What Nijinksky Saw: Backstage at the Premiere of "The Rite of Spring"

An illustrated talk, with music, about the most famous premiere of them all: the first, riotous performance by Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet of the ballet Le Sacre du Printemps, in Paris on May 29, 1913. What was all the shouting about?

Thomas Forrest Kelly’s most recent book is Capturing Music (2015); he is also the author of First Nights: Five Performance Premieres and Early Music: A Very Short Introduction. His book The Beneventan Chant was awarded the Otto Kinkeldey Award of the American Musicological Society for the most distinguished work of musicological scholarship of 1989. He is a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres of the French Republic and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Academy in Rome. He has held awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies. He is an honorary citizen of the city of Benevento (Italy).