The Rite of Spring: A Failure and A Triumph

Focussing on The Rite of Spring, this lecture traces the musical, visual and choreographical consequences of a new modernist aesthetic in ballet.

A lecture by Marina Frolova-Walker, Gresham Professor of Music
21 January 2020 6:00pm UK Time

The Rite of Spring was the startling result of a collaboration between Stravinsky, Nijinsky (choreography) and Roerich (sets and costumes). In the immediate aftermath, it seemed to be a fiasco because of its riotous reception, but it proved to be the successful introduction of a new modernist aesthetic that cultivated ugliness and machine-like movements. We will trace the musical, visual and choreographical consequences of this new trend through several later Diaghilev ballets: Parade (Satie/Picasso), Chout (Prokofiev/Larionov), Le Pas d’Acier (Prokofiev/Yakulov).

[dion]

Satie was no Stravinsky. Hence, the inferior quality of "Parade."

[paulkesler]

Excellent content from what I could pick up, but the mediocre sound quality combined with her thick foreign accent made it difficult to understand. Don't mean to criticize her unjustly (besides, she's very cute), but English subtitles would have helped a lot.