Diaghilev's Empire: How the Ballets Russes Enthralled the World

(Hardback, Main)

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Serge Diaghilev was the Russian impresario who is often said to have invented the modern art form of ballet. Commissioning such legendary names as Nijinsky, Pavlova, Stravinsky, and Picasso, this intriguingly complex genius produced a series of radically original art works that had a revolutionary impact throughout Europe and the USA and changed the course of 20th-century culture.

Published to mark the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Diaghilev's birth, this is a freshly researched and challenging reassessment of a unique phenomenon, exploring passionate conflicts and outsize personalities in a story embracing triumph and disaster.

Author Bio

Rupert Christiansen has been dance critic for The Mail on Sunday since 1995, and has written on dance-focused subjects for many publications in the UK and USA, including Vogue, Vanity Fair, Harper's and Queen, The Observer, Daily Telegraph, The Literary Review, Dance Now and Dance Theatre Journal. He was opera critic and arts correspondent for the Daily Telegraph 1996-2020, and is the author of a dozen non-fiction books, including the Pocket Guide to Opera and The Complete Book of Aunts (both published by Faber). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and lives in London.