The Rite of Spring is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer
Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of
Sergei Diaghilev's
Ballets Russes company, with choreography by
Vaslav Nijinsky and stage designs and costumes by
Nicholas Roerich(pictured). The ballet caused a near-riot in the audience when first performed, on 29 May 1913 at the
Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, but rapidly achieved success as a concert piece and later became recognised as one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century. The score has many novel features, including experiments in tonality, metre, rhythm, stress and dissonance. The scenario is the celebration of spring by various primitive rituals, at the end of which a sacrificial victim dances herself to death. After its explosive premiere the ballet was not performed until the 1920s, when
Léonide Massine's rechoreographed version was the first of many innovative productions directed by the world's leading ballet-masters. Providing "endless stimulation for performers and listeners" alike, The Rite is among the most recorded works in the classical repertoire. (
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... that the
US Army's Nike Zeus(pictured) was cancelled when serious questions arose over its costs and ability to shoot down the enemy
ICBMwarheads it was designed to attack?
... that mathematician Zhang Yitang proposed a proof that there are infinitely many pairs of
prime numbers with a
prime gap of 70 million or less?
A watercolor painter working in
Dolceacqua, Liguria, Italy, using a round brush. Watercolor is a
painting method in which paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper.
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