On the first full day of spring, while the season is still prone to brutal mood swings, it’s a good time to revisit this Joffrey Ballet restoration of the original 1913 production of Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du printemps” (“The Rite of Spring”). The savagery of the scenario – to appease the gods, a prehistoric Slavic tribe elects a maiden to dance herself to death – was bolstered by Nicholas Roerich’s barbaric designs and Vaslav Nijinsky’s aggressively anti-balletic choreography. It certainly stirred the passions of the opening night audience, stoking one of classical music’s most infamous riots.

The ballet was danced only eight times as it was originally conceived. Nijinsky and impresario Serge Diaghilev had a falling out, and when the Ballets Russes revived the work a few years later, it was with new choreography by Léonide Massine. By then, Nijinsky had already been admitted to an asylum, and not for the last time. His increasing instability and death in 1950 led many to believe that his revolutionary conception of the original “Rite” had been lost forever.

Joffrey’s was the first attempt at a reconstruction. It took 16 years and a lot of detective work to bring it to fruition.

How was it accomplished? You can read more about it here.

https://www.wbur.org/news/2013/03/15/rite-of-spring

And watch the video, as I did when it first aired, here.