News about Frederick Ashton

A last-minute panic had broken out just minutes before curtain up on Petrushka's world premiere. During the Ballets Russes rehearsals by several ardent Russians in the company, there had already been a lot of tumultuous stormings. Sergei Diaghilev, the company's visionary, but financially strained impresario, had run out of money, and the costumier was unable to produce the last batch of costumes until he was paid. There was only one thing for it. Diaghilev rushed into the Theatre du Chateau in Paris and prostrated himself in front of the box of his chief sponsor Misia Edwards, a legendary patron of the arts in Belle Epoque France, and begged her for the missing 4,000 euros. She told her driver off to pay the bill, and the show could get going. It was a triumph, with inspired dancing by young Vaslav Nijinsky and a dramatic new score by Igor Stravinsky. Diaghilev was a genius at many aspects, but one of them was his ability to maintain his vigour and save the world from the jaws of tragedy. He was taking ballet by storm, rescuing it for the first time from its 19th-century roots as merely light entertainment plonked into the middle of grand opera.