pt when he was 18), he was accustomed to moving in the upper-class circles that provided the company's patrons and benefactors. It is indispensable to mention the name of the sponsor Winnaretta Singer whose g

enerous financial subsidies ensured the success of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Europe. In 1890, he enrolled at the Faculty of Law, St. Petersburg, to p

repare for a career in the civil service like many Russian young men of his class. There he was introduced (through his cousin Dmitry Filosofov) to a student clique of artists and intellectuals calling them

selves The Nevsky Pickwickians whose most influential member was Alexandre Benois; others included Léon Bakst, Walter Nouvel, and Konstantin Somov. From childhood, Diaghilev had been passionately interested in music. However, his ambition to become a composer was dashed in 1894 when Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov told him he had no talent. In 1898, several members of The Pickwickians founded the journal Mir iskusstva (World of Art) under the editorship of Diaghilev. As early as 1902, Mir iskusstva included reviews of concerts, operas, and ballets in Russia. The latter were chiefly written by Benois, who exerted considerable influence on Diaghilev's thinking. Mir iskusstva also sponsored exhibitions of Russian art in St. Petersburg, culminating in Diag