Le Sacre du Printemps or Rite of Spring celebrates the 100th performance anniversary of its riotous debut on 29th May 1913 in the Theatre des Champs-Elysées, Paris. The ballet was commissioned by Sergei Diahgilev for his Ballets Russes. Music was composed by Igor Stravinsky, choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky and stage designs and costumes by Nicholas Roerich.

The avant-garde nature of the music and choreography, with their acknowledgement of primitive sources in the movement and music, caused a near-riot in the audience. Although Lebrecht Music & Arts has over 150 images about the Rite of Spring there are no photographs of the audience’s reaction. What we do have is coverage of dancers from the early performances, the stage sets and costumes. To get a flavour of the time we also have a critique from an English journal in July 1913 with the headline ‘Nijinsky ‘s revolution in choreography: the post-impressionistic & prehistoric dance….’ The New York Times’ headline in June 1913 reported ‘Parisians hiss new ballet’. And our resident artist Neale Osborne has created a drawing of how he imagined the enraged Paris audience responded.

The music and choreography of Le Sacre du Printemps has inspired future generation . Click on the image for photographs of the Kirov ballet, Pina Bausch, the Royal Ballet with Tamara Rojo, Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, Scala theatre costumes designs from 1972 and much more. It has also been performed in concert. Search our website for photos of the likes of conductors such as the young Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit and Simon Rattle – all grappling with this revolutionary composition.