Binding: Paperback
Description: 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.
Title: Diaghilev's Empire How The Ballets Russes Enthralled The World
Author(s): Christiansen Rupert
Publisher: Picador
Barcode: 9781250872531
Pages: 400 Pages
Language: English
Publication Date: 12/5/2023