The Cambridge Companion to The Rite of Spring

by Davinia Caddy (Editor)

A Companion not only to the historic, path-breaking ballet production by Diaghilev, Nijinsky, Roerich and Stravinsky that premiered in Paris in 1913, but also to its legacy across the centuries. The newly commissioned essays will guide students and ballet-goers as they encounter this fascinating work and enable them to navigate the complex artistic currents it set in motion, intertwining music, theatrical ballet and modern dance with the wider world of ideas. The book embraces The Rite of Spring as a spectrum of creative possibility that has impacted the arts, politics, gender, race and national identity, and even popular culture, from the 1910s to the present day. It distils an enormous body of literature, sharing insights from the very latest research while inviting readers to rethink standard scholarly narratives, and brings together contributions from specialists across multiple music history, theory and analysis, dance and theatre studies, art history, Russian history, and European modernism.

344 pages, Hardcover

Published July 17, 2025

Reviews

[Anna McIllece · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent well of information on the artistic masterpiece that is Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. I strongly leaned on this book and its branches of research as I built my BFA final art exhibition and wrote my thesis. I favored the visual arts, contemporary references, and set design chapters but this book has a wealth of resources involving The Rite of Spring’s costuming, music and expanded timeline/conception of the project. Strongly recommend!