The first of two programmes on the great Russian impresario
Introduced by Peter Ustinov

The story of Diaghilev's early life and of the first seasons of his legendary ballet company from 1909 until the outbreak of war in 1914, as told by his friends and colleagues:
Tamara Karsavina, Lydia Sokolova, Dame Marie Rambert, Dame Ninette de Valois,
Sacheverell Sitwell, Leonide Massine, Nicolas Nabokov, Igor Markevitch, Cecil Beaton, Cyril Beaumont, Anton Dolin, Laura Wilson and the voice of the late Alexandre Benois
Written and produced by John Drummond
A BBC tv-Bavarian TV Service co-production

In 1909 Serge Diaghilev brought a ballet company out of Russia which revolutionised thinking about the nature of ballet and its possibilities. For twenty years the Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev toured Europe and America blazing a trail of colour, excitement. and theatrical splendour that created legends that are still remembered today forty years after his death.
As well as presenting some of the greatest dancers the world has ever seen-people like Nijinsky, Karsavina, Spessivtzeva, and Lifar-Diaghilev had an artistic policy: it was to bring into his company the best composers and the best painters of his time. Tonight's programme tells the story of his early years up to the outbreak of war in 1914. 'The Years in Exile' carries it through until his death in 1929.