0:00:03 > 0:00:05MUSIC PLAYS
0:00:15 > 0:00:17On May 29th, 1913,
0:00:17 > 0:00:20on the stage of the Theatre des Champs Elysees in Paris,
0:00:20 > 0:00:23these moments from The Rite of Spring
0:00:23 > 0:00:27were arguably the most dramatic the ballet world had ever seen.
0:00:27 > 0:00:30And its power to shock remains even today.
0:00:30 > 0:00:32It was one of the defining moments
0:00:32 > 0:00:36in the lives of three of the most brilliant and radical artists
0:00:36 > 0:00:38of the 20th century, all of them Russian.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43Dancer and choreographer, Vaslav Nijinsky,
0:00:43 > 0:00:48composer Igor Stravinsky
0:00:48 > 0:00:52and impresario, Serge Diaghilev.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57Their collaboration, as well as those of other great artists,
0:00:57 > 0:00:59composers, dancers and designers,
0:00:59 > 0:01:02made Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes
0:01:02 > 0:01:05the most influential ballet company of the 20th century.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12The effect of Diaghilev is everywhere.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17There was the most tremendous sexy excitement
0:01:17 > 0:01:21about all things Russian and artistic.
0:01:22 > 0:01:25Diaghilev was the boss of everything and everyone
0:01:25 > 0:01:27and every detail of every single thing.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32Diaghilev was a terrible man to work for
0:01:32 > 0:01:34because he was 100% the Ballets Russes.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42Diaghilev saved Western ballet.
0:01:53 > 0:01:55At the beginning of the 20th century,
0:01:55 > 0:01:59ballet had become outdated and was in need of re-energising.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05In Russia, it was largely the plaything of the Tsar
0:02:05 > 0:02:07and St Petersburg was its artistic home.
0:02:09 > 0:02:11Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty,
0:02:11 > 0:02:15with their fabulous Tchaikovsky scores, still dominated the landscape
0:02:15 > 0:02:18and very little innovative work was being made.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25One man had the vision to see how this dying art form
0:02:25 > 0:02:27could be reborn - Serge Diaghilev.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30A key player in the St Petersburg arts scene,
0:02:30 > 0:02:34he'd already presented Russian art, music and opera in Paris,
0:02:34 > 0:02:37the cultural centre of the world at this time.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40Paris genuinely was the home of the modernists.
0:02:40 > 0:02:42Gertrude Stein had moved there.
0:02:42 > 0:02:44Picasso was there. Brecht was there.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47So much modernism was happening there.
0:02:47 > 0:02:50It's the perfect place for Diaghilev getting away from Russia.
0:02:50 > 0:02:52Russia, in the 19th century,
0:02:52 > 0:02:55its culture, its second language was French.
0:02:55 > 0:02:59Everything was Paris, that was the centre of the universe,
0:02:59 > 0:03:02the way New York became after World War Two.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05That's where you went. Not to die, but to live.
0:03:05 > 0:03:08Whilst other arts were thriving in Paris,
0:03:08 > 0:03:11ballet was not taken seriously.
0:03:11 > 0:03:16Ballet in Paris had itself become desperately, desperately moribund.
0:03:16 > 0:03:21Having once been the absolute showcase of European ballet,
0:03:21 > 0:03:24it was now pretty much about just
0:03:24 > 0:03:26ballerinas and their pretty legs.
0:03:26 > 0:03:32It was against this backdrop that Diaghilev sensed an opportunity
0:03:32 > 0:03:36and in 1909 he took a small group of dancers on tour to Paris.
0:03:36 > 0:03:40The seeds of the Ballets Russes were sown.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47The venue for his first season was the Chatelet Theatre.
0:03:47 > 0:03:51Diaghilev wanted to launch his new ballet company in style,
0:03:51 > 0:03:53so he insisted it was refurbished.
0:03:59 > 0:04:04All the ballets on the opening night were choreographed by Michel Fokine,
0:04:04 > 0:04:05a protege of Diaghilev's
0:04:05 > 0:04:08who was beginning to update ballet back in Russia.
0:04:08 > 0:04:13The audience was also introduced to the sensational 19-year-old dancer,
0:04:13 > 0:04:15Vaslav Nijinsky.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19Over the next four years, he would re-write the language of ballet.
0:04:30 > 0:04:34But the real star of the first night was the exotic,
0:04:34 > 0:04:39and very Russian, Polotsvian Dances from the opera Prince Igor.
0:04:39 > 0:04:42One of Diaghilev's selling cards from the beginning
0:04:42 > 0:04:46was the idea that Russia was a source of primitivism.
0:04:50 > 0:04:55Men were hunters, hunter-gatherers, jumping like mad.
0:04:55 > 0:05:00Diaghilev brings in all the wildness of Ancient Russia, as it seemed.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03So that on opening night, in Paris in 1909,
0:05:03 > 0:05:07the greatest sensation of three sensational ballets
0:05:07 > 0:05:09was the Polotsvian dancers from Prince Igor.
0:05:12 > 0:05:15This was the greatest sensation of the entire evening.
0:05:18 > 0:05:22The Paris audience went nuts and invaded the theatre,
0:05:22 > 0:05:26so much so that they rushed through the orchestra pit onto the stage
0:05:26 > 0:05:29and, for the final ballet of the evening, Le Festin,
0:05:29 > 0:05:33Nijinsky and Karsavina found themselves warming up
0:05:33 > 0:05:36with all the Parisians on stage trying to watch.
0:05:36 > 0:05:38And they had to be finally cleared off.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47APPLAUSE
0:05:47 > 0:05:51The opening season was a triumph.
0:05:51 > 0:05:55Sadly, Diaghilev never approved of the Ballets Russes being filmed.
0:05:55 > 0:05:58So it's through revivals by today's dance companies
0:05:58 > 0:06:02that we can sense the impact they must have had.
0:06:02 > 0:06:04In the first four years alone,
0:06:04 > 0:06:08Diaghilev would produce over twenty ballets and this level of ambition
0:06:08 > 0:06:11meant he was always on the hunt for sources of income,
0:06:11 > 0:06:13spending much of his time wooing
0:06:13 > 0:06:17the grandest and most well heeled of Parisian society.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20Initially, of course, there was support from Russia.
0:06:20 > 0:06:24There were grand dukes, there were wealthy businessmen
0:06:24 > 0:06:28who were interested in putting in their money.
0:06:28 > 0:06:30He was also a very good negotiator.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33Then, of course, there are very bored and idle
0:06:33 > 0:06:36American millionairesses in Paris,
0:06:36 > 0:06:39who are crazy about being seen as up-to-date
0:06:39 > 0:06:43and are willing to put money into productions sometimes,
0:06:43 > 0:06:48but really want good seats, good boxes, and to be conspicuous.
0:06:48 > 0:06:50The Princesse de Polignac,
0:06:50 > 0:06:54who was heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune
0:06:54 > 0:06:58from the United States, she was a very good patron.
0:06:58 > 0:07:02So long as she could be in charge of pulling the puppet strings.
0:07:02 > 0:07:06Diaghilev's dealings with the rich women he pursued were helped
0:07:06 > 0:07:09by the high artistic standards of The Ballet Russes,
0:07:09 > 0:07:13as well as the quality of performers appearing on stage.
0:07:13 > 0:07:15Diaghilev was really lucky in that,
0:07:15 > 0:07:19coming up through the ranks of the Imperial Ballet,
0:07:19 > 0:07:21was an astonishing generation of dancers.
0:07:21 > 0:07:23At the top of it was Anna Pavlova,
0:07:23 > 0:07:26already a star, but she did lead his first Paris season.
0:07:31 > 0:07:34That extraordinary haunting, romantic delicacy
0:07:34 > 0:07:37that mesmerised audiences around the world.
0:07:48 > 0:07:53I did see Pavlova and I saw all of the things that she was famous for.
0:07:53 > 0:07:55And I did see the Dying Swan.
0:07:55 > 0:08:00She had these phenomenal arms, with not a bone anywhere.
0:08:00 > 0:08:05And then suddenly... and then she was, and the face,
0:08:05 > 0:08:08and the... it was uncanny, it really was.
0:08:11 > 0:08:13He doesn't promote Anna Pavlova
0:08:13 > 0:08:16and Anna Pavlova gets out of the Ballets Russes pretty early on
0:08:16 > 0:08:20because she realises she's not going to be presented as the queen bee,
0:08:20 > 0:08:22which she felt ballet was about.
0:08:24 > 0:08:28Following in Pavlova's footsteps is always daunting for a dancer
0:08:28 > 0:08:31and the iconic role of the Dying Swan
0:08:31 > 0:08:34is one of the great challenges for every ballerina.
0:08:34 > 0:08:39Elena Glurdjidze, principal ballerina with English National Ballet,
0:08:39 > 0:08:42is delighted to be given the chance to interpret the role.
0:08:42 > 0:08:46She's being coached on stage by ex-ballerina, Maina Gielgud.
0:08:46 > 0:08:50It all happens completely co-ordinated.
0:08:50 > 0:08:53'I never even could hope to do The Swan
0:08:53 > 0:08:56'because I always thought I didn't have good enough arms.'
0:08:56 > 0:08:58This is also working.
0:08:58 > 0:09:00I thought, "It's almost impossible."
0:09:00 > 0:09:03And then people were saying to me, "Oh, you've got beautiful arms."
0:09:03 > 0:09:05After 15 years dancing on stage!
0:09:05 > 0:09:10But it is difficult, because to have this smoothness
0:09:10 > 0:09:13and great movement, it's not easy.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16And you have to have this perfect poise,
0:09:16 > 0:09:18which should be very, very fast,
0:09:18 > 0:09:21but at the same time without any extra movement.
0:09:21 > 0:09:26Because you have to, almost like a sweep, without extra...
0:09:42 > 0:09:46English National Ballet asked Chanel's creative director
0:09:46 > 0:09:49Karl Lagerfeld to reinterpret the costume.
0:09:49 > 0:09:50It has to be fragile,
0:09:50 > 0:09:55but it has to be also something that can resist more than one night.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59And it must be something what gives total freedom for the movement.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10We have materials today that didn't exist then.
0:10:10 > 0:10:15But in fact, this costume is an updated version of a classic idea,
0:10:15 > 0:10:18a swan is a swan. So there is not so much you can change
0:10:18 > 0:10:22because if it looked like a chicken, it wouldn't be right!
0:10:37 > 0:10:39Ballerinas love to do it.
0:10:39 > 0:10:42They get up there and they die.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45And it's short, it can be thrown on at any time,
0:10:45 > 0:10:47and everybody is always ready to do it.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16Despite the artistic success of their opening season,
0:11:16 > 0:11:18it was a financial disaster.
0:11:18 > 0:11:19However, Diaghilev was confident
0:11:19 > 0:11:22that the positive public reaction to the Ballets Russes
0:11:22 > 0:11:25meant he could continue to raise the necessary funds
0:11:25 > 0:11:27to keep the company running.
0:11:27 > 0:11:30In 1910, they returned to Paris and premiered
0:11:30 > 0:11:35one of the most successful works in their history - Sheherazade.
0:11:37 > 0:11:40English National Ballet are performing Sheherazade
0:11:40 > 0:11:42in their Ballets Russes celebratory season.
0:11:42 > 0:11:44The range of dance styles,
0:11:44 > 0:11:47from near pantomime to great technical virtuosity,
0:11:47 > 0:11:50means it requires several weeks of rehearsal.
0:11:51 > 0:11:54You should really be leaning on him.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06A lot of the dancers in the company had never seen Sheherazade.
0:12:06 > 0:12:10They'd only read about it or seen photographs in a book.
0:12:10 > 0:12:14And I think history is very important as an artist,
0:12:14 > 0:12:19that you learn from the past and take that and create your future.
0:12:19 > 0:12:23When we first started rehearsing, the dancers
0:12:23 > 0:12:28found it a bit of of a giggle, you know, and a little bit ridiculous.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31But once they got into the spirit of it, you know, it's great fun.
0:12:34 > 0:12:38I wonder if we could make it a little bit more sensual?
0:12:38 > 0:12:41'When I was young, 18, I saw Sheherazade'
0:12:41 > 0:12:45and I always dreamed about that Sheherazade and then I saw
0:12:45 > 0:12:49the casting here, that I'm doing Ballets Russes. I was amazed, happy.
0:12:51 > 0:12:56Michel Fokine set the story to Rimsky-Korsakov's thrilling score
0:12:56 > 0:12:59and Nijinsky, who by now was acknowledged as the greatest
0:12:59 > 0:13:03male dancer in the world, performed the role of the Golden Slave.
0:13:03 > 0:13:07Marie Rambert, who had a close working relationship with Nijinsky,
0:13:07 > 0:13:10recalls the impression he made on her.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13I can say definitely that I have never seen anybody like him,
0:13:13 > 0:13:17or anybody who made that tremendous impression that he made.
0:13:17 > 0:13:21Often people say, "Did he really jump so high?"
0:13:21 > 0:13:25And I always say, "I don't know how far from the ground,
0:13:25 > 0:13:27"but I know it was near the stars."
0:13:27 > 0:13:31Because of his phenomenal technique, some audiences believed he must be
0:13:31 > 0:13:35hanging from invisible wires, because he seemed to jump so high.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41Nijinsky was not a beautiful man. Nijinsky was a strange looking guy.
0:13:41 > 0:13:43Very thick, not much of a waist.
0:13:43 > 0:13:46Enormous thighs, which is where the jump came from.
0:13:46 > 0:13:52He was apparently an absolutely thrilling performer.
0:13:52 > 0:13:57What everyone attests to is what a great actor he was
0:13:57 > 0:14:02and how he had an uncanny ability to become emblematic.
0:14:42 > 0:14:44Nijinsky's partner in Sheherazade
0:14:44 > 0:14:48was the actress and dancer Ida Rubinstein,
0:14:48 > 0:14:52whom Diaghilev cannily retained more for her exotic value
0:14:52 > 0:14:55than her limited dancing ability.
0:14:55 > 0:14:57She paraded round Paris with a python on a lead
0:14:57 > 0:14:59and drank champagne out of lilies
0:14:59 > 0:15:02and that all got the French very stirred up and excited.
0:15:02 > 0:15:06Rubinstein was often called the Queen of Gesture!
0:15:10 > 0:15:14She wasn't a ballet dancer, but she was a wonderful presence.
0:15:14 > 0:15:16She had a beautiful body.
0:15:16 > 0:15:18It was about personality and temperament,
0:15:18 > 0:15:21and money in Ida Rubinstein's case, cos she had it!
0:15:21 > 0:15:26Which made it easier for her to have works in which she could star.
0:15:26 > 0:15:30But Diaghilev saw how valuable she could be and used her.
0:15:30 > 0:15:35He could use her languor, her sexuality,
0:15:35 > 0:15:37her sheer beauty and the glamour of that face.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41Very much like the sirens of the silent screen at the same time.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44The most sexy thing anybody had seen in Paris.
0:15:44 > 0:15:46You can imagine how excited they all were.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10The music is to do with Sinbad the Sailor,
0:16:10 > 0:16:13nothing to do with the oriental orgy that we see,
0:16:13 > 0:16:15the harem drama that happens on stage.
0:16:15 > 0:16:19So it's very imaginative, almost shocking musicality,
0:16:19 > 0:16:21if you analyse it, what Fokine chose to do.
0:16:21 > 0:16:25To say, "No, this ballet's going to be about another aspect
0:16:25 > 0:16:29"of the Arabian nights than the one that Rimsky thought he was telling."
0:16:29 > 0:16:31Fokine used that to experiment
0:16:31 > 0:16:35with a very new, for him, style of language,
0:16:35 > 0:16:42which was all about the rippling, undulating dynamic of Eastern dance.
0:16:57 > 0:17:00Sheherazade's exotic Oriental design
0:17:00 > 0:17:04was by Diaghilev's long-time collaborator, Leon Bakst.
0:17:04 > 0:17:08The design was one of the Ballet Russes' most impressive
0:17:08 > 0:17:11and the ballet influenced every elegant sitting room
0:17:11 > 0:17:13in Paris for years to come.
0:17:13 > 0:17:17After seeing Sheherazade, the writer Marcel Proust
0:17:17 > 0:17:21wrote to a friend saying he had never seen anything so beautiful.
0:17:21 > 0:17:29Bakst's influence on the whole world of design, interior decorating,
0:17:29 > 0:17:35fashion, was quite extraordinary and incredibly difficult to quantify.
0:17:35 > 0:17:41But I think that we live today with his influence in our lives,
0:17:41 > 0:17:45in our sense of colour, in our sense of pattern.
0:17:45 > 0:17:47I mean, he did outrageous things with pattern.
0:17:47 > 0:17:51He would put diamond pattern against check.
0:17:51 > 0:17:54He would do sort of zigzags against solid colour.
0:17:54 > 0:17:57It was mind-bending what he did.
0:18:04 > 0:18:09Before the war, no single designer was as important as Leon Bakst.
0:18:09 > 0:18:12He seemed to exult in this combination
0:18:12 > 0:18:15of eroticism and exoticism
0:18:15 > 0:18:18that accounted for so much of the success
0:18:18 > 0:18:20of so many of the ballets.
0:18:20 > 0:18:24And, of course, in Bakst's designs, when you see these breasts
0:18:24 > 0:18:26kind of overwhelming the designs,
0:18:26 > 0:18:29that there was a real kind of physical freedom.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34They still are the costumes that Bakst did today,
0:18:34 > 0:18:38just to look at them, they haven't lost any of their relevance
0:18:38 > 0:18:40and they're just incredible.
0:18:40 > 0:18:42An endless source of inspiration
0:18:42 > 0:18:45for both fashion designers, stylists, all of us.
0:18:51 > 0:18:55For me, he is the person who remains the true spirit
0:18:55 > 0:18:57of the Diaghilev ballet
0:18:57 > 0:19:01and he was the one who really brought it, artistically,
0:19:01 > 0:19:06to the forefront of people's minds and imaginations.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20After the spectacular success of Sheherazade,
0:19:20 > 0:19:23the choreographer Michel Fokine was then given the opportunity
0:19:23 > 0:19:27to collaborate with someone who was going to shape
0:19:27 > 0:19:29not only the future of the Ballet Russes,
0:19:29 > 0:19:33but the entire musical landscape of the 20th century -
0:19:33 > 0:19:35the young Russian composer, Igor Stravinsky.
0:19:35 > 0:19:40He and Fokine started to work on a new ballet The Firebird,
0:19:40 > 0:19:44the 27-year-old Stravinsky's first ballet score.
0:19:44 > 0:19:47Once Stravinsky and Diaghilev started to work together
0:19:47 > 0:19:48they were ideally matched
0:19:48 > 0:19:51because Diaghilev always wanted something new
0:19:51 > 0:19:54and Stravinsky wanted to reinvent himself every season.
0:20:10 > 0:20:12The young Stravinsky, unknown,
0:20:12 > 0:20:15no one knew what they were going to get from him.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18He was taught by Rimsky-Korsakov and so there's a sound
0:20:18 > 0:20:20of Rimsky-Korsakov in the orchestration.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23But then he goes way off piste and does his own thing.
0:20:41 > 0:20:46Firebird has many influences but the writing is exceptionally...
0:20:46 > 0:20:51For a young composer that was the first big score,
0:20:51 > 0:20:56the master writing of the orchestra is amazing.
0:20:56 > 0:21:00After that, Stravinsky will not be better.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04He will do other things but one cannot say
0:21:04 > 0:21:11that the orchestration of Rite Of Spring is better than Firebird -
0:21:11 > 0:21:12it's not true.
0:21:31 > 0:21:33The leading role of The Firebird
0:21:33 > 0:21:35was danced by Anna Pavlova's successor
0:21:35 > 0:21:39as the prima ballerina of the Ballets Russes, Tamara Karsavina.
0:21:39 > 0:21:43I loved it, I loved the sound of it, I was fascinated.
0:21:43 > 0:21:46It was very difficult
0:21:46 > 0:21:51and I never was one to count because it distracts my attention,
0:21:51 > 0:21:53I never counted the bars.
0:21:53 > 0:21:56Stravinsky was very kind.
0:21:56 > 0:21:58He would come before the rehearsal
0:21:58 > 0:22:02and play the piano for me to explain all the different parts.
0:22:02 > 0:22:04And then it became a great help for me.
0:22:24 > 0:22:26Following the success of The Firebird,
0:22:26 > 0:22:31Stravinsky and Fokine's next collaboration Petrouchka,
0:22:31 > 0:22:34was set in an 1830's St Petersburg winter fair.
0:22:34 > 0:22:36First performed in 1911,
0:22:36 > 0:22:39Fokine created a juicy lead role for Nijinsky
0:22:39 > 0:22:43whose interpretation of the tormented puppet
0:22:43 > 0:22:47was considered to be one of the greatest roles of his career.
0:23:03 > 0:23:09With Petrouchka, it was already something much more shaking
0:23:09 > 0:23:14with the music and the kind of mixture of music 'savant',
0:23:14 > 0:23:16as say say, music of people
0:23:16 > 0:23:20who know how to write and popular music.
0:23:39 > 0:23:42Although the Fokine/Stravinsky collaboration
0:23:42 > 0:23:45had already produced two enduring ballets,
0:23:45 > 0:23:48Diaghilev, always challenging pre-conceptions,
0:23:48 > 0:23:52was anxious to try Nijinsky - now his lover - as a choreographer,
0:23:52 > 0:23:53wanting to give the ballet world
0:23:53 > 0:23:56another jolt along his modernist path.
0:23:59 > 0:24:03Diaghilev realised that at all costs he had to hang onto Stravinsky,
0:24:03 > 0:24:07but he dumped Fokine as the chief choreographer of the Ballets Russes.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10It's very hard to understand why or how
0:24:10 > 0:24:13Nijinsky became choreographer.
0:24:13 > 0:24:18In none of his works did he use conventional ballet technique.
0:24:18 > 0:24:22The movement was very strange and radical for ballet dancers,
0:24:22 > 0:24:24and so he was not popular with dancers.
0:24:24 > 0:24:27Most of them absolutely loathed his choreography.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30Hated it. Thought it made them look terrible,
0:24:30 > 0:24:32felt that it was impossible to learn,
0:24:32 > 0:24:35felt that he was making ballet ugly.
0:24:35 > 0:24:40But as for why he wanted these unballetic movements...
0:24:40 > 0:24:42He was an experimentalist.
0:24:42 > 0:24:44Why did Picasso do what he did?
0:24:44 > 0:24:48Why did Picasso put the woman's nose in her armpit?
0:24:53 > 0:24:57Designed by Leon Bakst, Nijinsky's first ballet was a simple story
0:24:57 > 0:25:01of an adolescent faun responding to a group of nymphs
0:25:01 > 0:25:02appearing out of a forest.
0:25:15 > 0:25:18The whole action was from one wing to the other.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21It was a very difficult position to hold.
0:25:21 > 0:25:25Feet both parallel were going in one direction
0:25:25 > 0:25:27and the body was facing the audience
0:25:27 > 0:25:31and the arms were facing the audience but you walked on one line.
0:25:31 > 0:25:36But at that time one only had learned the classical technique,
0:25:36 > 0:25:41so it's more astonishing that Nijinsky should have been able
0:25:41 > 0:25:43to think out a new position
0:25:43 > 0:25:48in which he wanted to do the movements and move in them.
0:25:58 > 0:26:02Rather than being teamed up with Stravinsky immediately,
0:26:02 > 0:26:03Diaghilev and Nijinsky
0:26:03 > 0:26:06chose an existing and melodic score by Debussy.
0:26:13 > 0:26:17His music was still radical but in a nice way
0:26:17 > 0:26:21and not in the brutal way of Stravinsky.
0:26:21 > 0:26:26And therefore it was less noticed, especially L'Apres-midi d'un Faune.
0:26:26 > 0:26:30The work of Debussy was known for a long time already,
0:26:30 > 0:26:33the Debussy piece was performed 1894.
0:26:33 > 0:26:37So that was no problem at all to listen to this piece of Debussy.
0:26:40 > 0:26:43From our perspective it seems pretty.
0:26:43 > 0:26:46In fact, it would not have seemed pretty
0:26:46 > 0:26:48when Debussy was doing what he was doing.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51He was being deliberately mischievous.
0:26:51 > 0:26:54He wanted to create an atmosphere of sensuality.
0:26:54 > 0:26:57If you went to a concert in your best bib and tucker
0:26:57 > 0:27:00you did not expect to your senses tingled
0:27:00 > 0:27:02in the way Debussy had in mind.
0:27:06 > 0:27:08Diaghilev knew what was good for business.
0:27:08 > 0:27:10Quite often the theme was sex.
0:27:10 > 0:27:13The big scandalous example is L'Apres-midi d'un Faune
0:27:13 > 0:27:16where a faun wakes and for the first time discovers sensual adventure.
0:27:16 > 0:27:18For the first time he sees nymphs,
0:27:18 > 0:27:20can't get anywhere even with the leading nymph.
0:27:20 > 0:27:22He has a very striking duet with her
0:27:22 > 0:27:24but it doesn't quite lead to eroticism.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28So when she's gone he satisfies himself with her scarf
0:27:28 > 0:27:31and has this extraordinary gesture of fetishism
0:27:31 > 0:27:35where he lies down on her scarf and achieves satisfaction that way.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38End of ballet - shock, horror!
0:27:38 > 0:27:41The business at the end, that was something else!
0:27:41 > 0:27:45Getting up the stairs and getting out the thing
0:27:45 > 0:27:47and lying on it, and the hands at the end.
0:27:47 > 0:27:49It was...
0:27:49 > 0:27:50Quite something.
0:27:50 > 0:27:53When I saw it for the first time I thought,
0:27:53 > 0:27:56"Oooh! This is a bit much but there you are."
0:28:23 > 0:28:27That certainly was very shocking.
0:28:27 > 0:28:30The ending and the scandal that that provoked
0:28:30 > 0:28:33clouded the rest of the ballet.
0:28:37 > 0:28:42The scandal created by Afternoon Of A Faun naturally delighted Diaghilev
0:28:42 > 0:28:46and gave fresh impetus to their European touring schedule.
0:28:46 > 0:28:50Barcelona was one of their stop offs and English National Ballet
0:28:50 > 0:28:53have brought their Ballet Russes programme here.
0:28:53 > 0:28:57Artistic director Wayne Eagling wanted to celebrate the Ballet Russes
0:28:57 > 0:29:00in a way in which Diaghilev would have approved.
0:29:00 > 0:29:03I wanted to celebrate the 100th anniversary
0:29:03 > 0:29:06of the Ballet Russes in Paris.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09But also I wanted to celebrate that fact that we are
0:29:09 > 0:29:14a direct descendant of this phenomena that Diaghilev created.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18I wanted what Diaghilev would have done, something brand new.
0:29:23 > 0:29:26Choreographing his own version of Afternoon Of A Faun
0:29:26 > 0:29:28for English National Ballet,
0:29:28 > 0:29:31was David Dawson's way of paying his homage to Nijinsky.
0:29:31 > 0:29:35The Ballet Russes represents, to me,
0:29:35 > 0:29:38the reason to be creative because their works live 100 years later
0:29:38 > 0:29:41and everyone is still talking about them.
0:29:43 > 0:29:46The beginning of Faun when you hear the first note,
0:29:46 > 0:29:50he's busy for 100 years just dancing throughout all these shapes
0:29:50 > 0:29:53and then, 100 years later, we hear that music again.
0:29:53 > 0:29:54PIANO PLAYS A NOTE
0:29:54 > 0:30:00Ding... And it's like that 100 years goes boom!
0:30:05 > 0:30:09Raphael is an older dancer and Esteban is a younger dancer so
0:30:09 > 0:30:15this narrative became an afternoon of a dancer's life almost.
0:30:15 > 0:30:18The career being something you've learnt so much,
0:30:18 > 0:30:20you have all your information,
0:30:20 > 0:30:24and once you get to that point where you know everything,
0:30:24 > 0:30:25your body gives up on you,
0:30:25 > 0:30:29but passing on that information to a younger dancer and saying,
0:30:29 > 0:30:33"Now they're your public for the next 15 years."
0:30:40 > 0:30:45I decided to use two pianos because I wanted the music to be more sober,
0:30:45 > 0:30:49less emotional in the sense of it being so dramatic.
0:30:49 > 0:30:53So, colourful, more private, actually, more intimate.
0:31:32 > 0:31:38You've got this very hot, hazy, drowsy, sexy atmosphere
0:31:38 > 0:31:42that's about sexual fascination.
0:31:42 > 0:31:44It feels completely 21st Century
0:31:44 > 0:31:49and yet it's absolutely redolent with dance history.
0:31:57 > 0:32:01Whilst Nijinsky's choreography for Afternoon Of A Faun
0:32:01 > 0:32:03may have challenged Parisian audiences,
0:32:03 > 0:32:07it did little to prepare them for his first collaboration with Stravinsky,
0:32:07 > 0:32:09the now infamous Rite Of Spring.
0:32:09 > 0:32:13It was this work, based around a pagan ritual,
0:32:13 > 0:32:17with it's anti-ballet dance vocabulary and unimaginable music,
0:32:17 > 0:32:21that caused the famous riot in Paris on the opening night
0:32:21 > 0:32:24at the Theatre des Champs Elysees in 1913.
0:32:24 > 0:32:29As the ballet took shape, Diaghilev, nervous of what his two star talents
0:32:29 > 0:32:33might come up with, was anxious to hear Stravinsky's music.
0:32:35 > 0:32:41'I started to play him these chords, 59 times the same chord.
0:32:41 > 0:32:46'Diaghilev was a little bit surprised.'
0:32:46 > 0:32:49He didn't want to offend me.
0:32:49 > 0:32:54He asked me only one thing which was very offending.
0:32:54 > 0:32:58He asked me, "Will this last a very long time this way?"
0:32:58 > 0:33:02And I said, "To the end, my dear."
0:33:04 > 0:33:09And he was silent because he understood
0:33:09 > 0:33:12that the answer was serious.
0:33:18 > 0:33:20Clearly Diaghilev had second thoughts
0:33:20 > 0:33:23about the Rite Of Spring, about its complexity.
0:33:23 > 0:33:27Even he, I think, must have been shocked when he began hearing
0:33:27 > 0:33:30some of Stravinsky's musical sketches.
0:33:33 > 0:33:36One of the remarkable things about The Rite Of Spring
0:33:36 > 0:33:37is that it's still shocking
0:33:37 > 0:33:39now, nearly 100 years later.
0:33:39 > 0:33:43Now, there are very few things that ever occur in art or any other field
0:33:43 > 0:33:46which are still shocking 100 years later.
0:33:46 > 0:33:49Lady Chatterley's Lover, to the modern reader... Big deal.
0:33:49 > 0:33:53But the Rite Of Spring, when you hear it, is still very challenging.
0:33:53 > 0:33:58The irregularity of the rhythms, especially of some dance,
0:33:58 > 0:34:04not always, but of some dances, with four, five, three, two beats.
0:34:04 > 0:34:09That's really very... At this time it was absolutely new.
0:34:11 > 0:34:13Stravinsky's score was so complex
0:34:13 > 0:34:16and the dancers were having such difficulties
0:34:16 > 0:34:20interpreting Nijinsky's choreography that they clearly needed help.
0:34:22 > 0:34:26Diaghilev hired Marie Rambert, who not only performed in the ballet,
0:34:26 > 0:34:29but because of her highly developed musicality
0:34:29 > 0:34:32helped the dancers with the unusual music and movement.
0:34:32 > 0:34:34Up to then,
0:34:34 > 0:34:38the ballet used to dance mostly, in general, say in Moscow
0:34:38 > 0:34:43they danced to the music of Rimsky-Korsakov.
0:34:43 > 0:34:45Ech-ta-ta, ech-ta-ta, ech-ta-ta. Ech-ta...
0:34:45 > 0:34:50It wasn't even called Ech-ta-ta. That is quite obvious rhythms.
0:34:50 > 0:34:52And here came the score of Sacre
0:34:52 > 0:34:57where you had to count two against three or three against four.
0:34:57 > 0:35:00And then suddenly a crochet equalled a quaver.
0:35:08 > 0:35:10They took her as an assistant for Nijinsky
0:35:10 > 0:35:13to help him analyse the score of Stravinsky
0:35:13 > 0:35:15and to organise rehearsals.
0:35:15 > 0:35:18But she became something other.
0:35:18 > 0:35:21She really became his comrade in arms.
0:35:21 > 0:35:24She understood the resistance of the dancers.
0:35:24 > 0:35:30She tried to tease them out of their resistance because they loved her.
0:35:30 > 0:35:34It was at this time that Madame Rambert saved our lives,
0:35:34 > 0:35:37at least she saved the lives of many people.
0:35:37 > 0:35:40We used to run around with little pieces of paper
0:35:40 > 0:35:44with all the accents written down and stamping round and stamp again.
0:35:44 > 0:35:48And she was always there to interpret.
0:35:48 > 0:35:52Nijinsky said, "This can't be quicker, this can't be slower.
0:35:52 > 0:35:54"I know what the dancers can do,"
0:35:54 > 0:35:56There was an epic battle between them.
0:35:56 > 0:36:00Stravinsky sat at the piano and tried to make an orchestra,
0:36:00 > 0:36:05he stamped with his feet and banged with his hands on the piano here
0:36:05 > 0:36:09and there and shouted and sang and so on. I can't remember who won!
0:36:23 > 0:36:26Le Sacre Du Printemps is really going into anthropology,
0:36:26 > 0:36:28it's as if Nijinsky and Stravinsky are saying,
0:36:28 > 0:36:31"You thought the Polovetsian dances was primitive,
0:36:31 > 0:36:33"we'll show you real primitives
0:36:33 > 0:36:36"and we'll go back before there was society."
0:36:56 > 0:36:59He was not using relying upon what the dancers knew.
0:36:59 > 0:37:02In other words, what they did in the studio
0:37:02 > 0:37:06or what they'd done in Fokine ballets or Petipa ballets.
0:37:06 > 0:37:10So he had to fight the habits of the body.
0:37:18 > 0:37:21His dancers' feet weren't pointed or turned out,
0:37:21 > 0:37:23they were pigeon-toed, flexed feet.
0:37:23 > 0:37:27There was no attempt to make graceful and beautiful lines.
0:37:27 > 0:37:30Everything was stark and fraught and primitive.
0:37:55 > 0:37:57As the ballet progressed,
0:37:57 > 0:38:01the first night audience started to voice their displeasure.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04Although there are conflicting accounts of the scale of the riot,
0:38:04 > 0:38:08the aggressive atmosphere created by constant heckling
0:38:08 > 0:38:11made it extremely challenging for the dancers on stage.
0:38:15 > 0:38:18Diaghilev in advance said "Whatever happens
0:38:18 > 0:38:21"the conductor must go on playing and we go on dancing."
0:38:21 > 0:38:25It was terribly difficult to hear the orchestra
0:38:25 > 0:38:27because of all that noise in the audience.
0:38:27 > 0:38:31Nijinsky stood in the wings counting out - one, two, three,
0:38:31 > 0:38:35one, two, one, two, three, one, two, one, two, three.
0:38:43 > 0:38:46She had to stand for perhaps 17 and a half bars
0:38:46 > 0:38:49or 13 and a quarter bars on the spot
0:38:49 > 0:38:54with her feet turned in, hands under her chin and trembling like that.
0:38:54 > 0:39:01So somebody in the audience, from the gallery, shouted, "Un Doctor!"
0:39:01 > 0:39:04And somebody else shouted, "Un Dentiste!"
0:39:04 > 0:39:06Somebody else shouted, "Deux Dentiste!"
0:39:06 > 0:39:10Of course lots of people laughed, others shrieked.
0:39:10 > 0:39:13The pandemonium was absolutely terrible.
0:39:25 > 0:39:29People like to think that the premiere was a spontaneous riot -
0:39:29 > 0:39:30it wasn't at all!
0:39:30 > 0:39:32Diaghilev spent five weeks hard
0:39:32 > 0:39:35preparing the Parisians to hate this work.
0:39:35 > 0:39:38And though there are various stories of how he reacted,
0:39:38 > 0:39:42some of them say he wept and recited Pushkin in tragedy
0:39:42 > 0:39:45when Le Sacre Du Printemps seemed to be a fiasco.
0:39:45 > 0:39:47Stravinsky said not at all,
0:39:47 > 0:39:50"He took us out for a good dinner, Nijinsky and me,
0:39:50 > 0:39:52"and said, 'Just what I wanted.'"
0:39:56 > 0:39:57The drama of The Rite of Spring
0:39:57 > 0:40:02was quickly followed by upheaval in Diaghilev's personal life.
0:40:02 > 0:40:06In 1913 his lover Nijinsky married Hungarian socialite,
0:40:06 > 0:40:10Romola de Pulszky after a whirlwind shipboard romance
0:40:10 > 0:40:13on route to perform in South America.
0:40:13 > 0:40:14She was known as a company groupie
0:40:14 > 0:40:17and booked a cabin on the ship that was carrying them.
0:40:17 > 0:40:22Diaghilev, superstitious about travelling on water,
0:40:22 > 0:40:26had decided fatefully not to make the journey.
0:40:26 > 0:40:30Although his relationship with Nijinsky had been cooling,
0:40:30 > 0:40:33Diaghilev flew into a rage on hearing the news
0:40:33 > 0:40:36and a short time later impulsively fired Nijinsky
0:40:36 > 0:40:38from the Ballet Russes.
0:40:38 > 0:40:43Nijinsky wrote to Stravinsky and said, "I can't believe that Serge
0:40:43 > 0:40:46"wants to get rid of me.
0:40:46 > 0:40:49"If that is true then I have lost everything."
0:40:49 > 0:40:53I believe that he didn't know and he did lost everything.
0:40:59 > 0:41:05With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes struggled to keep going.
0:41:05 > 0:41:08Although they continued to tour Europe and danced
0:41:08 > 0:41:12all over North and South America, these were difficult years.
0:41:13 > 0:41:19The artistic highlight was the ballet Parade which premiered in Paris in 1917.
0:41:19 > 0:41:25It was choreographed by Leonid Massine, a young character dancer
0:41:25 > 0:41:29brought in by Diaghilev as a replacement for Nijinsky.
0:41:29 > 0:41:34Now also Diaghilev's lover, he was no match for Nijinsky as a dancer
0:41:34 > 0:41:37but was emerging as a genuine choreographic talent.
0:41:42 > 0:41:49The libretto was by the French avant-garde artist Jean Cocteau and the score by Erik Satie.
0:41:49 > 0:41:53Parade was also Pablo Picasso's first design for Diaghilev.
0:41:53 > 0:41:57He knows about Diaghilev through Cocteau.
0:41:57 > 0:42:02They met in Rome in 1917 to work on Parade.
0:42:02 > 0:42:06But at that time he had never made something like that, that's for sure.
0:42:06 > 0:42:11He's happy to attach himself to the Diaghilev ballet and make four works
0:42:11 > 0:42:14over four years, and this becomes a great vehicle for him.
0:42:14 > 0:42:19It's not just that he uses it, he can make radical cubist designs
0:42:19 > 0:42:25for Parade that changed everybody's idea of what is possible in costuming in dance theatre.
0:42:25 > 0:42:29Nobody else has done anything quite so wacky since.
0:42:29 > 0:42:34But he, like Stravinsky, is taking ideas both of modernist art
0:42:34 > 0:42:37and classical art from what he can see in the ballet.
0:42:37 > 0:42:40It was publicised as the world's first cubist ballet.
0:42:40 > 0:42:45It was this total cubist collage of images, which the dancers could barely walk in.
0:42:48 > 0:42:52Picasso was already an established artist and he used his authority
0:42:52 > 0:42:56to steer the production into uncharted territory.
0:42:58 > 0:43:02What he said went. He said, "I want to have these impossible to dance in,
0:43:02 > 0:43:07"enormous skyscraper costumes of the American manager and the European manager.
0:43:07 > 0:43:14"And then we'll have some very modernistic costumes, which are the two acrobats painted
0:43:14 > 0:43:16"with these blue arabesques."
0:43:16 > 0:43:19And then there was the Chinese conjuror
0:43:19 > 0:43:21which of course was the part that Massine took.
0:43:21 > 0:43:24It must have been very much a mish-mash.
0:43:30 > 0:43:37It wasn't only the design of Parade that pushed the boundaries of the ballet, the music was also radical.
0:43:37 > 0:43:40The composer Erik Satie was encouraged by Cocteau
0:43:40 > 0:43:44to use naturalistic sounds that echoed the cubist theme.
0:43:49 > 0:43:55He brought in sounds that were not musical and put them in, like typewriters.
0:43:55 > 0:43:57This idea of sampling sounds
0:43:57 > 0:44:00from other parts that aren't musical and putting them into the music
0:44:00 > 0:44:05and giving them rhythm, that idea - which turned into sampling - is something that we
0:44:05 > 0:44:11in the modern world live with, it's an absolutely normal part of all popular and classical music.
0:44:12 > 0:44:18The overambitious Parade was a flop with audiences but Diaghilev was soon
0:44:18 > 0:44:23busily pursuing his ambition to persuade another big name artist to design a ballet,
0:44:23 > 0:44:25Henri Matisse.
0:44:28 > 0:44:34If you got the call to design a ballet for Diaghilev, you were thrilled to do it.
0:44:34 > 0:44:40It wasn't that you would be paid a great deal of money but there was a real desire
0:44:40 > 0:44:44to be associated with the Diaghilev ballets.
0:44:44 > 0:44:47However, Matisse proved to be a tougher proposition than most.
0:44:47 > 0:44:53In typically bullish fashion, Diaghilev lured Matisse to London to work on the designs for the next
0:44:53 > 0:44:59Massine/Stravinsky collaboration, Le Chant du Rossignol - The Song Of The Nightingale.
0:44:59 > 0:45:04He was literally kidnapped. They were putting you up at the Savoy and you stay until the decor's done.
0:45:04 > 0:45:06Later, when he looked back on it,
0:45:06 > 0:45:11Matisse could remember vividly those feelings of rancour and fury and rage
0:45:11 > 0:45:14and the wish to beat his head against the wall and the floor.
0:45:14 > 0:45:20But he also recognised that Diaghilev had made him do something that he never would've dreamed of.
0:45:22 > 0:45:261921 proved to be a difficult year for Diaghilev.
0:45:26 > 0:45:28With echoes of Nijinsky's sacking,
0:45:28 > 0:45:32he fired Massine after the young dancer and choreographer had fallen
0:45:32 > 0:45:34in love with one of the company's dancers.
0:45:34 > 0:45:41Into the void stepped 17-year-old Boris Kochno, who, not as a dancer or a choreographer,
0:45:41 > 0:45:46but as his personal secretary, was to become central to Diaghilev's life.
0:45:46 > 0:45:50In the same year the company suffered one of its biggest artistic
0:45:50 > 0:45:56and financial failures with a lavish production of The Sleeping Princess.
0:45:56 > 0:46:02The fall out left Diaghilev diving into cabs to dodge creditors.
0:46:02 > 0:46:06But with a new year came a new opportunity.
0:46:06 > 0:46:10Monte Carlo had always been a favourite touring date for the company
0:46:10 > 0:46:14and in 1922 Diaghilev sensed an opportunity to establish himself
0:46:14 > 0:46:18there following the death of Albert Prince of Monaco.
0:46:18 > 0:46:24One of his long time backers, the Princess de Polignac, the Singer sewing machine heiress,
0:46:24 > 0:46:28was related to the new Prince Louis II and Diaghilev secured
0:46:28 > 0:46:33financial backing to locate his company in Monte Carlo for six months of the year.
0:46:33 > 0:46:39He now focussed his efforts on getting Stravinsky to finish his score for the ballet Les Noces
0:46:39 > 0:46:43on which the composer had been working on and off for almost eight years.
0:46:51 > 0:46:54Stravinsky wrote it on a long period of time.
0:46:54 > 0:46:58Much longer than anything else he wrote
0:46:58 > 0:47:03and this instrumental combination he used
0:47:03 > 0:47:06was so, um, exceptional,
0:47:06 > 0:47:13that I can understand that he hesitated quite a lot before choosing the final combination.
0:47:28 > 0:47:34Stravinsky had conceived it really right after the Rite Of Spring
0:47:34 > 0:47:39and it was initially to have a huge orchestra like The Rite Of Spring.
0:47:39 > 0:47:44It was about another Russian ritual, a peasant wedding.
0:47:44 > 0:47:47It went through numerous changes and every time it
0:47:47 > 0:47:50went through another change the orchestration would change.
0:47:50 > 0:47:56It ends up having four pianos and percussion and voice.
0:48:02 > 0:48:06What he's doing with the music is he's taking sounds, percussion sounds,
0:48:06 > 0:48:09and pianos, jingly-jangly sounds,
0:48:09 > 0:48:12and bringing in voices like they're instruments.
0:48:12 > 0:48:16So they're declaiming and sometimes speaking, sometimes doing rhythm.
0:48:16 > 0:48:17Almost like rap.
0:48:17 > 0:48:24Stravinsky's music may have been radical, but Diaghilev wanted a design to reflect the simple theme
0:48:24 > 0:48:27and appointed the Russian artist Natalia Gontcherova.
0:48:27 > 0:48:31The choreography was by Nijinsky's sister, Bronislava Nijinska,
0:48:31 > 0:48:34a talented choreographer in her own right.
0:48:34 > 0:48:41Diaghilev wanted it to be very Russian, very Russian peasant wedding, and so Gontcherova.
0:48:41 > 0:48:45And Gontcherova did these first designs.
0:48:45 > 0:48:48Incredibly colourful.
0:48:48 > 0:48:52Nijinsky looked at them and sort of said, "Nyet, nyet, nyet"
0:48:52 > 0:48:58So Gontcherova went back again and did another series of designs,
0:48:58 > 0:49:03which were more muted and not nearly so colourful.
0:49:03 > 0:49:08And so the dancers ended up wearing long brown dresses and they had these
0:49:08 > 0:49:11extraordinary wigs with very long plaits.
0:49:19 > 0:49:22So here you have one of those collaborations
0:49:22 > 0:49:27that wasn't perhaps that successful a collaboration,
0:49:27 > 0:49:29but turned out to produce a wonderful work.
0:49:29 > 0:49:32One of the great works of the Diaghilev period.
0:49:32 > 0:49:38Nijinska decided she wanted to stage this formal vision of a peasant community,
0:49:38 > 0:49:41but she also wanted to elongate them like icons.
0:49:41 > 0:49:44So to give them that elongation, she put all the women on to point.
0:49:44 > 0:49:46It's a very stylised form a point work.
0:49:46 > 0:49:51Their legs are parallel, not turned out as in conventional ballet.
0:49:51 > 0:49:55And the movements of the feet have a kind of hobbled quality, without any
0:49:55 > 0:49:59of the expansiveness that we associate with ballet.
0:49:59 > 0:50:04A very cramped type of movement, which says so much about the peasant community.
0:50:46 > 0:50:50As we've seen, Diaghilev's genius was not only in searching out
0:50:50 > 0:50:52the hottest talent to work for his company,
0:50:52 > 0:50:55but also in keeping the money flowing.
0:50:55 > 0:51:00There were groups of supporters in Paris like Misia Sert,
0:51:00 > 0:51:04the Princesse de Polignac, who were very, very close to Diaghilev.
0:51:04 > 0:51:07Through Misia Sert he meets Gabrielle Chanel,
0:51:07 > 0:51:12who puts up the money for the revival of the Rite of Spring.
0:51:12 > 0:51:15Gabrielle Chanel, better known as Coco Chanel, overheard one
0:51:15 > 0:51:20of those fraught financial conversations that Diaghilev must have had a thousand times.
0:51:20 > 0:51:23Diaghilev was close to tears.
0:51:23 > 0:51:28Chanel didn't open her mouth. She left Misia at her house,
0:51:28 > 0:51:32went to to her house and there made a cheque,
0:51:32 > 0:51:36took an envelope with a cheque inside,
0:51:36 > 0:51:40went to the hotel of Diaghilev and said to the porter,
0:51:40 > 0:51:43"Would you please give that to Mr Diaghilev when you see him?"
0:51:43 > 0:51:46And the porter says, "Could I have your name?"
0:51:46 > 0:51:50"No, no, it's no use. I don't have to give my name.
0:51:50 > 0:51:52"Just give the envelope."
0:51:52 > 0:51:56It was the money to do the whole chorus, the whole ballet.
0:51:56 > 0:52:01When she met him through Misia Sert and her husband,
0:52:01 > 0:52:03they were on the border of bankruptcy,
0:52:03 > 0:52:07but that was nothing new for them. It happened very often.
0:52:07 > 0:52:13Coco Chanel links to Diaghilev's ballets Russes were not only as a benefactor.
0:52:13 > 0:52:17In 1924 she designed the chic costumes for the ballet
0:52:17 > 0:52:20Le Train Bleu, named after the luxurious train
0:52:20 > 0:52:23that took people from Paris to Deauville on the Normandy coast.
0:52:23 > 0:52:28Diaghilev was anxious for a vehicle to show off his new star,
0:52:28 > 0:52:34Anton Dolin, a prodigiously talented young English dancer with whom he's fallen in love.
0:52:34 > 0:52:39Jean Cocteau produced a libretto that highlighted Dolin's physical prowess.
0:52:40 > 0:52:46In 1924, Chanel designed costumes for a ballet called the famous Train Bleu.
0:52:47 > 0:52:52If you look at photos from people on the beach, they have this kind of beachwear.
0:52:52 > 0:52:55I think she was perfectly right for her times for it is better
0:52:55 > 0:52:59than to be ahead of the time because it then you are nowhere.
0:52:59 > 0:53:02You have to be of the moment and Chanel was a woman of the moment.
0:53:02 > 0:53:08You could pull some of those pieces today out of the archive and wear them with a great pair
0:53:08 > 0:53:13of Givenchy boots or something and they would look really relevant and contemporary.
0:53:13 > 0:53:17The idea of using the theatre or the red carpet of the world
0:53:17 > 0:53:20of film to promote your work, and Chanel maybe was ahead of her time,
0:53:20 > 0:53:25or maybe we don't realise how clever she was because she was probably one of the first
0:53:25 > 0:53:26to be doing that.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30In the same year the young Russian dancer and budding choreographer
0:53:30 > 0:53:34George Balanchine arrived in Paris with three other members
0:53:34 > 0:53:38of a small dance troupe after abandoning Soviet Russia.
0:53:39 > 0:53:45Diaghilev was in need always of fresh dancers and because of the revolution
0:53:45 > 0:53:50they were not a lot of dancers coming out of Russia at that point.
0:53:50 > 0:53:54So he heard four dancers, you know, one of them choreographs, that sounded good to him.
0:53:54 > 0:53:59Diaghilev realises, sees the talent, feels the talent
0:53:59 > 0:54:05and basically allows Balanchine an apprenticeship that was extraordinary.
0:54:05 > 0:54:07Balanchine said, "I had two educations.
0:54:07 > 0:54:11"One was really my dance education that I got in Russia
0:54:11 > 0:54:15"and then there was my artistic education, almost all of which I got from Diaghilev."
0:54:15 > 0:54:20He took me to museums and sometimes would leave me hungry, while he and his friends went out to lunch
0:54:20 > 0:54:24and would leave me in front of this painting by Veronese or whatever
0:54:24 > 0:54:28and say, "What did you think?", when they came back after a good lunch.
0:54:28 > 0:54:32Balanchine had simply been left in the museum to look at this painting.
0:54:32 > 0:54:34But that way, of course, bit by bit, you learn.
0:54:37 > 0:54:41Diaghilev trusts him with bigger and bigger projects
0:54:41 > 0:54:45and then Diaghilev discovers Lifar, whom he's madly in love with
0:54:45 > 0:54:53and who is his new star, cos he created stars, and he started having Balanchine create ballets for Lifar.
0:54:53 > 0:55:00The first of Balanchine's ballets for Lifar was Apollo in which he danced with Alexandra Danilova.
0:55:00 > 0:55:05Apollo redefined ballet's choreographic language for the 20th century.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09The pas de deux, for instance in Apollo, is terribly inventive.
0:55:09 > 0:55:17When you look at that ballerina swimming on the back of her prince, of her god, how wonderful!
0:55:17 > 0:55:19I mean how inventive.
0:55:36 > 0:55:40It was the ballet that taught him to take away rather than to add,
0:55:40 > 0:55:44to have one thing, one tone, one vocabulary
0:55:44 > 0:55:50that suited the music because with Balanchine music always came first
0:55:50 > 0:55:56and he knew it was a key work and everybody knew Apollo was great.
0:55:56 > 0:56:04Apollo premiered in Paris in 1928 with another striking score by Stravinsky.
0:56:19 > 0:56:26Although Balanchine got the most extraordinary opportunities from Diaghlev,
0:56:26 > 0:56:30absolutely career-forming opportunities,
0:56:30 > 0:56:37and created some very, very important ballets, notably Apollo for Diaghilev,
0:56:37 > 0:56:42there was a sense in which Balanchine was always his own man.
0:56:46 > 0:56:50Balanchine was to be the last of Diaghilev's great discoveries.
0:56:54 > 0:56:59Diaghilev's punishing lifestyle and his diabetes eventually caught up with him
0:56:59 > 0:57:07and his early death in Venice aged 57 on the 19th August 1929 brought Ballets Russes to a grinding halt.
0:57:08 > 0:57:15Within weeks the company started to disband and without Diaghilev drive it simply ran out of steam.
0:57:18 > 0:57:23The strength of Diaghilev's legacy is hard to overstate
0:57:23 > 0:57:29and the lineage of many of today's dance companies can be directly linked to those 20 glorious years.
0:57:29 > 0:57:32For a lot of people working in the theatre and the wider arts,
0:57:32 > 0:57:35Diaghilev is kind of the gold standard, you know?
0:57:35 > 0:57:40He's the legend that we all speak about with hushed tones.
0:57:40 > 0:57:46The emphasis on creativity, that dance is not something that is just mired in a convention
0:57:46 > 0:57:51or in tradition, but that the tradition can indeed keep reinventing itself.
0:57:53 > 0:58:00He stands there as a vision of what a man could accomplish in art who was not himself an artist.
0:58:00 > 0:58:04From an art form ridiculed at the start of the 20th century,
0:58:04 > 0:58:08Serge Diaghilev's ballets Russes transformed ballet.
0:58:08 > 0:58:12Collaborations between artists working in different disciplines
0:58:12 > 0:58:14is the norm now in contemporary dance.
0:58:14 > 0:58:19Artists working alongside choreographers, composers collaborating with designers,
0:58:19 > 0:58:23dancers performing with musicians - all this creative cross-fertilisation
0:58:23 > 0:58:31inspired by Diaghilev's revolution, has underpinned ballet to create what is now a thriving art form.
0:58:31 > 0:58:35100 years later, we see how dance, music and art continues
0:58:35 > 0:58:40to be indebted to the taste and tenacity of this great impresario.
0:58:50 > 0:58:52Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:52 > 0:58:54Email subtitling@bbc.co.uk