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 Firebird and the blessing and curse it possesses for its owner.

It was first performed at the Opéra de Paris on 25 June 1910 and was an immediate success, catapulting Stravinsky to international fame and leading to future Diaghilev–Stravinsky collaborations including Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913).

Stravinsky later created three concert suites based on the work: in 1911, ending with the "Infernal Dance"; in 1919, which remains the most popular today; and in 1945, featuring significant reorchestration and structural changes.

[3][5] In February 1909, a performance of his Scherzo fantastique and Feu d'artifice in Saint Petersburg was attended by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who was intrigued by the vividness of Stravinsky's works.

[6][7] Diaghilev founded the art magazine Mir iskusstva in 1898,[8] but after it ended publication in 1904, he turned towards Paris for artistic opportunities rather than his native Russia.

[21][22] Fokine unofficially led a committee of artists to devise the scenario of this new ballet, including himself, Benois, the composer Nikolai Tcherepnin, and the painter Aleksandr Golovin.

[23] Benois recalled that Pyotr Petrovich Potyomkin, a poet and ballet enthusiast in Diaghilev's circle, proposed the subject of the Firebird to the artists, citing the 1844 poem "A Winter's Journey" by Yakov Polonsky that includes the lines:[24] And in my dreams I see myself on a wolf's back Riding along a forest path To do battle with a sorcerer-tsar In that land where a princess sits under lock and key, Pining behind massive walls.

[34][36][37] After considering Alexander Glazunov and Nikolay Sokolov, Diaghilev asked Stravinsky to compose the score upon encouragement from Tcherepnin and Boris Asafyev.

Because Stravinsky began work before Diaghilev officially commissioned him,[40] the composer's sketches did not align with the scenario; the full story became known to him when he met with Fokine in December and received the ballet's planned structure.

[49] Tamara Karsavina, who originated the titular Firebird role, later recalled, "Often he came early to the theatre before a rehearsal began in order to play for me over and over again some particularly difficult passage.

"[50] Stravinsky also worked closely with Gabriel Pierné, who conducted the premiere with the Colonne Orchestra,[51] to "explain the music ... [but the musicians] found it no less bewildering than did the dancers".

[52] When the company arrived in Paris, the ballet was not finished, causing Fokine to extend rehearsals;[53] he petitioned Diaghilev to postpone the premiere, but the impresario declined, fearing public disappointment.

Her choreography featured exaggerated classical steps, with deep bending at the waist;[57] Fokine wanted her to be "powerful, hard to manage, and rebellious" rather than graceful.

[27] The sculptor Dmitri Stelletsky [fr],[52] who helped develop the scenario,[59] wrote to Golovin on 16 June, "I'm staying till Sunday; I must see The Firebird.

[27][48][60] The cast starred Karsavina as the Firebird, Fokine as Prince Ivan, Vera Fokina [fr] as the youngest princess, and Alexis Bulgakov as Koschei.

[63] "The old-gold vermiculation of the fantastic back-cloth seems to have been invented to a formula identical with that of the shimmering web of the orchestra", wrote Henri Ghéon in Nouvelle revue française; he called the ballet "the most exquisite marvel of equilibrium" and added that Stravinsky was a "delicious musician".

"[67] A fellow Rimsky-Korsakov pupil, Jāzeps Vītols, wrote that "Stravinsky, it seems, has forgotten the concept of pleasure in sound... [His] dissonances unfortunately quickly become wearying, because there are no ideas hidden behind them".

[68] Nikolai Myaskovsky reviewed the piano reduction of the full ballet in October 1911 and wrote, "What a wealth of invention, how much intelligence, temperament, talent, what a remarkable, what a rare piece of work this is".

[69] Stravinsky recalled that after the premiere and subsequent performances, he met many figures in the Paris art scene, including Marcel Proust, Sarah Bernhardt, Jean Cocteau, Maurice Ravel, André Gide, and Princesse Edmond de Polignac.

[74] In his 1962 autobiography, Stravinsky credited much of the production's success to Golovin's set and Diaghilev's collaborators;[70] he wrote that Fokine's choreography "always seemed to me to be complicated and overburdened with plastic detail, so that the artists felt, and still feel now, great difficulty in co-ordinating their steps and gestures with the music".

[75] The ballet's success secured Stravinsky's position as Diaghilev's star composer, and there were immediate talks of a sequel, leading to the composition of Petrushka and The Rite of Spring.

Osbert Sitwell wrote: "Never until that evening had I heard Stravinsky's name; but as the ballet developed, it was impossible to mistake the genius of the composer, or of the artist who had designed the setting.

[31][86] Maurice Béjart's 1971 production differed from the traditional themes of the ballet; it featured a male Firebird, representative of the spirit of revolution, leading an all-male group of partisans clad in blue tunics and dungarees through political turmoil.

In the initial Oper Frankfurt production, Koschei is a large glass robot with CCTV eyes; the Firebird, wearing a white space suit, defeats him by destroying a specific valve in his system.

[90][91] Neumeier was praised by the critic Oleg Kerensky for giving the ballet "new life" and creating a fascinating effect for the audience "which the original Fokine-Golovine [sic] production must have had in Paris sixty years ago".

Cyril W. Beaumont wrote that the work "is a supreme example of how music, although having no meaning in itself, can, particularly with a programme hint of its intention, evoke a mood appropriate to the ballet concerned.

[97] Fokine's revolutionary Firebird character was part of an effort to combine new ideas with classical ballet, showing his wide-ranging abilities as a choreographer.

After the Firebird is freed, Ivan takes one of her feathers, and thirteen enchanted princesses (all captives of Koschei) enter the garden to play a catching game.

[114][115][116] Offstage trumpets call the princesses back into the palace, but when Ivan pursues them, bells ring out and Koschei appears in front of the gates, signaled by roars in the timpani and bass drum.

[120] In 1945, shortly before he acquired American citizenship, Stravinsky was contacted by Leeds Music with a proposal to revise the orchestration of his first three ballets to recopyright them in the United States.