From 1909 to 1929, Serge Diaghilev, the pyrotechnist of St Petersburg, galvanized Paris with his spectacles, which were a crackling fireworks display of all the arts. And there Nijinski was pushed to the pinnacle of his glory. At these triumphal heights, the god of the dance found only vertigo in his mind. His poignant end makes even more memorable for us those legendary evenings which were lit up literally by the scenery and costumes of Leon Bakst.
Le Carré HERMÈS© – Paris Fall-Winter 1996/97
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Serge Diaghilev was the founder of Ballets Russes, a ballet company he founded in Paris in 1909. His ingenious creativity quickly catapulted his ballets to a sensation throughout Europe first, then quickly to North and South America.
His Ballets Russes gave rise to famous choreographers and dancers, like Vaslav Nijinski, and had an enormous influence on the arts and music as a whole; notably the Art Deco movement, which swept across the continent and the US in the 1920s and 30s.
Vaslav Nijinsky, who is mentioned in the Hermès© quote above, was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer and is regarded as the greatest male dancer of the early 20th century.
Composers such as Ravel, Stravinsky and Debussy and artists like Picasso, Kandinsky and Matisse were commissioned by Diaghilev for his ballet company.
Fashion greats like Coco Chanel and Léon Bakst designed costumes for his dancers.
Diaghilev was a visionary and together with his Ballets Russes had a profound influence on both art and music and the incomparable Les Ballets Russes Hermès carré …
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