The Rite of Spring 1908). In 1909 "Feu d'artifice" was performed at a concert in St. Petersburg. Among those in the audience was the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who at that time was planning to introduce Russian music and art to western audiences. Like Stravinsky, Diaghilev had initially studied law, but had gravitated via journalism into the theatrical world. In 1907 he began his theatrical career by presenting five concerts in Paris; in the following year he introduced Mussorgsky's opera "Boris Godunov". In 1909, still in Paris, he launched the Ballets Russes, initially with Borodin's Polovtsian Dances from "Prince Igor" and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade". To present
Picasso and the Ballets Russes travel back to the land of human beings" after spending time with Diaghilev. Diaghilev, however, valued Picasso's work, and the drop curtain he created for "Le Train Bleu" - the painting of which was completed not by Picasso, but by Prince Alexander Schervashidze - was deemed so impressive that Diaghilev used it as the logo for the Ballets Russes. The writer Jean Cocteau, who introduced Picasso to Diaghilev, wrote the scenario for "Parade", and was Picasso’s neighbor in Rome said, "Picasso amazes me every day, to live near him is a lesson in nobility and hard work ... A badly