Diaghilev's Empire: How the Ballets Russes Enthralled the World) - by Rupert Christiansen - 467 Pages -2022

 Diaghilev's Empire: How the Ballets Russes Enthralled the World by Rupert Christiansen- 2022 -467 Pages

Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev

Born: March 31, 1872, Chudovsky District, Russia

Died: August 19, 1929, Venice, Italy

If you wish to expand your knowledge of Ballet I suggest you start with

Apollo’s Angels : A History of Ballet by Jennifer Homans- 2010- 1103 Pages

then Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century also by Jennifer Homans

In Russian ballet history an excellent start is Bolshoi Confidential Secrets of the Russian Ballet From the Rule of the Czars to Today by Simon Morrison - 2016

Here is how Rupert Christiansen describes his intentions:

"-to show how a unique enterprise and the individual who drove it, ballet became a crucial piece in the jigsaw of Western culture. Conceived in 1909 by its mastermind, the impresario Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev, as a Russian export designed to appeal to Western tastes, the Ballets Russes came to an official end after many vicissitudes with Diaghilev’s abrupt death in 1929. But the achievements of its heroic prime had established a paradigm that would continue to define the terms and set the standards for the next generation – a period during which ballet for most people meant ‘the Russian ballet’.

The Guardian has a great review of the book 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/16/diaghilevs-empire-by-rupert-christiansen-review-brilliance-of-the-ballets-russes

I very much enjoyed this book.  I loved that Christiansen used as his jumping off point one of my favourite movies, The Red Shoes, 1948, based on a ballet company.

I did at times think there was too much emphasis on the sexual orientation of those involved with the ballet