The Rite of Spring these works Diaghilev recruited the choreographer Michel Fokine, the designer Léon Bakst and the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. Diaghilev's intention, however, was to produce new works in a distinctively 20th-century style, and he was looking for fresh compositional talent. Having heard "Feu d'artifice" he approached Stravinsky, initially with a request for help in orchestrating music by Chopin to create the ballet "Les Sylphides". Stravinsky worked on the opening "Nocturne" and the closing "Valse Brillante"; his reward was a much bigger commission, to write the music for a new ballet, "The Firebird" ("L'oiseau de feu") for the 1910 season. Stravinsky worked through
Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf "Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf" is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in "Narodnye russkie skazki". It is Aarne-Thompson type 550, the quest for the golden bird/firebird. Others of this type include "The Golden Bird", "The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener", "The Bird 'Grip, "How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon", and "The Nunda, Eater of People". A king's apple tree bore golden apples, but every night, one was stolen. Guards reported that the Firebird stole them. The king told his two oldest sons that the