Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo

Company founded in 1932 to succeed the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev. It was a fusion of the Ballets de l'Opéra de Monte Carlo and the Ballet de l'Opéra Russe à Paris, with Colonel de Basil as director and René Blum as artistic director. Many former members of the Diaghilev troupe joined the new Monte Carlo-based company, including Kochno (artistic adviser), Balanchine (who was appointed ballet master), and Massine, while the addition of the three ‘baby ballerinas’, Baronova, Riabouchinska, and Toumanova, helped to generate international excitement. The company opened its first full season in Monte Carlo on 12 Apr. 1932. The company toured Europe with its repertoire of Diaghilev ballets, notching up considerable success in London, and undertook its first US tour in 1933. Later dancers included Danilova, Eglevsky, and Lichine. In 1933 Balanchine left, having added La Concurrence, Cotillon, and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme to the repertoire. He was succeeded by Massine who created Jeux d'enfants (1932), Beau Danube, Beach, Scuola di ballo, Les Présages, and Choreartium (1933) for the company. The last two works were part of the new genre of symphonic ballets; the idea of setting dance to symphonic music was a cause of great controversy at the time. Ballets by Nijinska were also mounted. The company began to falter in 1936 when de Basil and Blum fell out. The company lost its home at Blum's Monte Carlo theatre; Blum resigned and founded the Ballets de Monte Carlo (which was eventually absorbed into the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo), while de Basil renamed his company Ballets Russes de Colonel W. de Basil. In 1938 the name was changed again, this time to Covent Garden Russian Ballet, and the following year it became the Original Ballet Russe. In 1938 the company was involved in the famous ‘ballet war’ in London, with de Basil's outfit at Covent Garden and Massine's rival Ballet Russe down the road at the Drury Lane Theatre. In 1937 Fokine was engaged as choreographer. The most important works of the middle years were Massine's Symphonie fantastique (1936), Lichine's Francesca da Rimini (1937), Prodigal Son (1938), and Graduation Ball (1940), and Fokine's Cendrillon and Paganini (1939). During the 1930s it was the most influential ballet company in the world, with regular seasons in Europe and America and several major tours to Australia; one of its most important engagements was a regular summer season at Covent Garden. The company's four-year stay (1942-6) in S. America proved instrumental in the development of ballet in Brazil and Argentina. In the 1940s de Basil encountered a series of financial crises; in 1948 he disbanded the company, but he was planning to revive the enterprise when he died in 1951. His former associate, the designer George Kirsta, did manage a brief revival with a company that performed in England in 1951, but within a year it, too, was gone.