L'Oiseau de feu

The Russian fairy-tale ballet L’Oiseau de feu (The Firebird) was the first of its kind, and established Stravinsky as a celebrity in Paris. A former pupil of the great master of orchestration, Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky added a dash of inspiration from Scriabin’s mystical harmonies to depict the title character herself. When premiered in 1910, the ballet and its brilliant production dazzled his Parisian audience and led to his writing the ballets Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913), both of which still enthral listeners today. Prince Ivan captures the Firebird, who on gaining her freedom gives him one of her feathers as a talisman. In an orchard of golden apples, he encounters 13 princesses, one of whom he falls in love with. They lead him to the castle of the evil sorcerer Kashchey, who makes him prisoner. Ivan summons the Firebird, who bewitches Kashchey and his court into a frenzied dance (“Danse infernale”) and lulls them to sleep (“Berceuse”). She then reveals a casket containing Kashchey’s soul within an egg, which Ivan breaks to kill Kashchey. Stravinsky then ends the ballet with a masterstroke—not with a series of divertissements, as was typical of many ballets including Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty, but with something more stately, using melody from a Russian khorovod (a kind of religious round dance) originally published by his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov: Stravinsky has this first played quietly by solo horn, then builds to a resplendent brass climax, effectively suggesting the blossoming of the kingdom liberated from Kashchey’s rule.