May 29, 1913: Igor Stravinsky's ballet Le Sacre du printemps -- in English, The Rite of Spring -- premieres at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, which had opened in Paris a month earlier, as the city's first structure designed in the Art Deco style, and is still operating.
Stravinsky, his father an opera singer and his mother a concert pianist, grew up outside St. Petersburg, Russia, near the border with Finland. He was commissioned to write the ballet for Sergei Diaghilev, then the world's leading producer and promoter of the dance form, the founder of the Ballets Russes. Three years earlier, Diaghilev had taken Stravinsky, then 28 and virtually unknown, and commissioned him for the first time. The result was Firebird, and it was a success. The following year, Stravinsky wrote Petrushka for Diaghilev, and it was another success.
These first two, and The Rite of Spring, starred Vaslav Nijinsky, who also choreographed them. At the time, Nijinsky was considered the greatest male ballet dancer in the world. This was both aided and complicated by the fact that he and Diaghilev were having a gay affair, and it would end with a bad breakup later in 1913, when Nijinsky, for the sake of public appearance, married his female dance partner, the Hungarian ballerina Romola de Pulszky.
Writing to conductor Serge Koussevitzky, Stravinsky described Le Sacre du printemps as "a musical-choreographic work... unified by a single idea: The mystery and great surge of the creative power of Spring." There was a surge, all right: Nijinsky had directed the dancers to practically stomp around the stage, in time to Stravinsky's score.
Some in the audience laughed. Some whistled, generally considered to be the European equivalent of booing. Some hissed. Newspapers recorded these reactions. At one point, the laughers and the hissers started fighting with each other. The premiere has gone down in history as a "riot," although that term wasn't used to describe the events until a book written over a decade later.
A total of 6 performances were given, and the reactions were hostile at each one, if not descending into any more "riots." Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, author of the operas La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly, attended the 2nd performance. He called it "the work of a madman. The public hissed, laughed -- and applauded."
But it was a new century. Puccini and his contemporaries were out. Avant-garde artists like Stravinsky and Gustav Mahler were in. In the audience at the May 29 premiere were composer Maurice Ravel, painter Marcel Duchamp, writer Gabriele D'Annunzio, and fashion designer Coco Chanel. (Decades later, Chanel claimed to have had an affair with Stravinsky. This claim has never been backed up by any evidence other than her memoir.)
Painters like Duchamp and Pablo Picasso, who became a close friend of Stravinsky's, were in the process of changing the art world. Just a few weeks before The Rite of Spring premiered -- from February 17 to March 15, making it difficult for me to do a separate "Scores On This Historic Day" post for it -- the International Exhibition of Modern Art was held at the 69th Regiment Armory in Manhattan, exhibiting the works of people like Duchamp, Picasso and Paul Cezanne.
Over the next few years, Hollywood was established as America's film center, and Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith would ensure that a person seeking entertainment wouldn't have to dress up and go all the way into the big city to see a stage production. Stravinsky saw this coming, and adapted, doing a considerable amount of composing for movies. And jazz was arriving, becoming the dominant form of American music until the mid-1950s, when rock and roll began to take over.
Diaghilev and Nijinsky had a professional reconciliation, but never a personal one. Nijinsky fell victim to mental illness, and was institutionalized from 1919 until his death in 1950. Diaghilev, exiled from Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, died in 1929, and was buried on an island near Venice.
Stravinsky married twice, and had 4 children. He went on to collaborate with Picasso, writer Jean Cocteau, and the man who replaced Diaghilev as the greatest ballet producer, George Balanchine.
His music would be embraced by the Soviet Union, but the feeling was not mutual. A cultural conservative who was devoted to the Russian Orthodox Church until the end, he continued to live in Paris until 1939, and then in Los Angeles until his death in 1971. He was buried in the same cemetery as Diaghilev.
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May 29, 1913 was a Thursday. Boxer Tony Zale was born on this day. The Middleweight Champion of the World from 1941 to 1947, and again for 3 months in 1948, he is remembered for his trilogy of fights with Rocky Graziano.
Football, basketball and hockey were all out of season. But 7 games were played in what we would now call Major League Baseball:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Philadelphia Athletics, 6-5 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The winning pitcher for Connie Mack's A's, on their way to a World Series win, was Bullet Joe Bush, later to help the Yankees win their 1st World Series, in 1923. A's 3rd baseman Frank "Home Run" Baker lived up to his nickname by hitting the game's only home run. He, too, would later help the Yankees win Pennants, in 1921 and 1922, though he retired before the 1923 title.
* The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-6 in 14 innings at the Polo Grounds. Grover Cleveland Alexander pitched the 1st 8 innings for the Phils, but was not involved in the decision. Jeff Tesreau was the winning pitcher. Chief Meyers, the Giants' Native American catcher, hit a home run. However, Baseball-Reference.com does not have a play-by-play listed (not surprising, given how far back this game was), so I don't know how the Giants got the winning run home.
* The Washington Senators beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-2 at National Park in Washington. (It was renamed Griffith Stadium in 1922.) Tris Speaker went 2-for-3 with an RBI, and Steve Yerkes went 3-for-5. But it wasn't enough, as the Senators beat the defending World Champions.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-4 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. For the Pirates, Ham Hyatt hit a home run (try saying that fast five times), and Honus Wagner went 1-for-4.
* The Cleveland Naps beat the St. Louis Browns, 6-3 at League Park in Cleveland. Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, the Cleveland manager and 2nd baseman, did not play. However, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson went 3-for-4 with an RBI.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 3-2 in 10 innings at Comiskey Park. Ty Cobb went 1-for-3 with 2 walks, but it was in a losing cause for the Tigers.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 13-10 at Robison Field in St. Louis.
* And the Boston Braves and the Brooklyn Dodgers were rained out at the South End Grounds in Boston. The game was rescheduled for 2 days later, as part of a doubleheader. The Dodgers won the 1st game, 2-0. The 2nd game went 10 innings, and was tied 3-3 when it was called due to darkness. (No lights at ballparks in those days.)
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