EncyclopediaDiaghilev, Sergei Pavlovich
Diaghilev, Sergei Pavlovich (syirgā' päv'luvich dyä'gilyif) [key], 1872–1929, Russian ballet impresario and art critic, grad. St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music, 1892. In 1898 he founded an influential journal, Mir Iskusstva [The World of Art]. He took a company of Russian dancers to Paris (1909) and, with the assistance of the painters L. N. Bakst and Aleksandr Benois and the choreographer Michel Fokine, founded Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, a troupe that was to revolutionize the world of dance. Diaghilev's productions were based on the principles of asymmetry and perpetual motion; both music and scene design became an integral part of the dance. An imposing personality, he was associated with dancers of the first rank, such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Tamara Karsavina, Anna Pavlova, Alicia Markova, and Anton Dolin. His choreographers included Léonide Massine, Bronislava Nijinska, and George Balanchine; Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel, Dukas, Falla, Milhaud, and Richard Strauss wrote music that was first performed by his company, and Picasso and Derain often worked with him as scene designers.
See biographies by B. Kochno (1970), J. Percival (1971), A. Haskell (1977), and R. Buckle (1979, repr. 1984); J. Drummond, Speaking of Diaghilev (1999); L. Garafola and N. V. N. Baer, eds., The Ballets Russes and Its World (1999).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
