Trying to Understand the Reaction to Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”

The premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is shrouded in mystery and legend surrounding the events that arose from it. Although the myth that there was a protest at the premiere is nothing more than a myth, the audience reaction was quite notable as it was not the customary etiquette for performances. The reaction of the audience that became so well-known was, actually, an uproar in noise and protest from the beginning of the performance.

This excerpt from Aaron Copland’s manuscript on Stravinsky that I found on the Library of Congress website notes what Copland interpreted from Stravinsky based off of a short interview with him. What I found to be particularly interesting of the source was the fact that Copland wrote Stravinsky to be a double influence: as a break-down of convention and building-up of convention. Both of these statements are two completely different ideas, so I was a little confused as to how Stravinsky could influence both. When I compared this idea to the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, I started to understand a bit more as to what Copland was getting at and the reasoning behind the audience’s reaction.

Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was considered a ballet, however, when it is compared to what was the accepted version of ballets, a lot of its components, from the dancing to the costumes, were strikingly different. In this sense, Stravinsky seemed to “break-down” (in Copland’s words) the idea of what a ballet was supposed to look like and conveyed his own originality into the work. Stravinsky essentially broke down this stereotypical convention and idea of a ballet and built up this expansion of the convention of ballet. This, in turn, has the potential to inspire other artists and composers to expand on the ideal of ballet.

So, what does this have to do with the audience’s reaction at the premiere? Well, humans are not particularly fans of change, as much as we’d like to think we welcome change with open arms. Understandably so, we take comfort in sameness, feeling safe in the idea that we won’t have to deal with anything new. Therefore, it is no surprise that the premiere’s audience would have such a negative reaction to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, regardless of how poor of etiquette it exemplified. Rite of Spring was a new expansion of a ballet and no one in that audience could possibly have been prepared for it. And, with such a difference, it is highly likely that it caused some discomfort to the majority of the members of the audience, resulting in such a poor reaction.