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Diaghilev's Empire: How the Ballets Russes Enthralled the World
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About This Book
A Best Book of the Year at The New Yorker and The Telegraph "Amusing and assertive . . . [Christiansen's] delight is infectious." ―Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times Book Review Rupert Christiansen, a renowned dance critic and arts correspondent, presents a sweeping history of the Ballets Russes and of Serge Diaghilev's dream of bringing Russian art and culture to the West. Serge Diaghilev, the Russian impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, is often said to have invented modern ballet. An art critic and connoisseur, Diaghilev had no training in dance or choreography, but he had a dream of bringing Russian art, music, design, and expression to the West and a mission to drive a cultural and artistic revolution. Bringing together such legendary talents as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse, this complex and visionary genius created a new form of ballet defined by artistic integrity, creative freedom, and an all-encompassing experience of art, movement, and music. The explosive color combinations, sensual and androgynous choreography, and experimental sounds of the Ballets Russes were called "barbaric" by the Parisian press, but its radical style usurped the entrenched mores of traditional ballet and transformed the European cultural sphere at large. Diaghilev's Empire , the publication of which marks the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of Diaghilev's birth, is a daring, impeccably researched reassessment of the phenomenon of the Ballets Russes and the Russian Revolution in twentieth-century art and culture. Rupert Christiansen, a leading dance critic, explores the fiery conflicts, outsize personalities, and extraordinary artistic innovations that make up this enduring story of triumph and disaster.
Reviews
"this is a full and thoughtful appreciation of a world populated by the likes of Nijinsky, Nijinska, Pavlova, Picasso, Matisse, and Stravinsky."
"Most delightful of all are the vivid portraits Christiansen paints of the dramatis personae, starting with Diaghilev and his succession of temperamental Ballets Russes lovers, all of whose careers he promoted — as choreographer or dancer — until, inevitably, fractiously, he fell out with them ..."
"There was not an obvious need for such a book ..."
"Along with chronicling backstage drama and artistic triumphs beginning about 1909, the book puts Diaghilev's complicated personal life on full view ..."
"a stimulating recreation of a cultural watershed."
"Christiansen's postscripts to the dissolution of Diaghilev's grand enterprise—and his tracing of the company's legacy, especially in England—are more informative than riveting."
"It is also a delicious read into the bargain."
"He comes to his subject with a head stuffed full not just of pas de deux and grands jetés but also all the gossip and scandal that trailed in Diaghilev's choppy wake ..."
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