| "The pagans on-stage made pagans of the audience." | | | | confrontational, un-Spring-like, chaotic and - at times - |
| - Thomas Kelly, on the premiere of The Rite of | | | | ugly and contorted as the music. A series of ritualistic |
| Spring | | | | settings depicting fertility rites in an imaginary pagan |
| Ninety-six years ago on May 29th 1913 at the | | | | Russia further outraged an audience more |
| Théatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, | | | | accustomed to the tranquillity and conventionality |
| the most infamous opening-night scandal occurred | | | | ofSwan Lake. |
| when Les Ballets Russes staged the first | | | | By intermission, the police were called in to restore |
| performance of The Rite of Spring - a ballet with | | | | order amongst an audience divided as to whether |
| music by the young Russian composer Igor | | | | they were witnessing genius or heresy. The furore |
| Stravinsky and choreographed by Vaslav Nijinksy. | | | | worsened in the second half culminating in full-scale |
| Before the evening was over, the audience - | | | | riot as the jerky, profane, Wicker Man-like "sacrificial |
| primevally provoked by the brutal, rhythmic music | | | | dance" finale unfolded. The pandemonium was such |
| and primitive dance - would erupt in riot. Literally | | | | that the orchestra couldn't hear itself play and the |
| taking what Longinus had written in the first century | | | | dancers couldn't hear the orchestra. Nijinsky stood in |
| of the common era in his treatise, On the Sublime - | | | | the wings frantically shouting instructions to the |
| that art should arouse emotion, pleasingly "rape' the | | | | dancers. The Ballets Russes director attempted to |
| soul, and the reader or listener's response is | | | | diffuse the situation by flicking the house lights on |
| necessary to 'complete' the art - the usually | | | | and off (why he thought that would help I'm not |
| respectful Parisian crowd responded by whistling, | | | | sure; a heavily 'shroomed Julian and I once employed |
| booing, hissing, shouting, fist-fighting and cane-hitting | | | | the same bizarre tactics when there was a knock at |
| one another in the aisles and perhaps even (if we are | | | | our door and we tried to pretend we weren't home). |
| to believe some of the more theatrical accounts) | | | | Stravinsky, who had fallen in love with his |
| barking like dogs. | | | | earth-shaking music of the spheres, could not |
| The Rite of Spring was a radical, revolutionary | | | | understand why others were not hearing it as he |
| moment in art and, as a clarion call for modern music, | | | | heard it; distraught, he fled the theatre before the |
| was as much of a precursor to rock as the blues. | | | | end. |
| The simultaneously primitive and modern | | | | The premiere night of The Rite Of Spring was a |
| orchestration challenged the early twentieth century's | | | | scandalous but seminal event. Stravinsky's |
| notion of what music could be, and introduced (and in | | | | orchestration would undergo a few revisions before |
| time demanded) the right to shock. | | | | finding a more welcoming audience and enduring |
| As the lights went down at the Théatre des | | | | popularity particularly after the score was prominently |
| Champs-Elysées, the audience was | | | | featured in Disney'sFantasia. The 29th May 1913 |
| immediately tested by the prelude which began with | | | | audience - which included Picasso, Proust, Cocteau, |
| an unaccompanied instrument that was | | | | Gertrude Stein, Ravel and Debussy - would also incur |
| unrecognisable - a bassoon played at its highest | | | | its own 'revision' ... as time went on and The Rite of |
| register. This gave way to a cacophony recreating | | | | Spring altered the way we experience music and |
| the Creation, before an ominous pause followed by | | | | theatre, there weren't many willing to admit that |
| an incessant rhythmic chord that introduced the | | | | they had failed to recognise the revolutionary |
| dancers and the plot. The dancing was as | | | | moment as it happened. |