The Rite of Spring the four-part piano score published in 1913. There have been numerous variants of the English translations; those shown are from the 1967 edition of the score. Lawrence Morton, in a study of the origins of "The Rite", records that in 1907–08 Stravinsky set to music two poems from Sergey Gorodetsky's collection "Yar". Another poem in the anthology, which Stravinsky did not set but is likely to have read, is "Yarila" which, Morton observes, contains many of the basic elements from which "The Rite of Spring" developed, including pagan rites, sage elders, and the propitiatory sacrifice of a young maiden: "The
The Rite of Spring Pagan Russia in Two Parts"; the scenario depicts various primitive rituals celebrating the advent of spring, after which a young girl is chosen as a sacrificial victim and dances herself to death. After a mixed critical reception for its original run and a short London tour, the ballet was not performed again until the 1920s, when a version choreographed by Léonide Massine replaced Nijinsky's original. Massine's was the forerunner of many innovative productions directed by the world's leading ballet-masters, gaining the work worldwide acceptance. In the 1980s, Nijinsky's original choreography, long believed lost, was reconstructed by the Joffrey Ballet in