Melbourne Recital Centre

Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes changed the history of ballet and the history of music too. Stravinsky composed all of his early landmark ballet scores for Diaghilev’s company, including Petrushka. It’s all energy, lyricism, playfulness and pathos, wrapped up in kaleidoscopic orchestral colours; it doesn’t take much imagination to see Petrushka and the Ballerina in their fairground tale of love and jealousy. Romantic pursuit lies at the heart of de Falla’s El sombrero de tres picos also: the miller’s attractive young…