Entreprise

Sergey Dyagilev's Entreprise, "The Ballets Russes"

1909-1929

The Ballets Russes – ballet company founded by the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev. The company toured abroad (in Paris, London, Berlin, Rome, Monte Carlo, USA, and South America). Having gained great popularity among the European public, the Ballets Russes significantly influenced the development of world art. The company's productions created a huge sensation and introduced European and American audiences to Russian folklore. The history of the enterprise began in 1908 with the opera “Boris Godunov” (starring Feodor Chaliapin); since 1909 Diaghilev started to present ballet performances. The Châtelet Theater in Paris was the premiere venue. The first productions there were “Le Pavillon d'Armide”, “Polovtsian Dances” (scene from the Alexander Borodin's opera “Prince Igor”), “Le Festin”, “Cléopâtre” and “Les Sylphides”. Serge Diaghilev gathered a wide variety of outstanding artists: under his direction worked different dancers and choreographers (Vaslav Nijinsky, Léonide Massine, Michel Fokine, Serge Lifar, Vera Karalli, George Balanchine), artists (Leon Bakst, Alexander Benois, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Nicholas Roerich), composers (Igor Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, Eric Satie, Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Tcherepnin, Claude Debussy). In the later years of the enterprise activity, Diaghilev began to collaborate with famous European artists – Coco Chanel (costumes for the “Blue Express” (1924) were sewn to her sketches), Pablo Picasso (he worked on costumes and scenery for the “Parade” (1917)). Some of the other famous productions of the ballet enterprise are “The Vision of the Rose” (1911), “The Firebird” (1910) and “Petrushka” (1911), “The Afternoon of a Faun” (1912), “The Golden Cockerel” (1914), "The Rite of Spring" (1913), "Steel Lope" (1927), "Prodigal Son" (1929). The Russian Ballet was closed in 1929, shortly after the death of Serge Diaghilev.