Ballets Russes

The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. After its initial Paris season, the company had no formal ties there.
Originally conceived by impresario Sergei Diaghilev, the Ballets Russes is widely regarded as the most influential ballet company of the 20th century, in part because it promoted ground-breaking artistic collaborations among young choreographers, composers, designers, and dancers, all at the forefront of their several fields. Diaghilev commissioned works from composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Sergei Prokofiev, Erik Satie, and Maurice Ravel, artists such as Vasily Kandinsky, Alexandre Benois, Konstantin Korovin, Nicholas Roerich, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse, and costume designers Léon Bakst, Ivan Bilibin and Coco Chanel.
The company's productions created a huge sensation, completely reinvigorating the art of performing dance, bringing many visual artists to public attention, and significantly affecting the course of musical composition. It also introduced European and American audiences to tales, music, and design motifs drawn from Russian folklore. The company's employment of European avant-garde art went on to influence broader artistic and popular culture of the early twentieth century, not least the development of Art Deco.

Nomenclature

The French plural form of the name, Ballets Russes, specifically refers to the company founded by Sergei Diaghilev and active during his lifetime. In English, the company is now commonly referred to as "the Ballets Russes", although in the early part of the 20th century, it was sometimes referred to as "The Russian Ballet" or "Diaghilev's Russian Ballet". To add to the confusion, some publicity material spelled the name in the singular.
The names Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo and the Original Ballet Russe refer to companies that formed after Diaghilev's death in 1929.

History and productions

Background

, the company's impresario, was chiefly responsible for its success. He was uniquely prepared for the role; born into a wealthy Russian family of vodka distillers, he was accustomed to moving in the upper-class circles that provided the company's patrons and benefactors. It is indispensable to mention the name of the sponsor Winnaretta Singer whose generous financial subsidies ensured the success of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Europe.
In 1890, he enrolled at the Faculty of Law, St. Petersburg, to prepare for a career in the civil service like many Russian young men of his class. There he was introduced to a student clique of artists and intellectuals calling themselves The Nevsky Pickwickians whose most influential member was Alexandre Benois; others included Léon Bakst, Walter Nouvel, and Konstantin Somov. From childhood, Diaghilev had been passionately interested in music. However, his ambition to become a composer was dashed in 1894 when Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov told him he had no talent.
In 1898, several members of The Pickwickians founded the journal Mir iskusstva under the editorship of Diaghilev. As early as 1902, Mir iskusstva included reviews of concerts, operas, and ballets in Russia. The latter were chiefly written by Benois, who exerted considerable influence on Diaghilev's thinking. Mir iskusstva also sponsored exhibitions of Russian art in St. Petersburg, culminating in Diaghilev's important 1905 show of Russian portraiture at the Tauride Palace.
Frustrated by the extreme conservatism of the Russian art world, Diaghilev organized the groundbreaking Exhibition of Russian Art at the Petit Palais in Paris in 1906, the first major showing of Russian art in the West. Its enormous success created a Parisian fascination with all things Russian. Diaghilev organised a 1907 season of Russian music at the Paris Opéra. In 1908, Diaghilev returned to the Paris Opéra with six performances of Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov, starring basso Fyodor Chaliapin. This was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's 1908 version. The performances were a sensation, though the costs of producing grand opera were crippling.

Debut

In 1909, Diaghilev presented his first Paris "Saison Russe" devoted exclusively to ballet. Most of this original company were resident performers at the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg, hired by Diaghilev to perform in Paris during the Imperial Ballet's summer holidays. The first season's repertory featured a variety of works chiefly choreographed by Michel Fokine, including Le Pavillon d'Armide, the Polovtsian Dances, Les Sylphides, and Cléopâtre. The season also included Le Festin, a pastiche set by several choreographers to music by several Russian composers.

Principal productions

The principal productions are shown in the table below.

Year	Title	Image	Composer	Choreographer	Sets and costumes
1909	Le Pavillon d'Armide		Nikolai Tcherepnin	Michel Fokine	Alexandre Benois
1909	Polovtsian Dances		Alexander Borodin	Michel Fokine	Nicholas Roerich
1909	Le Festin		Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov		Konstantin Korovin Léon Bakst Alexandre Benois Ivan Bilibin
1909	Le Festin		Mikhail Glinka	Michel Fokine, Marius Petipa	Konstantin Korovin Léon Bakst Alexandre Benois Ivan Bilibin
1909	Le Festin		Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky	Marius Petipa	Konstantin Korovin Léon Bakst Alexandre Benois Ivan Bilibin
1909	Le Festin		Alexander Glazunov	Alexander Gorsky	Konstantin Korovin Léon Bakst Alexandre Benois Ivan Bilibin
1909	Le Festin		Modest Mussorgsky	Michel Fokine	Konstantin Korovin Léon Bakst Alexandre Benois Ivan Bilibin
1909	Le Festin		Mikhail Glinka	Nicolai Goltz, Felix Kchessinsky	Konstantin Korovin Léon Bakst Alexandre Benois Ivan Bilibin
1909	Le Festin		Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky	Michel Fokine	Konstantin Korovin Léon Bakst Alexandre Benois Ivan Bilibin
1909	Le Festin		Alexander Glazunov	Marius Petipa	Konstantin Korovin Léon Bakst Alexandre Benois Ivan Bilibin
1909	Le Festin		Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky	Michel Fokine	Konstantin Korovin Léon Bakst Alexandre Benois Ivan Bilibin
1909	Les Sylphides		Frédéric Chopin	Michel Fokine	Alexandre Benois
1909	Cléopâtre		Anton Arensky	Michel Fokine	Léon Bakst
1910	Carnaval		Robert Schumann	Michel Fokine	Léon Bakst
1910	Schéhérazade		Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov	Michel Fokine	Léon Bakst
1910	Giselle		Adolphe Adam	Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot, Marius Petipa, Michel Fokine	Alexandre Benois
1910	Les Orientales		Christian Sinding Edvard Grieg	Vaslav Nijinsky '' Michel Fokine	Konstantin Korovin Léon Bakst
1910	L'Oiseau de feu		Igor Stravinsky	Michel Fokine	Alexander Golovine Léon Bakst
1911	Le Spectre de la rose		Carl Maria von Weber	Michel Fokine	Léon Bakst
1911	Narcisse		Nikolai Tcherepnin	Michel Fokine	Léon Bakst
1911	Sadko		Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov	Mikhail Fokine	Boris Anisfeld
1911	Petrushka		Igor Stravinsky	Michel Fokine	Alexandre Benois
1911	Swan Lake		Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky	Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov, Michel Fokine	Konstantin Korovin Alexander Golovin
1912	L'après-midi d'un faune		Claude Debussy	Vaslav Nijinsky	Léon Bakst
1912	Daphnis et Chloé		Maurice Ravel	Michel Fokine	Léon Bakst
1912	Le Dieu bleu		Reynaldo Hahn	Michel Fokine	Léon Bakst
1912	Thamar		Mily Balakirev based on his symphonic poem Tamara	Michel Fokine	Léon Bakst
1913	Jeux		Claude Debussy	Vaslav Nijinsky	Léon Bakst
1913	Le sacre du printemps		Igor Stravinsky	Vaslav Nijinsky	Nicholas Roerich
1913	Tragédie de Salomé		Florent Schmitt	Boris Romanov	Sergey Sudeykin
1914	Les Papillons		Robert Schumann	Mikhail Fokine	Mstislav Doboujinsky
1914	La légende de Joseph		Richard Strauss	Michel Fokine	Léon Bakst
1914	Le coq d'or		Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov	Michel Fokine	Natalia Goncharova
1914	Le rossignol		Igor Stravinsky	Boris Romanov	Alexandre Benois
1914	Midas		Maximilian Steinberg	Michel Fokine	Mstislav Doboujinsky
1915	Soleil de Nuit		Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov	Léonide Massine	Mikhail Larionov
1916	Las Meniñas		Gabriel Fauré	Léonide Massine	Josep Maria Sert
1916	Kikimora		Anatoly Liadov	Léonide Massine	Mikhail Larionov
1916	Till Eulenspiegel		Richard Strauss	Vaslav Nijinsky	Robert Edmond Jones
1917	Feu d'Artifice		Igor Stravinsky		Giacomo Balla
1917	Les Femmes de Bonne Humeur		Domenico Scarlatti	Léonide Massine	Léon Bakst
1917	Parade		Erik Satie	Léonide Massine	Pablo Picasso
1919	La Boutique fantasque		Gioachino Rossini	Léonide Massine	André Derain
1919	El sombrero de tres picos		Manuel de Falla	Léonide Massine	Pablo Picasso
1919	Les jardins d'Aranjuez		Louis Aubert, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel, Emmanuel Chabrier	Léonide Massine	Josep Maria Sert
1920	Le chant du rossignol		Igor Stravinsky	Léonide Massine	Henri Matisse
1920	Pulcinella		Igor Stravinsky	Léonide Massine	Pablo Picasso
1920	Ballet de l'astuce féminine or Cimarosiana		Domenico Cimarosa	Léonide Massine	Josep Maria Sert
1920	Le sacre du printemps		Igor Stravinsky	Léonide Massine	Nicholas Roerich
1921	Chout		Sergei Prokofiev	Léonide Massine	Mikhail Larionov
1921	Cuadro Flamenco		Traditional Andalusian music		Pablo Picasso
1921	The Sleeping Beauty		Pyotr Tchaikovsky	Marius Petipa	Léon Bakst
1922	Le Mariage de la Belle au Bois Dormant		Pyotr Tchaikovsky	Marius Petipa	Alexandre Benois Natalia Goncharova
1922	Mavra		Igor Stravinsky	Bronislava Nijinska	Léopold Survage
1922	Renard		Igor Stravinsky	Bronislava Nijinska	Mikhail Larionov
1923	Les noces		Igor Stravinsky	Bronislava Nijinska	Natalia Goncharova
1924	Les Tentations de la Bergère, ou l'Amour Vainqueur		Michel de Montéclair	Bronislava Nijinska	Juan Gris
1924	Le Médecin malgré lui		Charles Gounod	Bronislava Nijinska	Alexandre Benois
1924	Les biches		Francis Poulenc	Bronislava Nijinska	Marie Laurencin
1924	Cimarosiana		Domenico Cimarosa	Léonide Massine, Bronislava Nijinska	José-María Sert
1924	Les Fâcheux		Georges Auric	Bronislava Nijinska	Georges Braque
1924	Le train bleu		Darius Milhaud	Bronislava Nijinska	Henri Laurens Gabrielle Chanel Pablo Picasso
1925	Zephyr et Flore		Vladimir Dukelsky	Léonide Massine	Georges Braque
1925	Le chant du rossignol		Igor Stravinsky	George Balanchine	Henri Matisse
1925	Les matelots		Georges Auric	Léonide Massine	Pere Pruna
1925	Barabau		Vittorio Rieti	George Balanchine	Maurice Utrillo
1926	Roméo et Juliette		Constant Lambert	Bronislava Nijinska	Max Ernst Joan Miró
1926	Pastorale		Georges Auric	George Balanchine	Pere Pruna
1926	Jack in the Box		Erik Satie	George Balanchine	André Derain
1926	The Triumph of Neptune		Lord Berners	George Balanchine	Pedro Pruna
1927	La chatte		Henri Sauguet	George Balanchine	Naum Gabo
1927	Mercure		Erik Satie	Léonide Massine	Pablo Picasso
1927	Le pas d'acier		Sergei Prokofiev	Léonide Massine	Georgy Yakulov
1928	Ode		Nikolai Nabokov	Léonide Massine	Pavel Tchelitchev
1928	Apollon musagète		Igor Stravinsky	George Balanchine	André Bauschant Coco Chanel
1928	The Gods Go A-Begging		George Frederic Handel	George Balanchine	Léon Bakst Juan Gris
1929	Le Bal		Vittorio Rieti	George Balanchine	Giorgio de Chirico
1929	Renard		Igor Stravinsky	Serge Lifar	Mikhail Larionov
1929	Le fils prodigue		Sergei Prokofiev	George Balanchine	Georges Rouault