Editing The Rite of Spring (section)

=== Initial run and early revivals ===
The premiere was followed by five further performances of ''Le Sacre du printemps'' at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the last on 13 June. Although these occasions were relatively peaceful, something of the mood of the first night remained; the composer [[Giacomo Puccini]], who attended the second performance on 2 June,<ref>Kelly, p. 294</ref><ref>Hill, p. 116</ref> described the choreography as ridiculous and the music cacophonous—"the work of a madman. The public hissed, laughed—and applauded".<ref>Adami, p. 251</ref> Stravinsky, confined to his bed by typhoid fever,<ref>Stravinsky 1962, p. 49</ref> did not join the company when it went to London for four performances at the [[Theatre Royal, Drury Lane]].<ref>{{cite web|title= Diaghilev London Walk|date= 28 June 2011|url= http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/d/diaghilev-london-walk/|publisher=[[Victoria and Albert Museum]]|access-date= 27 August 2012}}</ref> Reviewing the London production, ''[[The Times]]'' critic was impressed how different elements of the work came together to form a coherent whole, but was less enthusiastic about the music itself, opining that Stravinsky had entirely sacrificed melody and harmony for rhythm: "If M. Stravinsky had wished to be really primitive, he would have been wise to&nbsp;... score his ballet for nothing but drums".<ref>{{cite news|title= The Fusion of Music and Dancing|newspaper= The Times|date= 26 July 1913|page=8}}</ref> The ballet historian Cyril Beaumont commented on the "slow, uncouth movements" of the dancers, finding these "in complete opposition to the traditions of classical ballet".<ref name=White177>White 1966, pp. 177–178</ref>

[[File:Massine, Leonide (1895-1979) - 1914 - Ritratto da Leon Bakst.jpg|thumb|right|upright|[[Léonide Massine]], who choreographed the 1920 revival]]
After the opening Paris run and the London performances, events conspired to prevent further stagings of the ballet. Nijinsky's choreography, which [[Thomas Forrest Kelly|Kelly]] describes as "so striking, so outrageous, so frail as to its preservation", did not appear again until attempts were made to reconstruct it in the 1980s.<ref name=K292 /> On 19 September 1913 Nijinsky married [[Romola de Pulszky]] while the Ballets Russes was on tour without Diaghilev in South America. When Diaghilev found out he was distraught and furious that his lover had married, and dismissed Nijinsky. Diaghilev was then obliged to re-hire Fokine, who had resigned in 1912 because Nijinsky had been asked to choreograph ''Faune''. Fokine made it a condition of his re-employment that none of Nijinsky's choreography would be performed.<ref>Buckle, p. 268</ref> In a letter to the art critic and historian [[Alexandre Benois]], Stravinsky wrote, "[T]he possibility has gone for some time of seeing anything valuable in the field of dance and, still more important, of again seeing this offspring of mine".<ref>Walsh 1999, p. 219, quoting letter to Benois of 20 September/3 October 1913</ref>

With the disruption following the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 and the dispersal of many artistes, Diaghilev was ready to re-engage Nijinsky as both dancer and choreographer, but Nijinsky had been placed under house arrest in Hungary as an enemy Russian citizen. Diaghilev negotiated his release in 1916 for a tour in the United States, but the dancer's mental health steadily declined and he took no further part in professional ballet after 1917.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Acocella |first=Joan |author-link=Joan Acocella |title=Secrets of Nijinsky |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1999/01/14/secrets-of-nijinsky/ |magazine=[[The New York Review of Books]] |date=14 January 1999 |volume=46 |issue=1 |access-date=18 February 2025 |url-access=registration |archive-url=https://archive.today/20210510061339/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1999/01/14/secrets-of-nijinsky/ |archive-date=2021-05-10 |url-status=live}}</ref> In 1920, when Diaghilev decided to revive ''The Rite'', he found that no one now remembered the choreography.<ref>Buckle, p. 366</ref> After spending most of the war years in Switzerland, and becoming a permanent exile from his homeland after the 1917 [[Russian Revolution]], Stravinsky resumed his partnership with Diaghilev when the war ended. In December 1920 [[Ernest Ansermet]] conducted a new production in Paris, choreographed by [[Léonide Massine]], with the [[Nicholas Roerich]] designs retained; the lead dancer was [[Lydia Sokolova]].<ref name=White177 /> In his memoirs, Stravinsky is equivocal about the Massine production; the young choreographer, he writes, showed "unquestionable talent", but there was something "forced and artificial" in his choreography, which lacked the necessary organic relationship with the music.<ref>Stravinsky 1962, pp. 92–93</ref> Sokolova, in her later account, recalled some of the tensions surrounding the production, with Stravinsky, "wearing an expression that would have frightened a hundred Chosen Virgins, pranc[ing] up and down the centre aisle" while Ansermet rehearsed the orchestra.<ref name=H86>Hill, pp. 86–89</ref>