An evening of riot and revolution in dance music from the court of Louis XIV to the Ballets Russes. François-Xavier Roth directs Les Siècles in the first period-instrument performance at the BBC Proms of Stravinsky’s 'The Rite of Spring', marking the work’s centenary.
Suites from Lully’s piquant social comedy Le bourgeois gentilhomme, Rameau’s Les Indes galantes, Delibes’s 'Coppélia' and Massenet’s Moorish romance 'Le Cid' provide more than two centuries of historical context for the work that scandalised and galvanised Paris at its 1913 premiere.
(Note: Royal College of Music at 5.45pm, Proms Plus Intro. A discussion on the history of French ballet from Lully to Stravinsky and an examination of The Rite of Spring, 100 years after its premiere, with Jane Pritchard, Dance Historian at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Free)