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
The Rite of Spring the public would receive the work, and suggested that they might react badly if they thought they were being mocked. On the evening of 29 May, Gustav Linor reported, "Never ... has the hall been so full, or so resplendent; the stairways and the corridors were crowded with spectators eager to see and to hear". The evening began with "Les Sylphides", in which Nijinsky and Karsavina danced the main roles. "The Rite" followed. Some eyewitnesses and commentators said that the disturbances in the audience began during the Introduction, and grew in a crescendo when the curtain rose on the stamping