But to return to my score of L’Oiseau de Feu; I worked strenuously at it, and when I finished it on time I felt the need of a rest in the country before going to Paris, which I was to visit for the first time. / Diaghileff, with his company and collaborators, preceded me, so that when I joined them rehearsals were in full swing. Fokine elaborated the scenario, having worked at his choreography with burning devotion, the more so because he had fallen in love with the Russian fairy story. The casting was not what I had intended. Pavlova, with her slim angular figure, had seemed to me infinitely better suited to the role of the fairy bird than Karsavina, with her gentle feminine charm, for whom I had intended the part of the captive princess. Though circumstances had decided otherwise than I had planned, I had no cause for complaint, since Karsavina’s rendering of the bird’s part was perfect, and the beautiful and gracious artist had a brilliant success in it. / The performance was warmly applauded by the Paris public. I am, of course, far from attributing this success solely to the score; it was equally due to the spectacle on the stage in the painter Golovin’s magnificent setting, the brilliant interpretation by Diaghilleff’s artists, and the talent of the choreographer. I must admit, however, that the choreography of this ballet always seemed to me to be complicated and overburdened with plastic detail, so that the artists felt, and still feel even now, great difficulty in coordinating their steps and gestures with the music, and this often led to an unpleasant discordance between the movements of the dance and the imperative demands that the measure of the music imposed. << less