Word: diaghilev
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...DIAGHILEV by Richard Buckle; Atheneum; 616pages...
...firstly, a charlatan, though rather a brilliant one; secondly, a great charmer; thirdly, frightened of nobody; fourthly, a man with plenty of logic and very few scruples; fifthly, I seem to have no real talent," wrote Sergei Diaghilev to his stepmother in 1895. It was an uncharacteristically harsh, but characteristically penetrating judgment. For two decades, until his death in 1929, Diaghilev's unscrupulous logic and charm dominated the stages of Europe. He founded and directed the Ballets Russes. He was the first to create theatrical spectacles with a mix of dance, painting and music. Under his guidance, Stravinsky...
...Diaghilev was a charlatan, Richard Buckle shows in this exhaustive new biography that he was also a historical necessity. Almost alone, he bridged the old and new centuries. He was at home in the twilight romanticism of the 1890s. But he was also one of the first to recognize the vigorous new iconoclasts, whose art and music would soon sweep away the lingering shades...
Born in 1872 into the minor aristocracy of tsarist Russia, Diaghilev hungered for artistic recognition. He studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakov, but he had no musical talent. Soon, after, he joined the art circle of Alexandre Benois and Leon Bakst. Here, too, his gift was for organization and promotion. With Diaghilev as editor, the group published the World of Art, an influential journal that celebrated Baudelaire, Balzac and the pre-Raphaelites...
...Diaghilev had already begun to make enemies. Even as a schoolboy, notes Buckle, Sergei had offended his friends by his "society manners" and a desire to "make calls, leave cards and write his name in the books of distinguished people." Foes pressed for his dismissal from the staff of the Imperial Theaters. A more sensitive man might have looked closely at himself: Diaghilev looked West...