"The complex music and violent dance steps depicting fertility rites first drew catcalls and whistles from the crowd, and there were loud arguments in the audience between supporters and opponents of the work. These were soon followed by shouts and fistfights in the aisles. The unrest in the audience eventually degenerated into a riot. The Paris police arrived by intermission, but they restored only limited order. Chaos reigned for the remainder of the performance, and Stravinsky himself was so upset on account of its reception that he fled the theater in mid-scene, reportedly crying.[2]. Fellow composer Camille Saint-Saëns famously stormed out of the première, allegedly infuriated over the misuse of the bassoon in the ballet's opening bars.
Stravinsky ran backstage, where Diaghilev was turning the lights on and off in an attempt to try to calm the audience. Nijinsky stood on a chair, leaned out (far enough that Stravinsky had to grab his coat-tail), and shouted numbers to the dancers, who couldn't hear the orchestra (this was challenging because Russian numbers are polysyllabic above ten, such as eighteen: vosemnadsat).[4]
Although Nijinsky and Stravinsky were despondent, Diaghilev (a Russian art critic as well as the ballet's impresario) commented that the scandal was "just what I wanted". The music and choreography were considered barbaric and sexual and are also often noted as being the primary factors for the cause of the riot, but many political and social tensions surrounding the premiere contributed to the backlash as well. Even though Nijinsky's original choreography was lost, the work is now a standard of dance troupes around the world and has been choreographed by Pina Bausch and Sir Kenneth MacMillan."
((Aquilo que começa talvez como dubiosa caricatura - ''oh, how stupid are-were those french!'' (of course)...- e como um ballet algo grotesco (unicamente) devido às roupas dos bailarinos, ou ao facto de se estar, justamente, a filmar de perto, uma coreografia cujo próprio tema é focar a tribo que (só) existe no seu conjunto, no seu ritual, e por causa da sua tradição...Termina numa das mais comoventes expressões da força terrível do grupo social sobre a mulher-rapariga sacrificada, do seu sofrimento lacinante, do seu grito pugente, e do seu destino irreversível. (Continua (rá)...))
THIS THE FIRST HALF OF ACT 1 The premiere of Le Sacre du printemps on May 29, 1913, at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris.
