Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1909-1929) left its mark on virtually every aspect of the fine and performing arts in the West. The artists who worked with the Ballets Russes -- among them Stravinsky, Picasso, Matisse, Nijinsky, Prokofiev, and Balanchine -- made the company a force in defining the avant-garde in the early part of the century. This lavishly illustrated book surveys the dance, art, music, and cultural worlds of the Ballets Russes. Such distinguished contributors as Nancy Reynolds, John Bowlt, Charles Joseph, and Joan Acocella join the editors, two of the foremost authorities on the Ballets Russes, to explore these worlds. The book begins with Diaghilev's early life, examining the development of his aesthetics within the framework of fin-de-siecle Russia and the Russian symbolist movement. This is followed by discussions of Diaghilev's tangled relationship with Igor Stravinsky; the groundbreaking 1923 Les Noces; a previously unknown involvement between Fernand Leger and the Ballets Russes; and the war between modernism and classicism in the company's ballets. The book concludes by investigating the legacy of the Ballets Russes in the United States and England, examining companies from Adolph Bolm's Chicago Allied Arts to Balanchine's New York City Ballet and exploring the shifts in sexual and gender mores represented in changing concepts of the dancing body. Each essay is illustrated with fresh images inspired by the Ballets Russes. A comprehensive appendix lists the company's opera and ballet productions.