Concert etiquette is a controversial topic amongst audiences in 2026. What to wear? When to clap? These formal mannerisms exist in a relatively new rulebook. The imaginary pressure on audiences to be perfectly well behaved is ludicrous. While concertgoers may be anxious about faux pas today, listeners a century ago had no such qualms.
Concerts became accessible to the masses in the nineteenth century, but before public performances became the norm, most premieres of the masterworks we cherish took place in royal courts. It wasn’t until the early 1800s that public audiences had regular access to live performance. By the 1820s, Gioachino Rossini had employed his signature “crash-boom” endings in opera overtures so rowdy, socially-minded audiences would know when to return to their seats and start paying attention. As the Industrial Revolution swept across the globe and class divide narrowed, the middle class found themselves in an interesting predicament. Now average workers, not just the social elites, could afford a ticket to the show. Such was the case in May, 1913 at the premiere of The Rite of Spring.
Igor Stravinsky’s third composition for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes goes down in history as one of the most famous premieres in the musical world. The composer had already enchanted French audiences with his Firebird (1910) and Petrushka (1911) scores, and Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreography in previous productions had become a controversial topic (his Faun was considered to be highly erotic). The Ballet Russes–mostly employed by refugees escaping the Russian Revolution of 1905—had Parisian artistic circles in a chokehold. The Rite premiere was the It Place To Be for upperclass French socialites, but was an equally intriguing evening for other walks of life. A melting pot of artistic and class differences bubbled over, and what ensued was a riot.
The “Riot of Spring” is a well-loved story, a tale woven by many historians for good reason. Before Rite, ballet had always been about grace; it was efficient movements, controlled beauty. Stravinsky’s previous collaborations with Diaghilev certainly leaned more modern than classical, but the folktale subject matter was much more palatable—the Eastern European flair somewhat trendy, even whimsical—and the choreography was sensical. Enter: The Rite of Spring.
“Will it stay very long, like this?”
“Till the end, my dear.”
This was Diaghilev’s apprehensive reaction when Stravinsky pounded an onslaught of repeated, dissonant polychords on his piano. The accents are disjunct and off-putting, the harmonies are crass and jarring. But in Stravinsky’s words, these are “the core of the entire work.” Diaghilev was stunned into silence at their first meeting, but he knew Stravinsky was serious; the composer was emboldened by the success of their previous collaborations. The Rite of Spring was to be entirely different.
Though still steeped in Russian folk idioms, Rite was angular and percussive in a new, horrifying way. Gone were Firebird’s lullabies and triumphant brass fanfares. No longer were melodic phrases cheeky and amicable, as in (most of) Petrushka. Stravinsky’s newest score became intensely metric while still reliant on folk melodies, and the subject matter went farther into the depths of magic and ritual. His music brought life to Nicholas Roerich’s set and costume designs, and Nijinsky’s strange choreography transported the production to another world entirely. The Rite of Spring became a production both primordial and modern.
Rite opens with a singular note, a reedy C above middle C, which flows into an ornamented solo from the principal bassoon. The flourishes within the melody sound improvisatory but are, in true Stravinsky fashion, entirely mathematically pristine. The bassoon solo mutates into a cacophony of rhythmically complex woodwind chatter and evokes a mystical scene. Although a single instrument begins the ballet, Stravinsky’s ensemble is positively massive, calling upon forces which include eight French horns, two contrabassoons, multiple types of clarinet, and alto flute. The only instrument that seems to have the night off is harp—clearly too angelic for Pagan Russia. The introduction unfolds and soon the colossal ensemble is a musical machine working to create an intricate web of rhythmic fragments that add up, somehow, to a cohesive compound rhythm.
Just like Stravinsky’s melodic lines, gestural lines of classical ballet were also sacrificed; Nijinsky opted for painfully slumped shoulders and asymmetrical, disjointed limbs. Rather than graceful pirouettes and outstretched arms, he called on his dancers to pigeon-toe their feet and violently stomp into the stage. Nijinsky’s choreography was, in many ways, the antithesis of classical ballet. This ghastly commotion was not at all what the audience expected. Chaos ensued.
Reports from the premiere indicate that the audience began to jeer the moment the “dancing” began. Listeners laughed, scoffed, yelled, and threw things onstage. Stravinsky was (understandably) irate that his music had been drowned out by a poorly behaved crowd, and promptly stormed out of the theatre. As Stravinsky bolted backstage, he witnessed Nijinsky in the wings, screaming counts to the ballerinas so they might still dance amongst the pandemonium. The audience continued to sneer, howl, and whistle. When fisticuffs broke out, the house manager flicked the lights on and off to quell the unruly audience.
It is likely that Stravinsky’s score was not what caused such outrage, but the violent choreography. The action onstage certainly inspired the jeers, though another interesting issue at play was the theatre and its inhabitants on that fateful night. The premiere of The Rite of Spring was populated, probably in equal parts, by “old money” ballet purists as well as working class folks with no serious knowledge of the craft. Parisian elitists found Nijinsky’s movements bizarre and erratic. The burgeoning Surrealist crowd was enchanted by the weirdness. Folks new to the ballet simply had no idea what was going on. To make social matters worse, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées was newly constructed, built in a way that had much less separation between sections of the house. Not only were these vastly different types of listeners in the audience, they were sitting in much closer quarters. The Riot of Spring was definitely rooted in musical misunderstanding, but the new clash of class divide within the hall certainly didn’t help. “All the elements of a scandal were present. The smart audience in tails and tulle, diamonds and ospreys was interspersed with the suits and bandeaux of the aesthetic crowd. The latter would applaud novelty simply to show their contempt for the people in the boxes. Innumerable shades of snobbery, super-snobbery and inverted snobbery were represented,” reported Jean Cocteau afterwards. Many ornery concertgoers were thrown onto the street, and the performance continued. Those who were able to stay would have witnessed the culminating human sacrifice.
The Rite of Spring begins with one and ends with many. The final measures of the thirty-five minute work rip through a series of time changes, forcing the musicians to count as furiously as they play. Timpani and percussion take center stage as the organizing rhythmic force as the rest of the massive ensemble erupts around them. The Chosen One—she who dances to death in service of her village—catapults herself around the stage, violently twirling until she finally collapses. Stravinsky’s score crescendos to the catastrophic end, resulting in a devastating final chord. Strings, percussion, and brass deal the final blow: the last notes of Rite spell out D-E-A-D as the Chosen One is, at last, sacrificed.
At the time of this premiere, World War One was fast approaching and the 1917 Russian Revolution was not far behind. An element of anxious urgency had permeated the arts, and with that urgency came a renewed interest in pre-Christian source material. In an increasingly complicated, cataclysmic world, art often looks backwards to simpler times. The Rite of Spring does exactly that; the ballet looks backwards to primitive civilizations, but its modernist take is anything but simple.