Savage and primitive, hypnotic and hell-bent, Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring turned Paris into the scene of one of the most astounding opening nights in history. In this episode of Keeping Score, the clutching tendrils of the music pull us back through France and Russia to the wild abandon of pagan times.
Of the Rite of Spring, Diaghilev’s ballet master Enrico Cecchetti was quoted as saying “I think the entire thing was done by four idiots.” Learn more about the four men behind The Rite of Spring – Stravinsky, the composer; Roerich, the designer; Diaghilev, the empresario; and Nijinsky, the choreographer.
May 29, 1913, a night that will be forever infamous as a night so chaotic, so outrageous that it incited a riot. Learn more about the events as they transpired at the première of Le Sacre du Printemps that night at Le Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.
Hear work that shocked the opening night audiences. Follow the score and see the ballet, with insights from MTT and musicians of the San Francisco Symphony. Also hear an interview about the reconstruction of the ballet and costumes with dance historians Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer.
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