He was born Giorgi Melitonovitch Balandchivadze in Saint Petersburg in 1904, and he danced his way into the State Theater of Opera and Ballet, better known as the Mariinsky Ballet. After fleeing to Paris and westernizing his name to George

Renard, the Fox, is a long-established character in the folk tales of many countries. He’s reputed to be sly, be a creature cunning and trickery. Stravinsky took up the character in his comic masterpiece Renard, or, to give it its

Oedipus Rex, subtitled an “Opera-Oratorio after Sophocles,” has been recognized as one of the high points of Stravinsky’s work, yet is rarely performed today. Sophocles’ drama tells of an entire family’s attempts to avoid their fate, while at the same

Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes brought music, art, and dance into the 20th century. Eschewing the traditional, Diaghilev worked with the leading artists in all fields to bring a new life to a fairly moribund art form.