During 1928 – 29 Prokofiev composed what was to be the last ballet for Diaghilev, The Prodigal Son, which was staged on 21 May 1929 in Paris with Serge Lifar in the title role.

His balletic adaptation of the orchestral suite Sheherazade, staged in 1910, drew the ire of the composer's widow, Nadezhda Rimskaya-Korsakova, who protested in open letters to Diaghilev published in the periodical Rech.

Diaghilev planned a production with his Ballets Russes but the production did not take place ; the company's choreographer Fokine staged L ' apprenti sorcier as a ballet in 1916.

In 1921, Diaghilev staged a lavish production of The Sleeping Beauty in which Lopokova danced the Lilac Fairy and Princess Aurora.

* 1921, London, Alhambra Theatre, as The Sleeping Princess, Diaghilev production, staged by Nikolay Sergeyev, scenes by Léon Bakst

Diaghilev insisted on calling the ballet The Sleeping Princess.

Soon afterwards, he journeyed to London where he made contact with the impresario Sergei Diaghilev.

* Buckle, Richard, Diaghilev, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1979

In 1919, Bax was one of four British composers to be commissioned to write orchestral music to serve as interludes at Sergei Diaghilev ’ s Ballets Russes in London.

In 1913, Chaliapin was introduced to London and Paris by the brilliant entrepreneur Sergei Diaghilev, at which point he began giving well-received solo recitals in which he sang traditional Russian folk songs as well as more serious fare.

In America she was basically a novelty act, and she rejoined Diaghilev in 1916, dancing with the Ballets Russes, and her former partner Vaslav Nijinsky, in New York and later in London.

The London premier, in the first season of the Diaghilev Ballets Russes, was at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

However, once he studied the scores, which Diaghilev had found in libraries in Naples and London, he changed his mind.

At the age of 13, Markova was observed in class by Diaghilev, who was visiting London in search of new talent for his ballet company.

From 1921 he trained as a painter at the Academie Julian in Paris, where he met Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Georges Auric and Diaghilev.

In 1921 he left Soviet Union and was noticed by Serge Diaghilev who sent him to Turin in order to improve his technique with Enrico Cecchetti.

Prokofiev's first major success breaking out of the composer-pianist mould was with his purely orchestral Scythian Suite, compiled from music originally composed for a ballet commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes ; Diaghilev commissioned three further ballets from Prokofiev – Chout, Le pas d ' acier and The Prodigal Son – which at the time of their original production were all highly successful.

Under Diaghilev's guidance, Prokofiev chose his subject from a collection of folktales by the ethnographer Alexander Afanasyev ; the story, concerning a buffoon and a series of confidence tricks, had been previously suggested to Diaghilev by Igor Stravinsky as a possible subject for a ballet, and Diaghilev and his choreographer Léonide Massine helped Prokofiev to shape this into a ballet scenario.

Around 1927, the virtuoso's situation brightened ; he had exciting commissions from Diaghilev and made concert tours in Russia ; in addition, he enjoyed a very successful staging of The Love for Three Oranges in Leningrad ( as Saint Petersburg was then known ).

Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev (;, Sergei Pavlovich Dyagilev, ; 19 August 1929 ), usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.

Sergei Diaghilev was born to a wealthy and cultured family in Selischi ( Novgorod Governorate ), Russia ; his father, Pavel Pavlovich, was a cavalry colonel, but the family's money came mainly from vodka distilleries.

Diaghilev commissioned ballet music from composers such as Nikolai Tcherepnin ( Narcisse et Echo, 1911 ), Claude Debussy ( Jeux, 1913 ), Maurice Ravel ( Daphnis et Chloé, 1912 ), Erik Satie ( Parade, 1917 ), Manuel de Falla ( El Sombrero de Tres Picos, 1917 ), Richard Strauss ( Josephslegende, 1914 ), Sergei Prokofiev ( Ala and Lolly, rejected by Diaghilev and turned into the Scythian Suite ; Chout, 1915 revised 1920 ; Le pas d ' acier, 1926 ; and The Prodigal Son, 1929 ), Ottorino Respighi ( La Boutique fantasque, 1918 ), Francis Poulenc ( Les biches, 1923 ) and others.

* Scheijen, Sjeng, Working for Diaghilev, Gent: BAI, 2005 ; exhibition catalogue of the last major exhibition dedicated to Diaghilev

However, no film exists of Nijinsky dancing ; Diaghilev never allowed the Ballets Russes to be filmed, because he felt that the quality of film at the time could never capture the artistry of his dancers, and that the reputation of the company would suffer if people saw it only in short jerky films.

For Diaghilev, in Paris he conducted the world premieres of Stravinsky's Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, and The Nightingale ; Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé ; and Debussy's Jeux.

The illustrious orchestra revolted at the rehearsal for the first performance, refusing to play for Monteux ; only an intervention by Diaghilev restored the rehearsal, by the end of which Monteux was applauded and Stravinsky given an ovation.

In 1909 Sergei Diaghilev commissioned Lyadov to orchestrate a number for the Chopin-based ballet Les Sylphides, and on 4 September that year wrote to the composer asking for a new ballet score for the 1910 season of his Ballets Russes ; however, despite the much-repeated story that Lyadov was slow to start composing the work which eventually became The Firebird ( famously fulfilled by the then relatively inexperienced Igor Stravinsky ), there is no evidence that Lyadov ever accepted the commission.

* articles on Ballets Russes, and their initiator Sergei Diaghilev ;

It was produced by Diaghilev, with sets by Picasso, the libretto by Apollinaire and the music by Erik Satie.

Diaghilev then commissioned Prokofiev to compose the ballet Chout ( The Fool, the original Russian-language full title was Сказка про шута, семерых шутов перешутившего ( Skazka pro shuta, semerykh shutov pereshutivshavo ), meaning " The Tale of the Buffoon who Outwits Seven Other Buffoons ").

Although not instantly received into the group, Diaghilev was aided by Benois in developing his knowledge of Russian and Western art.

Diaghilev was soon responsible for the production of the Annual of the Imperial Theaters in 1900, and promptly offered assignments to his close friends: Léon Bakst would design costumes for the French play Le Coeur de la Marquise, while Benois was given the opportunity to produce Sergei Taneyev's opera Cupid's Revenge.

After several increasingly antagonistic differences of opinion, Diaghilev in his demonstrative manner refused to go on editing the " Annual of the Imperial Theatres " and was discharged by Volkonsky in 1901 and left disgraced in the eyes of the nobility.

Diaghilev heard Stravinsky's early orchestral works Fireworks and Scherzo fantastique, and was impressed enough to ask Stravinsky to arrange some pieces by Chopin for the Ballets Russes.

Diaghilev was a pioneer in adapting these new musical styles to modern ballet.

Diaghilev was known as a hard, demanding, even frightening taskmaster.

Alicia Markova was very young when she joined the Ballet Russes and would later say that she had called Diaghilev " Sergypops " and he'd said he would take care of her like a daughter.

Throughout his life, Diaghilev was severely afraid of dying in water, and avoided traveling by boat.

In February 1909, two orchestral works, the and ( Fireworks ) were performed at a concert in Saint Petersburg, where they were heard by Sergei Diaghilev, who was at that time involved in planning to present Russian opera and ballet in Paris.

Diaghilev was sufficiently impressed by Fireworks to commission Stravinsky to carry out some orchestrations and then to compose a full-length ballet score, The Firebird.

Other notable premieres were given in Prague in 1899, and in Paris in 1909, with a Sergei Diaghilev production featuring Feodor Chaliapin as Galitsky and Maria Kuznetsova as Yaroslavna.

Part of Nikolai Roerich's designs for Diaghilev ’ s 1913 production of Le Sacre du Printemps

One of Nikolai Roerich's designs for Diaghilev ’ s 1913 production of Le Sacre du Printemps

However, its authorized premiere on that continent, by Diaghilev Ballets Russes, was at the Century Theater, New York City, 20 January 1916, with Lopokova ( who also featured in the unauthorized production five years earlier ).

His latest project is the orchestral full score of Satie's additional music for Gounod's opera Le médecin malgré lui ( commissioned by Diaghilev in 1923 ) from the surviving parts in the Library of Congress, Washington, and the vocal score used in Diaghilev's 1924 production ( supplied by Ornella Volta ).

Alexandre Benois wrote in 1910 that he had two years earlier suggested to Diaghilev the production of a Russian nationalist ballet, an idea all the more attractive given both the newly awakened French passion for Russian dance and also the ruinously expensive costs of staging opera.

In 1910, Carnaval was choreographed for a ballet for a production by Sergei Diaghilev, with orchestrations by Alexander Glazunov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Tcherepnin.