Diaghilev, creator of the Ballets russes : art, music, dance /

The Library of Congress contains no fewer than 18 books with "Ballets Russes" in the title. The troupe's extraordinary achievements--and no less extraordinary personalities--have understandably attracted writers of differing abilities and interests. The best of these is Lynn Garofola, whose classic Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (CH, Feb'90) is a major achievement and who has an essay in the book under review. The catalog of an exhibit mounted at the Barbican Gallery in London, Kodicek's volume serves as a useful supplement to Garofola's book. Although it contains no important new scholarship, it does include Kodicek's readable, well-researched brief biography of Diaghilev. The book also boasts other excellent features, such as an eight-page chronology of Diaghilev's life and times, synopses of the ballets, biographies of the major figures, exemplary commentaries on the exhibits, and some superbly reproduced archival photographs of performances. Although it was designed as an exhibit catalog (and a very good one it is, too), people will probably use this beautifully designed book as an introduction to Diaghilev and his endlessly fascinating performers. Undergraduate; graduate; general. J. M. Curtis University of Missouri--Columbia

What better way to capture the creative energy of the life, times, and accomplishments of Sergei Diaghilev (1872^-1929) than in a volume filled with photographs, paintings, and prints of the art he championed both in his native Russia and in Paris? Diaghilev was an instigator, facilitator, curator, publisher, and all-around impresario promoting the best and brightest of modern art, music, and dance. This colorful catalog, based on a recent exhibit at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, documents his founding of the magazine The World of Art and the revolutionary Ballets Russes. Here are costume and set designs by Alexandre Golovine, Leon Bakst, and Alexandre Benois; photographs of the unforgettable dancers Nijinksy, Tamara Karsavina, and Anna Pavlova; and accounts of Diaghilev's involvement with the great composers of his time, from Debussy to Ravel, Stravinsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Kodicek and her contributors examine every aspect of Diaghilev's spectacular achievements in essays as fluent in biography as in art history, followed by a detailed chronicle of every exhibit and production Diaghilev directed. --Donna Seaman

In his own words, Serge Diaghilev was "a great charlatan," "a great charmer," "a person with a lot of logic and few principles," and "someone afflicted...with a complete absence of talent." Regardless, he was destined for greatness. An unparalleled impresario with an uncanny eye for talent and innovation, Diaghilev introduced the West to any number of Russian artists‘among them Fyodor Chaliapin, Michel Fokine, Tamara Karsavina, Vaslav Nijinsky, Léon Bakst, and Alexandre Benois‘and was the singular force behind the Ballets Russes, a cultural benchmark for the 20th century. This catalog to a British exhibition curated after the demise of communism includes previously inaccessible art and artifacts on loan from a variety of Russian sources. Written by dance and theater historians and critics, the essays emphasize the origins and the development of Diaghilev's highly successful career. Reproductions of Bakst's ornately beautiful costumes, photographs of ballet legends in character and in informal poses, and paintings by Russian artists rarely seen in the West provide the reader with a glimpse of the visual splendor and richness that greeted those fortunate to see the exhibition. For the rest of us, this catalog complements, but does not replace, other books on Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, such as Lynn Garafola's Art and Enterprise in Diaghilev's Ballet Russes (LJ 7/89) and Richard Buckle's Diaghilev (LJ 10/1/79). Highly recommended for large public and academic libraries as well as for specialized dance, music, and theater collections.‘Joan Stahl, National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.