Rite of Spring
On 29 May 1913, at the newly opened Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the Ballets Russes premiered The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du printemps), a ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky. The performance became legendary for the commotion it provoked in the audience, and the work itself is now regarded as one of the landmarks of twentieth-century music, a decisive break with the conventions of Romantic harmony and rhythm.
The ballet grew out of Stravinsky's collaboration with the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, whose company had already scored huge successes in Paris with The Firebird (1910) and Petrushka (1911). Stravinsky later recalled that the idea came to him as a vision of a pagan ritual in which a young girl dances herself to death as a sacrifice to the god of spring. He developed the scenario with the painter and ethnographer Nicholas Roerich, who also designed the sets and costumes, drawing on imagined scenes of prehistoric Russia. Paris at the time was a center of artistic experiment, with Cubism, Fauvism and other movements challenging established tastes.
The music was unlike anything most listeners had heard in a ballet. Stravinsky used pounding, irregular rhythms, shifting accents, dense dissonant chords and folk-inspired melodies, opening with an unusually high bassoon solo. Nijinsky's choreography was equally radical, with dancers turned inward, stamping and jumping in heavy, angular movements rather than the grace and lightness expected of classical ballet. According to many accounts, the audience began to jeer and shout during the performance, and arguments between supporters and detractors grew loud enough that the dancers had difficulty hearing the orchestra. Reports of fistfights and of Nijinsky calling out counts from the wings are common, but eyewitness testimony varies, and some details were likely embellished over time. It also remains debated how much of the uproar was aimed at the music, the choreography or the clash between social factions in the audience.
The ballet was performed a few more times in 1913 with less disturbance, and it was staged in London soon after. Nijinsky's choreography was soon abandoned and later reconstructed only partially, while the score found greater success in concert halls. A concert performance in Paris in 1914 was received triumphantly, and Stravinsky was carried out in celebration by admirers.
Over the following decades, The Rite of Spring influenced composers across the world and became a standard of the orchestral repertoire. Its rhythmic daring shaped modern classical music, and countless choreographers have since created new versions. The premiere endures as a symbol of how radical art can shock its first audience and then reshape what later generations consider possible.