STRAVINSKY & THE BALLET RUSSES

Date: Saturday, June 20 at 8pm
Tickets: $20
Location: Mountain Cinema in the Doctorow Center for the Arts, Rte. 23A, Village of Hunter, NY
Information: 518-263-2002 (recorded information) or 518-263-4702 (during hours of operation)

An evening of one-act ballets on the music by Igor Stravinsky: The Firebird, The Wedding and The Rite of Spring.

Stravinsky and commissioned to write the music for a brand new work inspired by the legend of the Russion folktale the Firebird. It was a total success. The Rite of Spring premièred in 1913 causing a veritable scandal. The audience was shocked by the primitive violence and so radically rejected the ballet that it was cancelled after eight performances. Millicent Hodson, (Nijinsky's original choreography), with the help of Marie Rambert, (Nijinsky's assistant) was able to recreate Nijinsky's original Rite of Spring. Stravinsky started to compose The Wedding using folk texts that he adapted, relating the story of a Russian peasant wedding. The score for the first two scenes was finished in the spring of 1915 and the complete work was finished on April 4, 1917.