Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring premiered in Paris in 1913.
The ballet was first performed on 29 May 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Vaslav Nijinsky created the choreography, while Nicholas Roerich designed the sets and costumes. Sergei Diaghilev presented the work through his Ballets Russes company.
The score’s violent rhythms, dense orchestration, and unconventional choreography famously provoked a disturbance at the premiere. Accounts differ about how extensive the audience’s physical fighting became, but the event established the ballet’s reputation as a notorious artistic shock.
The scenario depicts pagan ritual in prehistoric Russia and culminates in a chosen young woman dancing herself to death. Stravinsky later revised the score, and concert performances helped establish it independently of the ballet. Its Paris premiere is often treated as a turning point in twentieth-century musical modernism.