Sergei Diaghilev — impresario (ballet) with roots in the Russian Empire
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev was born on 31 March (19 March, Old Style) 1872 at Selishchi in the Novgorod Governorate, the son of Pavel Diaghilev, a noble officer who rose to major general. His mother died of childbed fever soon after his birth. He grew up in Perm, where the family house was a centre of local musical life and held musical evenings every other Thursday, with Modest Mussorgsky a frequent guest; his stepmother, Elena Panayeva, encouraged his interest in music. One account gives Perm as his birthplace.
He went to St Petersburg to study law and also studied singing and music at the Conservatory. With Alexandre Benois and their circle he founded the World of Art society in 1898, opening with a Russian-Finnish exhibition, and with backing from Savva Mamontov and Princess Maria Tenisheva he edited its journal, Mir iskusstva, until 1904. In 1899 he became special assistant to Prince Sergei Volkonsky, director of the Imperial Theatres, and in 1905 organised an exhibition of Russian portraits at the Tauride Palace.
In 1906 he took an exhibition of Russian art to Paris and settled there. In 1908 he staged Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov at the Paris Opera, in Russian, with Fyodor Chaliapin in the title role. In 1909 he opened his first season of ballet at the Théâtre du Châtelet, with choreography by Michel Fokine and designs by Benois, Léon Bakst and Nicholas Roerich, and the Ballets Russes gave seasons every year until 1929.
The company brought dancers of the Imperial Ballet, among them Vaslav Nijinsky, Tamara Karsavina and Anna Pavlova, to Western audiences, and later engaged Serge Lifar and George Balanchine. It commissioned Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, first performed in 1913, and scores from Prokofiev, Ravel and Satie, and worked with painters including Picasso and Mikhail Larionov and with Jean Cocteau. Benois later recalled Diaghilev as the member of the World of Art least interested in philosophy and literature.
He had long suffered from diabetes. After the 1929 season at Covent Garden he went to Venice, where he died on 19 August 1929, aged fifty-seven. He is buried on the island of San Michele.
"Moved from St Petersburg to Paris in 1906 with an exhibition of Russian art; lived in emigration until his death in Venice in 1929."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Selishchi, Novgorod Governorate; raised in Perm
Born in 1872 at Selishchi in the Novgorod Governorate and raised in Perm, he studied law in St Petersburg, co-founded the World of Art (Mir iskusstva) circle and journal, and worked for the Imperial Theatres before taking Russian art, opera and ballet to Paris from 1906.
Son of Pavel Diaghilev, a noble officer and later major general; his mother died soon after his birth and he was raised by his stepmother, Elena Valerianovna Panayeva, in Perm, where the family house was a local musical centre.
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Selishchi, Novgorod Governorate; raised in Perm. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"Astonish me."