Nijinska then comments: I, who always spoke against the use of acrobatics in the ballet, made use of somersaults in my very first ballet, Stravinsky's Le Renard (1922). But there was no contradiction. I did not use those steps as a trick but to achieve an artistic aim. Although Le Renard was ill-received and seldom performed, Stravinsky's harsh music and the childlike costumes were suspected. Yet the ballet had "impeccable avant-garde credentials." "Diaghilev was pleased with Nijinska's work and engaged her as the permanent choreographer for his company." Stravinsky, too, was pleased. He wrote in his 1936 Chronicles of my life: I still deeply regret that the production [Le Renard] which gave me the greatest satisfaction ... has never been revived. Nijinska had admirably seized the spirit of mountebank buffoonery. She displayed such a wealth of ingenuity, so many fine points, so much satirical verve, that the effect was irresistible.Baer (1986), pp. 29-30, Stravinsky quote at 29. The premiere of this burlesque ballet also inspired an interesting social event. It was "a first night supper party for Le Renard", planned by Sydney Schiff as a kind of "modernist summit". Invited were "Proust and Joyce in literature, Stravinsky in music, Picasso in painting." Garafola comments that only in these years of Diaghilev "would ballet stand so close to the avant-garde." Mavra (1922) An "opéra bouffe" with music by Stravinsky, it was first performed at the Théâtre National de l'Opéra in Paris, June 1922. The lyric book by Boris Kochno followed a poem by Pushkin, 'A small house in Kolomna'. "The one-act opera did not require any dances, but Diaghilev asked Nijinska to stage the movement of the four singers." Les noces [The Wedding] [Svadebka] (1923) Nijinska created the ballet Les noces ['The Wedding' [original title Les noces Villageoise, in Russian Svadebka]) from the music and libretto by Igor Stravinsky, music commissioned ten years earlier by Diaghilev. In four tableaux, the 24-minute ballet depicts in abstract fashion events surrounding a peasant marriage: the blessing of the Bride, the blessing of the Groom, the Bride's departure from her parental home, and the wedding celebration. Dancers first learning the steps often met some difficulty with the intense group movements of the choreography. "When you are truly moving together your individuality is really evident." Abandoned was the light-hearted sense of folk dance. A realism drawn from her experience of the hard edge of revolution, and