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 tudience. 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.

Beautifully illustrated and drawing on unpublished images and memorabilia, this book illuminates the ways in which innovations by the Ballets Russes in dance, music, sets and costume both mirrored and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

"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.

The dance, art, music, and cultural worlds of the Ballets Russes--a dance company which helped define the avant-garde in the early part of this century--are surveyed in this book, which begins with Serge Diaghilev's influence. 200+ illustrations.

The success of the Ballets Russes was legendary, but there is more to the legend than its name: the actual story, the adventure, conceived by one man and lived by a few, that lasted only eight seasons and three summers. From 1911 to 1914, Serge Diaghilev, driven by conviction and stubbornness, turned his vision into reality. He collaborated with the likes of Leon Bakst, Igor Stravinsky, and Picasso to create an explosion of creativity in Western Europe which had never before been seen in the world of art. Thanks to Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, the most glorious page in the history of ballet, one of the most magnificent moments in the adventure of Art, was written. To turn the pages of this stunning book, which offers rare documents from the legendary Ballets Russes from 1911 to 1914 (Monte Carlo years), is to follow Diaghilev on his creative quest--a journey that continues to influence art, theater, ballet, and fashion to this day.

This magnificent new biography of the extraordinary impresario of the arts and creator of the Ballets Russes 100 years ago draws on important new research, notably from Russia. ‘Scheijen masterfully recounts the phenomenal way in which Diaghilev contrived, under virtually impossible circumstances, to nurture a sequence of works … he triumphs in making clear the degree to which, despite the cosmopolitanism of so much of the work, Russia was at the core of Diaghilev' Simon Callow, Guardian ‘It's a fabulous, complicated, very sexy story and Sjeng Scheijen takes us through it with a steadying calm that fudges none of the outrage on or off stage' Duncan Fallowell, Daily Express 'Magnificent … filled with extraordinary glamour' Rupert Christiansen, Daily Mail

8 stars from legendary ballet troupe are shown in costumes from over 20 separate productions. Designers include Chanel, Picasso, Matisse, and others.

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.

Ballet impresario Sergey Pavlovich Diaghilev and composer Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev are eminent figures in twentieth-century cultural history, yet this is the first detailed account of their fifteen-year collaboration. The beginning was not trouble-free, but despite two false starts (Ala i Lolli and the first version of its successor, Chout) Diaghilev maintained his confidence in the composer. With his guidance and encouragement Prokofiev established his mature balletic style. After some years of estrangement during which Prokofiev wrote for choreographer Boris Romanov and conductor/publisher Serge Koussevitsky, Diaghilev came to the composer's rescue at a low point in his Western career. The impresario encouraged Prokofiev's turn towards 'a new simplicity' and offered him a great opportunity for career renewal with a topical ballet on Soviet life (Le Pas d'acier). Even as late as 1928-29 Diaghilev compelled Prokofiev to achieve new heights of expressivity in his characterizations (L'Enfant prodigue). Although Western scholars have investigated Prokofiev's operas, piano works, and symphonies, little attention has been paid to his early ballets written for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Despite Prokofiev's devotion to opera, it was his ballets for Diaghilev as much as his concertos and solo piano works that earned his renown in Western Europe in the 1920s. Stephen D. Press discusses the genesis of each ballet, including the important contributions of the scenic designers (Mikhail Larionov, Georgy Yakulov and Georges Rouault) and the choreographer/dancers (L id Massine, Serge Lifar and George Balanchine), and the special relationship between the ballets' progenitors.

"This edition is published to coincide with the exhibition Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929: When Art Danced with Music, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, 12 May-2 September 2013. The exhibition Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929 was originally conceived by and first shown at the V&A Museum, London, in 2010."