Serge Diaghilev was an extraordinarily gifted impresario, curator, director and animator of the arts. He was perfectly at home driving the wave of creative energy that pushed theatrical performance to the cutting edge of cultural activity in the early twentieth century - and perfectly placed to export Russian culture to a thrilled and expectant Western Europe. Active in Europe and America between 1909 and 1929, Diaghilev`s Ballets Russes company expanded the frontiers of theatre specifically, and art more generally. Many of its acclaimed productions were true collaborations, examples of gesamtkunstwerk (unified works of art) that continue to capture the imagination of audiences a century later. A roll call of Diaghilev`s collaborators, friends and contacts bears witness to his influence on modernism and later twentieth-century art; Picasso, Stravinsky, Nijinsky, Bakst, Goncharova, Matisse, Chanel, Prokofiev, Man Ray and Cocteau all worked with Diaghilev - and their work