Overview

The Business of Ballet: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes between Profit and the Avant-garde explores how a remarkable, internationally recognized ballet company, the Ballets Russes, was able to survive for twenty years without stable funding. Focusing on Ballets Russes's founder, Serge Diaghilev, and his talent for discovering monies through an uncanny ability to secure funds from aristocrats, industrialists, artists, and swindlers, Ira Nadel offers new insight into the financial life of modern ballet. Throughout the analysis, Nadel reveals that Diaghilev was able to attract not only financial support but also the most innovative artistic and musical talents and choreographers of the period, who collectively changed the nature of ballet from the conventional to the contemporary. Through it all, Diaghilev never sacrificed the essential Russianness of his enterprise, transforming Russian traditions by incorporating new and original musical and choreographic stagings. In doing so, Nadel argues, Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes revised the idea of ballet as an art form, causing audiences throughout Europe and North America to riot and artists to create revolutionary compositions in art and music.

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9781666945805

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Reviews

Ira Nadel's history of dance, art, music, and cultural politics weaves together three compelling stories. A bold, new assessment of the brilliant, charismatic but temperamental Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev and the innovative theatrical modernism wrought by his fabled company, the Ballets Russes. Alongside these two singular accomplishments, a third uneasy tale gradually takes center stage-- how precarious finances, errant management, and increasing commercial imperatives contributed to both his and the company's demise in 1929. --Michael Earley, Cambridge University This is a fascinating study that cleverly addresses a fundamental question: how did the Ballets Russes stay operational in the turbulent years before, during, and after the First World War? It is an engaging narrative that is both well-written, analytical, and compelling, adorned with illuminating anecdotes and informative quotations of the actors involved. The study sheds light on the strategic labor behind this innovative business venture of Diaghilev; one that launched the careers of collaborating artists, musicians, set designers, and dancers and dazzled audiences across the globe --Ilyana Karthas, University of Missouri-Columbia and author of When Ballet Became French

Ira Nadel's history of dance, art, music, and cultural politics weaves together three compelling stories. A bold, new assessment of the brilliant, charismatic but temperamental Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev and the innovative theatrical modernism wrought by his fabled company, the Ballets Russes. Alongside these two singular accomplishments, a third uneasy tale gradually takes center stage-- how precarious finances, errant management, and increasing commercial imperatives contributed to both his and the company's demise in 1929. This is a fascinating study that cleverly addresses a fundamental question: how did the Ballets Russes stay operational in the turbulent years before, during, and after the First World War? It is an engaging narrative that is both well-written, analytical, and compelling, adorned with illuminating anecdotes and informative quotations of the actors involved. The study sheds light on the strategic labor behind this innovative business venture of Diaghilev; one that launched the careers of collaborating artists, musicians, set designers, and dancers and dazzled audiences across the globe

Author Information

Ira Nadel is a UBC Distinguished University Scholar and professor of English emeritus at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

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