The Rite of Spring responsible for introducing "The Rite" to Australia on 23 August 1946 at the Sydney Town Hall, as guest conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Stravinsky first conducted the work in 1926, in a concert given by the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam; two years later he brought it to the Salle Pleyel in Paris for two performances under his baton. Of these occasions he later wrote that "thanks to the experience I had gained with all kinds of orchestras ... I had reached a point where I could obtain exactly what I wanted, as I wanted it". Commentators have broadly agreed
The Rite of Spring critical triumph. It has remained in the company's repertoire for more than 50 years; after its revival in May 2011 "The Daily Telegraph"s critic Mark Monahan called it one of the Royal Ballet's greatest achievements. Moscow first saw "The Rite" in 1965, in a version choreographed for the Bolshoi Ballet by Natalia Kasatkina and Vladimir Vasiliev. This production was shown in Leningrad four years later, at the Maly Opera Theatre, and introduced a storyline that provided the Chosen One with a lover who wreaks vengeance on the elders after the sacrifice. Johnson describes the production as "a product of state