travel destinations
“
hen I say ‘orange,’” legendary Vogue fashion editor Diana vreeland writes in her memoir D.V., “I don’t mean
yellow-orange, I mean red-orange, the orange of Bakst and Diaghilev, the orange that changed the century.”
And just as the legendary style maven could conjure the distinct images of St.Petersburg-inspired grandeur of
the Ballets Russes, I too like to visit the city in my imagination. I keep photos and postcards of the Winter Palace
and the Summer gardens on my desk so that I can instantly be transported. Born of the passion of Peter the
great, the city is an exercise in sculpting the sublime.
This year cities all over the world, including St. Petersburg, are celebrating the one hundred year anniversary
of the Ballets Russes with festivals, performances, exhibitions and the publication of The Ballets Russes and the
Art of Design. Influencing such cultural tours-de-force such as Stravinsky’s Firebird, Rite of Spring, Les Noces
and Apollon Musagète, the avant-garde troupe’s productions heralded designs by St. Petersburg artists léon
Bakst, Alexandre Benois and Nikolai Roerich for legendary Imperial ballet dancers and choreographers vaslav
Nijinsky, michel Fokine, Tamara karsavina and george Balanchine. For two decades, under the impresario
