The Rite of Spring year while Stravinsky was occupied with his second major commission for Diaghilev, the ballet "Petrushka". In July 1911 Stravinsky visited Talashkino, near Smolensk, where Roerich was staying with the Princess Maria Tenisheva, a noted patron of the arts and a sponsor of Diaghilev's magazine "World of Art". Here, over several days, Stravinsky and Roerich finalised the structure of the ballet. Thomas F. Kelly, in his history of the "Rite" premiere, suggests that the two-part pagan scenario that emerged was primarily devised by Roerich. Stravinsky later explained to Nikolai Findeyzen, the editor of the "Russian Musical Gazette", that the first part
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