'SWAN LAKE' AT THE BOLSHOI THEATRE IN MOSCOW

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Today, The Grandma is spending her last day at home. She is totally recovered of her flu and tomorrow she will start her activity again.

She has been relaxed at home studying a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Grammar 9 & 10).

After doing her homework, The Grandma has watched one of her favourite ballets, Swan Lake, which was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in the 19th century and received its premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, on a day like today in 1877.

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Swan Lake is a ballet composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76. Despite its initial failure, it is now one of the most popular of all ballets.

The scenario, initially in two acts, was fashioned from Russian and German folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger.

Although it is presented in many different versions, most ballet companies base their stagings both choreographically and musically on the 1895 revival of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, first staged for the Imperial Ballet on 15 January 1895, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. For this revival, Tchaikovsky's score was revised by the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatre's chief conductor and composer Riccardo Drigo.

There is no evidence to prove who wrote the original libretto, or where the idea for the plot came from. Russian and German folk tales have been proposed as possible sources, including The White Duck and The Stolen Veil by Johann Karl August Musäus, but both those tales differ significantly from the ballet.

Olga Spessiva in Swan Lake costume

One theory is that the original choreographer, Julius Reisinger, who was a Bohemian and therefore likely to be familiar with The Stolen Veil, created the story.

Another theory is that it was written by Vladimir Petrovich Begichev, director of the Moscow Imperial Theatres at the time, possibly with Vasily Geltser, Danseur of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre, a surviving copy of the libretto bears his name.

Since the first published libretto does not correspond with Tchaikovsky's music in many places, one theory is that the first published version was written by a journalist after viewing initial rehearsals, new opera and ballet productions were always reported in the newspapers, along with their respective scenarios.

Some contemporaries of Tchaikovsky recalled the composer taking great interest in the life story of Bavarian King Ludwig II, whose life had supposedly been marked by the sign of Swan and could have been the prototype of the dreamer Prince Siegfried. However, Ludwig's death happened 10 years after the first performance of the ballet.

Begichev commissioned the score of Swan Lake from Tchaikovsky in May 1875 for 800 rubles. Tchaikovsky worked with only a basic outline from Julius Reisinger of the requirements for each dance. However, unlike the instructions for the scores of The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, no written instruction is known to have survived.

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From around the time of the turn of the 19th century until the beginning of the 1890s, scores for ballets were almost always written by composers known as specialists, who were highly skilled at scoring the light, decorative, melodious, and rhythmically clear music that was at that time in vogue for ballet. Tchaikovsky studied the music of specialists such as the Italian Cesare Pugni and the Austrian Ludwig Minkus, before setting to work on Swan Lake.

Tchaikovsky had a rather negative opinion of the specialist ballet music until he studied it in detail, being impressed by the nearly limitless variety of infectious melodies their scores contained. Tchaikovsky most admired the ballet music of such composers as Léo Delibes, Adolphe Adam, and later, Riccardo Drigo.

He would later write to his protégé, the composer Sergei Taneyev, I listened to the Delibes ballet Sylvia... what charm, what elegance, what wealth of melody, rhythm, and harmony. I was ashamed, for if I had known of this music then, I would not have written Swan Lake. 

Tchaikovsky most admired Adam's 1844 score for Giselle, which used the Leitmotif technique: associating certain themes with certain characters or moods, a technique he would use in Swan Lake, and later, The Sleeping Beauty.

Tchaikovsky drew on previous compositions for his Swan Lake score. According to two of Tchaikovsky's relatives –his nephew Yuri Lvovich Davydov and his niece Anna Meck-Davydova– the composer had earlier created a little ballet called The Lake of the Swans at their home in 1871.

This ballet included the famous Leitmotif, the Swan's Theme or Song of the Swans. He also made use of material from The Voyevoda, an opera he had abandoned in 1868. The Grand adage from the second scene of Swan Lake was fashioned from an aria from that opera, as was the Valse des fiancées from the third scene. Another number which included a theme from The Voyevoda was the Entr'acte of the fourth scene.

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By April 1876 the score was complete, and rehearsals began. Soon Reisinger began setting certain numbers aside that he dubbed undanceable. Reisinger even began choreographing dances to other composers' music, but Tchaikovsky protested and his pieces were reinstated. Although the two artists were required to collaborate, each seemed to prefer working as independently of the other as possible.

Tchaikovsky's excitement with Swan Lake is evident from the speed with which he composed: commissioned in the spring of 1875, the piece was created within one full year. His letters to Sergei Taneyev from August 1875 indicate, however, that it was not only his excitement that compelled him to create it so quickly but his wish to finish it as soon as possible, so as to allow him to start on an opera. Respectively, he created scores of the first three numbers of the ballet, then the orchestration in the fall and winter, and was still struggling with the instrumentation in the spring.

By April 1876, the work was complete. Tchaikovsky's mention of a draft suggests the presence of some sort of abstract but no such draft has ever been seen. Tchaikovsky wrote various letters to friends expressing his longstanding desire to work with this type of music, and his excitement concerning his current stimulating, albeit laborious task.

More information: The Guardian

I love anything by Tchaikovsky.

He was the real pop star of his day.

Sufjan Stevens