"Astonish me, Jean."

Sergei Diaghilev, one of the world's great cultural impresarios, once ordered the young artist and writer Jean Cocteau. That piece of advice reveals much about both Diaghilev's temperament and twentieth-century art in general. Modern artists have loved to astonish. If their attempts to do so can occasionally degenerate into strident efforts to jolt blasé sophisticates, the creative energy of modern art at its best has dared to be the enemy of complacency.

Sergei Diaghilev, b.1872-1929 (Russia) made classical ballet a modern art. He was not a dancer, a choreographer, or a composer. However, this Russian art critic was blessed with intelligence, willpower and a vision.

Sergei Diaghilev, c. 1916. Dance Collection, the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, Aster, Lenox and Tilden Foundations Image

Diaghilev's Ballet Russes flourished from 1909 to 1929 and Stravinsky's career was launched with the Firebird. The musicians of the day were Prokofiev, Ravel, Debussy, Richard Strauss, Erik Satie, Manuel de Falla, Milhaud and Poulenc.

Diaghilev commissioned décor from artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Bakst, Benois, Derain, Braque, Utrillo, Miró, Tchelitchev, de Chirico, and Rouault. Furthermore, Diaghilev proclaimed the value, even the necessity of imaginative choreography, by encouraging five of the most important ballet choreographers of the century. Michel Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Léonide Massine, Bronislava Nijinska, and George Balanchine.

Having previously assembled an array of art exhibitions and opera presentations in Russia, Diaghilev was encouraged by his friend Alexandré Benois to introduce Russian ballet to Western Europe.

Alexandre Benois, b.1870-1960 (St Petersburg) was a prominent art critic and a practicing artist. In 1901 he was appointed Scenic Director of the Marinsky Theatre. It was there he devoted his time to designing sets and creating elaborate costumes for the Ballet Russes. His influence on modern ballet and stage design is considered seminal.

Leon Bakst Ballet Costume for 'The Firebird', by Stravinsky

During the first of Diaghilev's Parisian seasons in 1909, dance performances alternated between opera, and featured dancers, who had been selected from St Petersburg and Moscow They included Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Yekaterina Geltzer, Vera Koralli, Vaslav Nijinsky, Makhail Mordkin, and Adolph Bolm.

At first, Diaghilev and his associates regarded the ballet troupe not as a permanent company, but as a showcase for dancers on leave from the established theatres. But as Diaghilev's Ballets Russes achieved artistic success, it grew increasingly independent until it became a completely autonomous company.

Diaghilev was a smart, quick witted showman, determined to make his Paris debut an acclaimed success. He completely restored and refurbished the large but shabby Théâtre du Chátelet. Not merely content to making the building look good, he sent free tickets for the opening performance to the most beautiful actresses in Paris and seated them all in the first row of the balcony. However, the real impact of that opening night, May 19, 1909, had more to do with art than with publicity stunts. When the curtain fell on hordes of warriors leaping ferociously in the Polovetsian dances from Borodin's Prince Igor, a delirious audience tore down the aisles and ripped off the orchestra rails in an attempt to embrace the dancers.

Leon Bakst Costume for Nijinsky (1890-1950) in the ballet 'Scheherazade' by Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) choreographed by Michel Fokine

The Polovetsian dancers and all of Diaghilev's other early triumphs were choreographed by Michel Fokine b.1880-1942 (St Petersberg). At the Marinsky, where he had tried to institute his choreographic reforms, Fokine had had to contend with bureaucratic red tape and the incomprehension of conservative balletomanes. But the Diaghilev Company provided him with the opportunity to stage the ballets he desired.

French ballet goers who were starting to find the Paris Opéra Ballet's productions pallid, were amazed at the vigor and exoticism of Fokine's creations. Firebird, set to Stravinsky's first ballet score, was based on old Russian fairy tales. Schéhérazade was an Arabian Nights story about marital infidelity that culminated in an orgy in a seraglio.

Self Portrait - Leon Bakst

Audiences found it so shockingly passionate that it stirred up a major scandal. Léon Bakst's extravagant setting was considered an orgy in itself, and it prompted fashion designers and interior decorators to banish drabness from their designs in favour of shocking colours.

Lèon Samoilovitch Bakst, b.1866-1924 (Grodno, Belarus), masterminded the art of theatre design, both in scenery and costume. The equally exotic Cléopâtre contained an unforgettable entrance by the fabled Egyptian queen arriving in a sarcophagus. Wrapped in veils she ceremoniously removes them to reveal all her glory.

Fokine returned to Russian folklore with Petrouchka, which set to one of Stravinsky's most famous scores, it tells the pathetic tale of a puppet who comes to life during a winter carnival, only to prove unlucky in love. More than a fantasy, Petrouchka, proved unusually eloquent. Fokine made his title character so poignant that, for some viewers, this doll symbolized downtrodden, suffering humanity. Fokine also brilliantly contrasted the massed movements of the carnival revelers with solo passages for Petrouchka and two other dolls. A pretty but empty-headed Ballerina and the crude Moor who is Petrouchka's rival for her affections.

Even though he was responsible for the company's early successes, Fokine soon left the Ballets Russes, as his professional relations with Diaghilev had become increasingly strained.

A lover of novelty, Diaghilev could grow tired of the dancers, artists, and the choreographers he had fostered. Moreover, Diaghilev did not always separate his artistic life from his personal beliefs. He did little to conceal his homosexuality - in fact he once jokingly chided some male colleagues for having "a morbid interest in women" and he became infatuated with one of his company's stars, Vaslav Nijinsky.

Offstage, Nijinsky appeared to be a slightly thickset and diffident young man, but on-stage he was electrifying. Cocteau noted the often paradoxical aspects of Nijinsky's stage personality when he called the great dancer "vigorous beyond anything human and feline to a disquieting degree. He upsets all the laws of equilibrium, and seems constantly to be a figure painted on the ceiling; he reclines nonchalantly in mid-air, defies heaven in a thousand different ways, and his dancing is like some lovely poem written all in capitals."

Diaghilev, not content for Nijinsky to be merely the foremost male star of the Ballet Russes, he encouraged him to choreograph, and this threat of rivalry wounded Fokine deeply. Somewhat of a plodder who labored endlessly over detail, Nijinsky nevertheless choreographed several controversial ballets.

Leon Bakst L'Apres Midi d'un Faune

L'Aprés-Midi d'un Faune, choreographed to Debussy's luscious score, created quite a stir at its premiere in 1912 over its alleged obscenity. In its most provocative scene, a nymph escapes from an amorous faun, dropping her scarf in haste. He then slowly lies down upon it with gestures hinting, to some viewers, at masturbation and fetishism. Quite apart from its morality or immorality, Nijinsky's choreography was striking in contrast to Debussy's lyrical modus operandi.

The following year, Nijinsky's premiere of Le Sacre du Printemps displayed one of the most flagrant riots in theatrical history. Stravinsky's score caused a riot and the bedlam inside the Theater des Champs-Elysées became so profound that the dancers were unable to hear the music. Although it was the score's rhythmic and harmonic strangeness that caused most of the commotion, the choreography was equally unconventional. The ballet concerned rites of a prehistoric tribe and reached its climax when a Chosen Maiden danced herself to death to propitiate the gods. Although its setting was ancient Russia, the ballet managed to suggest that strange, primordial psychic forces may be buried within anyone. Like many works created for Diaghilev, Le Sacre demonstrated that ballet could incorporate non-classical, or even violently anti-classical, movement without destroying its traditional foundations. Le Sacre thereby attested to both the soundness of ballet's traditions and art's capacity for change.

Diaghilev dismissed Nijinsky when he chose to marry in 1913. He did reinstate him but when found to be suffering from paranoia, it became evident that he was mentally ill and by 1917 his stage career was over.

Diaghilev's next protége was Léonide Massine, b.1896-1979 (Moscow) who was a fine dancer and a supremely inventive choreographer. Massine's ballets were often witty, highly sophisticated and filled with vagarious gestures. His Pulcinella, was set to Stravinsky's score and settings by Picasso, paid tribute to the commedia dell'arte. The Three-Cornered Hat, also designed by Picasso, told how a miller's wife saved herself from the unwanted attentions of a haughty governor. It could therefore be interpreted as a parable of freedom. La Boutique Fantastique was a comedy on the ever-popular theme of dolls coming to life.

With Massine's choreography, the Ballets Russes underwent an overhaul. Diaghilev's first seasons, when Fokine's ballets were emphasized, impressed Western audiences with their Russian exoticism. But Diaghilev was not content to remain a purveyor of the picturesque, particularly after World War I and the Russian Revolution separated his company from its homeland. Cosmopolitan in taste and interested in modern art, he turned to Cubist and Surrealist painters for stage designs and to experimental composers for music. Conservative historians occasionally deplore these developments. It is true that Diaghilev could be guilty of faddism, but it was surely admirable for him to be interested in the art of his time and to believe that ballet could be as innovative as painting or music.

From World War I onward, Diaghilev's Ballet Russes was decidedly international in outlook. At least it was so in most respects. However, the personnel remained largely Russian, and when dancers from other countries were hired they were expected to adopt Slavic names. Among Diaghilev's later stars were Alicia Markova, Anton Dolin and Lydia Sokolova. Despite their names, all three were British. (Such changing of names may have inadvertently exerted a detrimental influence on ballet in England and America. It encouraged audiences to regard the art as inherently Russian, and attempts to organize English or American companies were initially greeted with derision by some ballet fans).

An example of Diaghilev's modernism was Parade, of 1917. It was the invention of Jean Cocteau. Massine choreographed sideshow entertainers at a Parisian street fair. The managers of the entertainers wore, as costumes, enormous skyscraper-like Cubist constructions designed by Picasso. The flickering gesturers in a solo for a little American girl were inspired by silent movies, and sounds of typewriters and steamship whistles were incorporated into Erik Satie's score. Parade helped usher in the nervous excitement of the Jazz Age. When revived by various companies in the 1970s, Massine's choreography looked as insouciant as ever.

Throughout the 1920s Diaghilev produced several somewhat flippant and topical works that were dubbed "choreographic cock-tails." Among them were two comedies about the French Riviera set. Le Biches and Le Train Bleu, both choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska, Nijinsky's sister.

A distinguished choreographer in her own right Bronislava Nijinska b. 1891-1972 (Poland) became the resident choreographer of the Ballet Russes after Diaghilev's fall- out with Massine. Although she was a fine satirist, Nijinska's enduring masterpiece is surely Le Noces, to Stravinsky's ballet-cantata about a Russian Peasant wedding. In this eminently serious work, Nijinska filled the stage with monumental architectural groupings of dancers conveying the haunting beauty of religious sacraments and natural cycle of growth regeneration.

Sporting a monocle and a predominant white streak through his hair, Diaghilev earned himself the nickname of "Chinchilla." He resembled a monarch, without a personal wealth.

The Ballet Russes was constantly being threatened with bankruptcy and as a result Diaghilev grew shrewd and tenacious. When Cocteau described him as having "the face of a bulldog and the smile of a baby crocodile," he may have been saying as much about Diaghilev's personality as his physiognomy.

Diaghilev died in Venice in 1929. The Ballet Russes died with him. However, Diaghilev left a legacy. A concept, that ballet was the perfect blend of choreography, dancing, music and décor, that would remain a noble ideal. Diaghilev proved that, far from being a trivial diversion, ballet could be serious and eloquent. There will always be those who dislike ballet, but after Diaghilev it is no longer possible to argue, as people once did, that ballet cannot be a major art.