Diaghilev, Sergei Pavlovich, << DYAH gih lehf, sehr GAY pah VLAW vihch >> (1872-1929), was one of the greatest producers and directors in ballet history. He established ballet as a modern theatrical art. Diaghilev changed Europe’s ballet scene and created an audience for dance comparable to that for symphonic music.
Diaghilev was born on March 31 (March 19 in the old Russian calendar), 1872, in the province of Novgorod in Russia. From 1899 to 1901, he was artistic adviser for the Mariiinsky Theatre (later the Kirov Theatre; now known again as the Mariinsky Theatre) in St. Petersburg, Russia. From 1909 to 1929, he directed and produced performances by his own company, the Ballets Russes. At first, he used dancers and choreographers (dance composers) from the Russian imperial theaters. Later, he drew from artistic communities elsewhere in Europe, persuading the most innovative artists of the period to collaborate on his ballets. These artists included the Russian dancers Taara Karsaina, Vaslav Nijinsky, and Anna Pavlova; and the composers Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Erik Satie of France and Sergei Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky of Russia. Diaghilev’s collaborators also included the Russian-born American choreographer George Balanchine, the Russian choreographers Michel Fokine and Léonide Massine, and the artists Léon Bakst of Russia and Pablo Picasso of Spain.
Diaghilev directed about 80 ballets and operas. Among his company’s best-known ballets are Les Sylphides (1909), The Firebird (1910), Petrouchka (1911), The Afternoon of a Faun (1912), The Rite of Spring (1913), Parade (1917), and Apollo (1928). He died on Aug. 19, 1929.
