This is the one that upset the apple cart.
Igor Stravinsky’s first two ballets for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, The Firebird and Petrushka, were enthusiastically received by the Parisian audience, but nothing prepared them for The Rite of Spring. The more fashionable of them thought they were being ridiculed (and so did many members of the orchestra). The more Bohemian types, in the cheaper seats, were only too happy to encourage their outrage. Things quickly turned into a near riot.
Such was the debut of Le Sacre du Printemps, which will close out our series of the three early ballets scored by Stravinsky in the years before World War I on this Sunday’ s program.
