Serge Diaghilev correspondence

1918?-1929

Sergeˇi Pavlovich Dyagilev was born in the province of Novgorod on March 31, 1872. In 1890 he came to St. Petersburg as a law student and soon became a member of the circle of young musicians, painters, and writers assembled around Alexander Benois and Léon Bakst. In the same year of 1899 in which he co-founded the progressive art magazine “Mir Iskoustva” (“The World of Art”), Dyagilev was appointed artistic advisor of the Maryinsky Theatre, where he was in charge of the publication of the theatre annual and of the highly successful productions of “Sadko” and “Sylvia.” He resigned from his post in 1901, and after the magazine stopped appearing in 1904, he concentrated on organizing exhibitions of Russian art in St. Petersburg and Paris.

In 1908 Dyagilev brought a production of “Boris Godunov” to Paris with Chaliapin and was then invited to present a Paris season of Russian opera and ballet in 1909. With some of the best dancers from St. Petersburg and Moscow he scored a unique triumph in May and June 1909 in Paris. Repeat visits during the following years led to the gradual formation of his Ballets Russes, which became an independent private company when Vaslav Nijinsky resigned from the Maryinsky Theatre. He directed les Ballets Russes until his death on August 19, 1929, in Venice. His company, financed solely by the European aristocracy, was often on the verge of bankruptcy and never returned to Russia after the October Revolution (nor did it ever perform there).