by Daniel Hathaway

Thanks to Serge Diaghilev, his Ballets Russes, and the young Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, Paris in the four years just before the Great War has to count as one of the most exciting eras for a balletomane to be alive.

On June 25, 1910, Gabriel Pierné conducted the premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird at the Paris Opéra. Barely a year later, on June 8, 1911, Pierre Monteaux raised his baton for the first performance of Stravinsky’s Petrushka at the Théâtre du Châtelet, and the famous, chaotic debut of Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps followed under Monteaux at the Théâtre du Châtelet on May 29, 1913.

Tucked in between Petrushka and Sacre, on June 18, 1912, came the premiere of Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, completing four straight years of landmark events in the world of dance. [Read more…]