Strange hopes and false beginnings: The Rite of Spring Training

Victor Reyes, just another believer in The Rite of Spring.In 1913, Igor Stravinsky debuted his The Rite of Spring, a cacophonous pagan stomp of a ballet, in Paris. This piece seemed to capture an older world, a deeper and darker one, where the sensual goblins of nature were ever-present, as well as the terrible new world revealed by Einstein. Legend has it that people went nuts at the show: hissing and booing or being driven to madness. One attendee famously said he saw a man grab the head of another concert-goer and beat it madly, like a drum in hell.

I love this story. It seems to me like the pinnacle of art. The only problem is that it might not be exactly true. Turns out the guy who told…