The Ballets Russes: Playing with the Past

Diaghilev seemed to be the nemesis of traditional ballet, but he was ready to draw on the rigorous classical schooling of his dancers whenever it suited him. Once ugliness had been established as a legitimate option, he was happy to bring back beauty on many occasions alongside the new neoclassical music that he had begun to promote. Stravinsky and Balanchine's Apollo was one such ballet, which also managed to give Greek antiquity the new solemnity, stripped of the exoticism of earlier "Greek...