The Firebird (; ) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1910 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Michel Fokine, who collaborated with Alexandre Benois on a scenario based on the Russian fairy tales of the Firebird and the blessing and curse it possesses for its owner. It was first performed at the Opéra de Paris on 25 June 1910 and was an immediate success, catapulting Stravinsky to international fame. Although designed as a work for the stage, with specific passages accompanying characters and action, the music achieved equal if not greater recognition as a concert piece. Stravinsky was a young and virtually unknown composer when Diaghilev commissioned him to compose The Firebird for the Ballet Russes. Its success was the start of Stravinsky's partnership with Diaghilev, which would subsequently produce further ballet productions until 1928, including Petrushka (1911), The Rite of Spring (1913), and Apollo (1928). History Background Igor Stravinsky was the son of Fyodor Stravinsky, the principal bass at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, and Anna (née Kholodovskaya), a competent amateur singer and pianist from an old established Russian family. Fyodor's association with many of the leading figures in Russian music, including Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and Mussorgsky, meant that Igor grew up in an intensely musical home. In 1901, Stravinsky began to study law at Saint Petersburg Imperial University, while taking private lessons in harmony and counterpoint. Sensing talent in the young composer's early efforts, Rimsky-Korsakov took Stravinsky under his private tutelage. By the time of his mentor's death in 1908, Stravinsky had produced several works, among them a Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor, a Symphony in E-flat, and a short orchestral piece titled Feu d'artifice ("Fireworks"). In 1909, Stravinsky's Scherzo fantastique and Feu d'artifice were premiered in Saint Petersburg. Among those in the audience was the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who was about to debut his Ballets Russes in Paris. Diaghilev's intention was to present new works in a distinctively 20th-century style, and he was looking for fresh compositional talent. Impressed by Stravinsky, he commissioned from him orchestrations of Chopin's music for the ballet Les Sylphides. Creation Alexandre Benois recalled that in 1908 he had suggested to Diaghilev the production of a Russian nationalist ballet, an idea all the more attractive given both the newly awakened French passion for