Le Sacre du printemps

A work of tremendous visceral power which still can thrill and excite audiences today, Stravinsky’s third ballet, The Rite of Spring, famously caused a riot at its 1913 premiere. Depicting supposed pagan rites in prehistoric Russia, Rite involves one of the largest orchestras for any ballet, including quadruple woodwind and large brass and percussion sections, the latter including five timpani, crotales and a güiro. The first-night audience was upset by the music’s outrageous dissonances, often used percussively and made particularly pungent by Stravinsky’s audacious and highly effective orchestration. But what really sparked the riot was the wildly unconventional choreography by the legendary Vaslav Nijinsky: contrary to the previous practice of making the body appear graceful, light and almost capable of flight (an illusion of which Nijinsky the dancer was a master), he made his dancers heavy-footed, awkward and angular, with feet turned inward and elbows pressed to the sides of their bodies. As Stravinsky recalled, when the curtain rose to reveal “the group of knock-kneed and long-braided Lolitas jumping up and down, the storm broke”. Counter-protests and fisticuffs broke out as the students in the theatre’s standing room, situated between the boxes and stalls occupied by the more affluent section of the audience, turned on their wealthy neighbours to defend the modern ballet. Stravinsky’s music went largely unheard, and was not properly appreciated by the public until its triumphant first concert performance a year later, conducted by Pierre Monteux (who had also conducted the ballet’s premiere).