This is an IHeart podcast.

Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosity's, A production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosity's.

Something interesting. Some things aren't a hit right away.

For example, when it first came out, The Wizard of Oz was a box office flop.

It's a Wonderful Life wasn't a Christmas classic until 20 years after its premiere.

And the same is true in the world of classical music.

Today, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky's ballet, The Right of Spring, is considered a groundbreaking work. It's so famous it was chosen for the Disney film Fantasia. If your favorite

sequence in that movie is the one with volcanoes exploding and dinosaurs fighting,

then you're a rite of spring fan.

But the very first time people heard it, the music had a riotous reception, literally.

On May 29th of 1913, the well-heeled music lovers of Paris filed into the theater for

what was supposed to be an exciting evening of new art.

Igor Stravinsky had written a new ballet.

You see, Stravinsky was on a hot streak.

In 1910, the young Russian composer had leapt onto the international scene with a ballet

called The Firebird.

In 1912, he wowed ballet fans in Paris with another bona fide hit called Petrushka.

And so, that night in 1913,

the theater was buzzing, not only about Stravinsky's new music, which was rumored to be unlike anything they had ever heard before, but about the dancing. You see, Stravinsky

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