After the performances of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris in 1909, ballet was never the same. We will look at Diaghilev’s 1909-1913 seasons, in which the art form was dramatically reinvented before the eyes of a startled public. Nothing quite like the Ballets Russes had been seen before: Diaghilev fused music, choreography, design, and performance into a unified modern spectacle that shattered the prettiness and conventions of 19th-century classical ballet. The company introduced audiences to groundbreaking composers such as Igor Stravinsky and to extraordinary dancers including Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina, whose artistry redefined virtuosity, expression, and theatrical presence. Landmark works such as The Firebird (1910) and Petrushka (1911) revealed a new synthesis of Russian folkloric color, psychological depth, and modern orchestral sound, while Le Spectre de la rose distilled poetic intimacy into pure dance. Cleopatre and Scheherazade combined exoticism and eroticism. Even more radical were L’Après-midi d’un faune and Le Sacre du printemps, both of which provoked scandal; the 1913 premiere of Sacre famously erupted into near-riot, announcing an irreversible break with the past. By challenging ideas of beauty, movement, music, and narrative, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes did not merely innovate—it set the agenda for modern ballet and influenced virtually all choreographic developments that followed. While we will focus on the groundbreaking works from the years ending in 1913, we will also look at a couple of later ballets by Diaghilev’s last choreographer, George Balanchine, who went on to form the New York City Ballet. The final works we will explore will be Apollo and the Prodigal Son, Balanchine’s last works for Diaghilev and still part of NYCB’s repertoire.
The format will be lectures and looking at photos, videos, and DVDs of the ballets. It is not intended as a discussion course, although there will be time to discuss what we see. Preparation time should be less than an hour each week.