Théâtre du Châtelet

This guide to the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris opens on May 19, 1909, when impresario Sergei Diaghilev filled the dress circle with fifty-two hand-picked actresses before a twenty-year-old dancer named Vaslav Nijinsky walked onstage. It traces the theatre back to 1862, when Baron Haussmann had it built as one of two matching houses on the Place du Châtelet, and follows the Ballets Russes years that made this stage their Paris home, including Stravinsky's 1911 premiere here. Listen for how the audience reacted the following year to Nijinsky's Afternoon of a Faun.