age.

A fresh perspective on the Ballets Russes, focusing on relations between music, dance and the cultural politics of belle-époque Paris.

Modernism on Stage restores the Ballets Russes to its central role in the Parisian art world of the 1910s and 1920s, and includes close readings of ballets designed by Picasso, Delaunay, Matisse, and de Chirico. Dance is brought to bear upon modernist art history as more than a source of imagery, but as part of the avant-garde's articulation of the idea of a total work of art.