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Valentina Blinova in a 1935 production

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 and others on a scenario based on the Russian fairy tales of the magical Firebird and the blessing and curse it possesses for its owner. Set in the evil immortal Koschei's castle, the ballet follows Prince Ivan, who battles Koschei with the help of the Firebird. It was an immediate success, catapulting Stravinsky to international fame and leading to future collaborations between Diaghilev and Stravinsky, like Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913). Other choreographers have reinterpreted the music with new productions, settings and themes. Stravinsky's 1919 concert suite remains the most popular today. A film version with the original choreography, featuring what is now the Royal Ballet, was created in 1959. (Full article...)

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In the news

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Japan Airlines Flight 516 collides with a Japan Coast Guard airplane at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, killing five aboard the latter aircraft.

On this day

January 10

New Orleans

236 – Pope Fabian, said to have been chosen by the Holy Spirit when a dove landed on his head, began his papacy.
1812 – New Orleans (pictured), the first steamship on the Mississippi River, arrived at New Orleans to complete its maiden voyage.
1929 – Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, the first volume of The Adventures of Tintin by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé, began serialisation.
1993 – The Braer Storm, the strongest extratropical cyclone ever recorded in the North Atlantic, reached peak intensity.
2004 – Helge Fossmo, the village priest of Knutby, Sweden, orchestrated the murders of his wife and his neighbor, a crime that shocked the country.

Georg Forster (d. 1794)
Hrithik Roshan (b. 1974)
Yip Pin Xiu (b. 1992)
Constantine II of Greece (d. 2023)

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Today's featured picture

The château fort de Lourdes is a historic castle located in Lourdes in the department of Hautes-Pyrénées, France. It is strategically placed at the entrance to the seven valleys of the Lavedan. The castle's origins go back to Roman times, but today the oldest remains date from the 11th and 12th centuries and consist of the foundations of the present fortifications. The castle was reinforced in the 13th and 14th centuries (the construction of the keep), and again in the 17th and 19th centuries. From 1590, under the reign of King Henry IV, the castle became a prison, and was then later used as a barracks, before becoming a museum around the turn of the 20th century. Since 1933, it has been listed as a monument historique by the Ministry of Culture. This panoramic photograph shows the castle in 2018, with parts of the surrounding town and the peaks of the Pyrenees in the background.

Photograph credit: Moahim

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