Ballet "Swan Lake": content, interesting facts, video, history

P. I. Tchaikovsky ballet "Swan Lake"

For more than a century the Swan Lake ballet has captivated the hearts of classical music fans. He is rightly considered the benchmark of high art, and many world-famous dancers were proud that they had such luck - to play the part in this performance. “Swan Lake” without exaggeration can be called the pearl of the Russian classics, and P.I. Tchaikovsky - a great composer. The basis of the ballet was the tale of the knightly age. This is a vibrant and beautiful love story, filled with many obstacles and trials, trapping young lovers.

Summary of Tchaikovsky's ballet "Swan Lake" and a lot of interesting facts about this work read on our page.

Summary

The ballet begins in the old castle, during the celebration of the majority of the heir to the throne Siegfried. The plot is imbued with the spirit of the era, this is largely promoted by the rite of initiation of knights, which means that the heir enters into adulthood. But he yearns for love, and of course among the guests a sufficient number of beauties, each of whom would be happy to be near him. The prince dreams of a bright feeling and, like a real romantic, cherishes in his heart the image of an ideal lover.

Young Siegfried, thanks to the intervention of the Destiny itself, is transported to the shore of a magical lake and meets a charming girl whose image has haunted him for so long in dreams and in reality. She turns out to be the Beautiful Swan Odette and an ardent young man immediately confesses her feelings and promises to be faithful.

But in vain the heir to the throne rejoices in such good fortune; Fate prepares real obstacles for him, interfering with their mutual love and experiences a perfect couple with jealousy and betrayal. Turning around a mysterious knight and posing in the castle of the prince with Odette's twin, she makes a young man in love, blinded by emotions, break all the vows given to his chosen one. But even after going through all the obstacles, lovers are not destined to be together, no one can break the plans of Fate, which hides his beloved from Siegfried, leaving him alone on the shore of a beautiful magical lake.

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Interesting Facts

• This fabulous ballet, incredibly popular these days, literally fell through at the first premiere. The deeply upset author declared that he would be appreciated, but later the time of this work is still to come. This "later" came after 18 years with the brilliant productions of Lev Ivanov and Marius Petipa.
• By the way, have you heard the saying about "the ninth swan in the fifth row"? She denotes an artist who has not achieved success in his career, who is constantly forced to be content with secondary roles and extras.
• The roles of Odette and Odile are performed by one ballerina.
• Maya Plisetskaya played the part of Odette-Odile on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater for 30 years.

• In 1968 The new white rose variety was named Swan Lake.
• In his version of the famous ballet, Matthew Born for the first time replaced all acting ballerinas with male dancers, which also brought great success and interest of the public. This version earned loud cheers on the stages of the USA, Greece, Israel, Turkey, Russia, the Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Korea, Japan, France, Germany and Ireland, and also received more than 30 international awards.
• The American public ballet "Swan Lake" first appeared at the San Francisco Ballet Theater.
• Graeme Murphy's British production of Swan Lake in 2002 was based on a scandalous gap between Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
• The production of Ivanov and Petipa in 1894 was postponed for a long time due to the death of Emperor Alexander III and subsequent official mourning.
• Literally four years before Tchaikovsky received this order, he had already composed a small ballet “The Lake of Swans” for children, which was performed under the strict guidance of the composer in 1871, on the Kamenka estate.

• The work on the performance lasted for about a year, and with a few interruptions due to the fact that the composer also composed the Third Symphony during this period.
• Many admirers of Tchaikovsky's creativity are wondering what could have inspired him to write such heartfelt and beautiful music? It is believed that this is the merit of the lake in the Cherkasy region, where swans live. There the composer rested just a few days, admiring the local nature. But in Germany they are sure that the ballet tells exactly about Swan Lake, which is located near the city of Vossen.
• Initially, the premiere Anna Sobeshchanskaya was chosen for the premiere in 1876, but she strongly quarreled with the composer, therefore this role was offered to Polina Karpakova. As it turned out, the cause of the conflict that arose was that I did not like the absence of at least one solo dance number in Act 3. There is information that Sobeshchanskaya even went specifically to M. Petipa and asked him to insert a solo to his music in this action. If the choreographer fulfilled her request, the composer flatly refused to insert a fragment of his own music. Soon, Tchaikovsky suggested settling the conflict and wrote a solo to her, a little later, variations were added to it.
• The estimate for the premiere of "Swan Lake" was very small and amounted to about 6,800 rubles.
• The famous critic Herman Laroche noted the ballet music after the premiere, but he called everything that related to the dance side “dull and poor”.
• In the press, only the work of the artist Karl Walz, who specially developed a technology that provides the illusion of fog with the help of steam, received praise from journalists.
• The researchers suggest that the basis of the literary source can be: the tale "Swan Pond", "The Stolen Veil" Mazuesa, as well as the German ancient legend.
• Lev Ivanov, while working on the ballet, rethought the costumes of the dancers, removed the swan wings in order to free their hands, giving them the opportunity to move. He also owns the legendary "Dance of the Little Swans" from the second act.

• The laurels of the best performer of the Odette party belong to Pierina Legnani, who performed all the dance moves especially gracefully, even 32 fouettes. For the first time in this role, she performed on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater.
• Many residents of the former USSR remembered this ballet with very disturbing events in the life of the country, because during the August coup, which occurred in 1991, this very show was broadcast by all TV channels.
• In all your favorite cartoon "Well, wait!" (15th edition) shows a parody of the Dance of Little Swans. In general, classical music can be quite often heard in cartoons. More details can be found in a special section.

Popular numbers

Dance of Little Swans - Listen

Spanish dance - listen

Odette's theme - listen

Neapolitan dance - listen

Grand Waltz - listen

History of creation

In 1875 P.I. Chaikovsky received a very unexpected order from the direction of the imperial theaters. They offered him to take on "Lake of the Swans", only, as a rule, opera composers at that time almost did not work in the ballet genre, not counting Adan. However, Peter Ilyich did not reject this order and decided to try his hand. The composer was offered a script by V. Begichev and V. Geltser. It is noteworthy that it was based mainly on various fairy tales and legends in which there are girls turned into swans. By the way, a few decades ago, the imperial troupe had already paid attention to this particular plot, and even the Lake of Wizards was made to order.

Tchaikovsky plunged into work with his head and very responsibly approached every step. The composer had to study completely the dances, their sequence, and also what kind of music should be written for them. He even had to study several ballets in detail in order to clearly understand the composition and structure. Only after all this he was able to start writing music. As for the score, in the ballet "Swan Lake" two figurative worlds are revealed - fantastic and real, however, sometimes the boundaries between them are erased. The tender theme of Odette runs like a red thread through the whole work.

Literally, a ballet score was ready in a year and he proceeded to orchestration. Thus, by the autumn of 1876, work had already begun on staging the play, which had been commissioned to V. Reisinger. By that time, he had worked for several years as the choreographer of the Bolshoi Theater. That's just many of his work, since 1873 suffered a fiasco.

Productions

The long-awaited premiere of "Swan Lake" in February 1877 was greeted by the public rather coolly, despite the tremendous work done by the entire troupe. Connoisseurs of that time recognized this work as unfortunate and didn’t take it off the stage. The main culprits of such an unsuccessful production were mainly the choreographer Wenzel Reisinger and Polina Karpakova, who performed the role of Odette.

After nearly twenty years, the management of the imperial theaters again turned its attention to the work of Tchaikovsky, to put it in the new season of 1893-1894. Thus, the famous play was created by the famous Marius Petipa, and literally, work began immediately on it, together with Tchaikovsky. But the composer's sudden death interrupted this work, and the choreographer himself was deeply shocked by this. A pupil and assistant Petipa staged one picture from the ballet a year later, which was very enthusiastically received by the public. After such a success and the highest evaluation of criticism, the choreographer ordered Ivanov to work on other scenes, and Petipa himself was soon able to return to work on Swan Lake. Undoubtedly, thanks to the efforts of two directors, the plot of the play is incredibly enriched. Ivanov decided to introduce the White Queen of the Swans, and Petipa proposed to oppose Odile to her. Thus arose the "black" pas de deux from the second act.

A new premiere took place in January 1895 in St. Petersburg. From that moment on, the ballet received deserved recognition both among the public and among music critics, and this version was recognized as the best.

An incredible delight from the public was caused by the production on the stage of the Vienna Opera, which took place in 1964. The performers of Odette's party — Margot Fontein and Siegfried — Rudolf Nureyev were called on an encore eighty-nine times! It is curious that the director of the performance was made by Nuriev himself. In his version, the whole action was focused on the prince.

It is worth noting that basically all the academic ballet performances were based on the version of L. Ivanov and M. Petipa. Among the subsequent works, the setting of V.P. Burmeister in 1953. He introduced the new actors and slightly changed the storyline. The choreographer also decided to change the tragic finale and make it bright. That's just contrary to expectations, this innovation is not immediately liked the public. It was believed that it was the tragic finale that provided the depth of interpretation of the entire work.

Among the unusual interpretations should be noted the work of John Normeier, for statement in the Hamburg ballet. This is an Illusion, like the Swan Lake, where the main character turns into Ludwig II. There is nothing that reminds of the original source - lakes, swans. All that happens around is nothing more than a fantasy played out by the sick mind of the protagonist.

Also, a rather bold and original version is considered to be the work of the British choreographer Matthew Born, staged in November 1995. If the original idea of ​​replacing all ballerinas with men provoked public disapproval, over time, this version was a huge success. As Matthew Born himself admits, at first the men left the hall when the dance of the Swan and the Prince began, but soon the audience understood what modern choreography is and how it differs from classical ballet. Surprisingly, it is this version that hit the UK school curriculum.

In the production of the Australian choreographer Graham Murphy, Odette is the patient of a psychiatric clinic, and the swans are the fruit of her imagination.

The work of Chinese director Zhao Ming is amazing. In his Swan Lake, the dance takes on a different meaning. This is closer to acrobatics, and some pas seem to be simply unreal, beyond human capabilities. Another interesting production was performed during the opening of the summit of world leaders of the G20 in China. There, the dancers danced on the surface of Lake Sihu, and all movements were immediately reproduced by their holographic copies. The spectacle turned out to be exciting.

Among the screen versions of the play, the film “Masters of Russian Ballet” by Herbert Rappoport, which included excerpts from the Mariinsky Theater, should be noted. It is curious that in the film "Waterloo Bridge" some performance numbers were used to show the main character, ballet dancer Mayra Leicester. This legendary work was inspired by Darren Aronofsky, who shot the psychological thriller “The Black Swan”. It shows all the intrigues that occur in the theater around the distribution of roles.

Despite the initial harsh criticism and deafening success after, numerous changes in the plots and scenes, one thing remains in this ballet invariably - the everlasting music of P.I. Tchaikovsky. It is not by chance that Swan Lake is recognized as the most famous ballet in the world and is a kind of standard. We invite you to enjoy this masterpiece right now and see the Swan Lake by P.I. Tchaikovsky.

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