What is the Rite of Spring?
Q: What is the Rite of Spring?
A: The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du Printemps) is a ballet in two parts written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company.
Q: Who wrote the music for the ballet?
A: Igor Stravinsky wrote the music for the ballet.
Q: Who choreographed it?
A: Vaslav Nijinsky choreographed it, using a style that was not traditional ballet form but what he imagined to be a primitive ritual.
Q: Who designed the set and costumes?
A: Nicholas Roerich designed the set and costumes.
Q: When was it first performed?
A: It was first performed by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Theatre du Champs-Élysées in Paris on 29 May 1913.
Q: How did people react to its premiere performance?
A: The premiere performance was met with tumult and riot, only stilled by the performance of Marie Piltz as the sacrificial maiden. Subsequent performances were received with growing appreciation, but due to its great difficulties, it could only be presented six times.
Q: Was there ever a revival of this ballet?
A: Yes, there was a revival in 1920 by Ballets Russes where Leonide Massine redesigned Nijinsky's dances which were then approved by Stravinsky since they had been forgotten. In 1940 Walt Disney used some of its music to accompany an animated movie segment depicting lumbering dinosaurs and smoldering volcanoes in Fantasia.
