Swan Lake plot. The famous “Swan Lake”: the secrets and origins of ballet

Ballet Swan Lake"

The history of the creation of the ballet “Swan Lake”.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in 1840 in Votkinsk. From early childhood, Peter was drawn to the piano, at which he spent his leisure time. In 1845, he began to learn to play the piano, after just 3 years he could already read music, and a year later he played the piano perfectly. After completing a course of science in 1859, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky entered the service of the department of the Ministry of Justice, but he did not like bureaucratic service. A year later, Tchaikovsky entered the newly opened St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied “in the composition class” with Anton Rubinstein.

At first, Tchaikovsky's successes were modest. But hard work paid off. Many wonderful works were born, such as the operas “Iolanta” and “The Queen of Spades”, the ballets “The Nutcracker” and “Sleeping Beauty”, many symphonies and suites, concert and piano works.

Swan Lake was a different story. Firstly, Swan Lake was the first ballet created by Tchaikovsky. Secondly, as Tchaikovsky himself admitted to N. Rimsky-Korsakov, Pyotr Ilyich wrote this work partly because of the money he then needed. Thus, a well-known composer in Russia undertakes to write his first ballet. The libretto was written by V. Geltser and V. Begichev. In 1876, the opera Swan Lake was first performed. But the first production was unsuccessful. But 20 years later, in 1895, a brilliant revival of the ballet took place on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. Modest Tchaikovsky redid the libretto, and conductor and composer Riccardo Drigo made some changes to the score. But first of all, “Swan Lake” owes its triumph to two choreographers - Lev Ivanov and Marius Petipa. Petipa-Ivanov's choreography contains the all-encompassing jubilation of the holiday and the romantic fragmentation of the world, the idyll of the first act and the fatal break of the second, the purity of the love adagio and the demonic virtuosity of Odile. It contains a symbol of ideal but tragic love, embodied in the image of Odette. A unique phenomenon of Russian artistic culture, “Swan Lake” collected and absorbed the heritage of ballet of the 19th century and largely determined the development of ballet art of the 20th century.

The plot of the opera "Swan Lake".

Act one.

The castle celebrates the coming of age of the young Prince Siegfried. His mother, courtiers, and friends congratulate him. The guests are entertained by a jester. Siegfried's mother gives her son a crossbow. She reminds the prince that it is time for him to choose a bride. The feast is over, the guests leave. Siegfried is left alone. He is tormented by vague premonitions and worried by unclear dreams. A flock of swans appears in the sky, and the prince, carried away by a sudden emotional impulse, hurries after them to the lake.

Act two.

Siegfried finds himself in the night forest, on the shore of a lake. The swans land on the shore and turn into beautiful young girls. The prince, enchanted by their beauty, involuntarily lowers his crossbow. The Swan Queen Odette tells the prince that they are all under the spell of the evil wizard Rothbart. Only the power of love can overcome his witchcraft. Siegfried swears eternal love and fidelity to her, but Odette warns him: if he does not keep his oath, then the swan girls will forever remain in Rothbart’s power. It's getting light. Swans swim on the surface of the lake. Odette and Siegfried say goodbye.

Act three.

The castle is filled with guests again: today the young prince must choose a bride for himself. Noble beauties from different countries have come to the ball, but Siegfried remains indifferent - none of them can compare with the memories of Odette. Fanfare notifies those gathered about the arrival of new guests - this is a noble knight and his beautiful companion. This is the wizard Rothbart himself and his daughter Odile, who is unusually similar to Odette. Odile charms the prince, deceived by the resemblance. He calls her his chosen one. Rothbart is triumphant: the prince broke his oath of allegiance, and now the swans will forever remain under his spell. For a moment, a picture of a lake appears before the amazed prince, and he rushes after the elusive ghost of the opera. Shore. Lake. Night. Odette tells her friends about the broken oath. Now the swan girls are forever doomed to remain in witchcraft captivity. Siegfried, tormented by remorse, appears and begs Odette for forgiveness; the swan queen forgives him. The prince enters into single combat with Rothbart, and the power of human love overcomes the witchcraft of the evil genius, giving the heroes freedom and happiness.

Musical dramaturgy.

Demonic virtuosity of Odile. It contains a symbol of ideal but tragic love, embodied in the image of Odette . The image of Prince Siegfried was new for Russian ballet. For the first time in Russian ballet, a male image (and not just dance) of a hero was created, going through trials, suffering, challenging fate and fighting for his love. Thanks to the orchestra, you could feel who the character was good and who was evil. During the dance of Odette and Siegfried there was a love melody, but slightly with sad shades of the melody. During the performance of Rothbart's dance, a somewhat insidious, cunning melody sounded. And during the final battle between Siegfried and Rothbart, tension was felt at first, and then a pleasant feeling of the victory of good over evil.

The significance of “Swan Lake” in history.

“Swan Lake” outlined the border between two eras in the history of ballet art - the outgoing century of the romantic “grand ballet” and the new era of symphonization of ballet, saturation of its end-to-end musical and plot development. In essence, Tchaikovsky transformed the traditional “divertissement” ballet, transforming the genre with the skill of a mature composer-symphonist; Petipa and Ivanov created a choreographic interpretation of this work, both preserving some of the features of the tradition of romantic ballet and giving it a new look. A unique phenomenon of Russian artistic culture, “Swan Lake” collected and absorbed the heritage of ballet of the 19th century and largely determined the development of ballet art of the 20th century.

Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ballet

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Most people consider it the most Russian ballet.” It is “Swan” that is the symbol of Russian ballet.

Hundreds of beautiful ballerinas created the images of Odette and Odile, and dozens of choreographers created their own versions of this immortal performance.

It’s hard to even imagine now, but the premiere "Swan Lake" at the Bolshoi Theater in 1877 was more than modest. About the future triumphs of his ballet Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky I never found out.

Ballet is not an art

In the mid-19th century, serious musicians looked down on ballet, considering it a second-class art, a relative of melodrama and vaudeville. However, conservatory professor, composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky- the famous author of operas, symphonies, instrumental music and romances - regularly attended ballet performances and even understood dance techniques.

Of course, about writing music for ballet Chaikovsky and did not think, and it was not a creative impulse at all, but the prose of life that forced him to accept the offer of the directorate of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theater to compose a ballet. The promised fee of 800 rubles was a great help. Salary of a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory Tchaikovsky desperately lacked, and he openly admitted that he took on this work partly for the money.

Background of "Swan Lake"

In 1875 Chaikovsky began composing a ballet, calling it “Lake of Swans”. The ballet took place in Southern Germany, and the plot told about the tragic fate of Prince Siegfried and his beloved swan fairy Odette.

The composition of the ballet was influenced by the work of Richard Wagner. Once upon a time in my youth Chaikovsky I first heard his opera “Lohengrin” and now the theme of the Swan Knight again took possession of the composer’s thoughts.

For a deeper study of Germany, he went to Bayreuth. It was there, at the presentation of the tetralogy “The Ring of the Nibelungs”, Chaikovsky met Wagner. The name Siegfried, the hero of Wagner's opera, also became the name of the hero of the ballet Tchaikovsky.

Pyotr Ilyich I was also greatly impressed by Wagner’s famous patron, the Bavarian King Ludwig II. He was called the "Swan King". A lonely dreamer, in love with knightly legends and the music of Wagner, Ludwig was fond of building fantastic castles in the foothills of the Alps. One of them is called “New Swan Castle”. Ludwig of Bavaria died in the lake under mysterious circumstances. Chaikovsky was deeply worried, the thought did not leave him that the end of his "Swan Lake" he prophesied such a tragic death for the king.

The plot of the ballet

Authors of the libretto "Swan Lake" were listed as the manager of the Bolshoi Theater Vladimir Begichev and the dancer Vasily Geltser, but soon also the choreographer Wenzel Reizenger, and himself Chaikovsky actively involved in work on the libretto.

Pyotr Ilyich soon became so carried away by the romantic theme that the voluminous score of the four-act ballet became a lyrical reflection of the 36-year-old composer about his own destiny, about the impulses of a noble soul, about the unattainability of the ideal, about devilish temptations and about sublime love.

The plot is based on an old German legend about a beautiful girl turned into a white swan. The ballet intertwines real and fantastic scenes.

Prince Siegfried is having fun in the palace park, celebrating his coming of age with friends. He notices a flock of swans flying by and follows them into the forest. On the shore of the lake, among the swan girls, the prince finds Odette, the swan queen with a crown on her head. Captivated by her beauty and shocked by the story of her persecution by the evil owner of the lake, Rothber, Siegfried swears eternal love to Odette.

At a ball in the castle, Siegfried's mother told him to choose a bride. Odile appeared, in whom the prince saw Odette, he gave preference to her. Realizing that he had made a fatal mistake, Siegfried ran to the lake to beg Odette for forgiveness, but did not receive it. Tearing off the crown from Odette's head, Siegfried challenges Rothber, who personifies the image of Fatum (the owner of the lake) in the ballet (the crown saved Odette from persecution). The prince hopes that the Swan girl will go with him to the world of people. The evil spell of the knight von Rothber and his daughter Odile led to the death of lovers in the waves of a stormy lake.

Ballet score Chaikovsky completed in 1876, not at all imagining that a real masterpiece had come from his pen.

Failure

Premiere "Swan Lake" took place in 1877. Chaikovsky I waited for this day with anxiety and, as it turned out, not in vain. On the days of the premiere, the ballet firstborn Tchaikovsky bad luck. He fell victim to not very gifted directors and theatrical intrigues. The score proved to be very difficult for the in-house choreographer, Wenzel Reisenger. The premiere was danced by ballerina Polina Karpakova. She did not succeed in the role of Odette. The reception was cool, the reviews were not encouraging: “The ballet stomps around in the same place, flapping its arms like a windmill’s wings, and the soloists jump with gymnastic steps around the stage.”

Only the fifth performance was performed by the Bolshoi prima, Anna Sobeschanskaya. Her participation, however, changed the production little. The design and costumes were also far from perfect.

Swan Lake is the most popular ballet

Today productions "Swan Lake" became an adornment of the ballet repertoire. Famous primas are fighting for the right to dance the main roles in this ballet, and then, after the premiere in 1877, people went to the Bolshoi Theater not to watch, but to listen. The musical side decisively prevailed over the choreographic side. “The music is the best ballet I’ve ever done.” heard,” the critic wrote.

For 5 seasons "Swan" It was shown only 39 times, after which it was removed from the repertoire. Chaikovsky was so disappointed that he tried to forget about composing music for ballet for 13 years.

Before triumph "Swan Lake" the composer did not live to see it. He left this ballet as a will, which came into force immediately after the death of the genius. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky died in 1893. At the evening in his memory at the Mariinsky Theater they performed the second white swan act of the ballet choreographed by Lev Ivanov. It was a lyrical requiem for the great creator of ballet music.

A year later, supplemented by the choreography of Marius Petipa, it was born on stage to henceforth win the glory of Russian ballet itself. And since then, the number of performances performed can no longer be counted.

"Swan Lake" by Pyotr Tchaikovsky is one of the ballets that is most often staged in the world. Ballet music gave the greatest artists the opportunity to express themselves. And great artists again and again reveal the depths of a brilliant score.

Ballet "Swan Lake" by Pyotr Tchaikovsky updated: April 9, 2019 by: Elena

In four acts. Libretto by V. Begichev and V. Geltser.

Characters:

• Odette, Queen of the Swan (Good Fairy)
• Odile, daughter of an evil genius, similar to Odette
• Dominant princess
• Prince Siegfried, her son
• Benno von Sommerstern, friend of the prince
• Wolfgang, the prince's mentor
• Knight Rothbart, evil genius disguised as a guest
• Baron von Stein
• Baroness, his wife
• Baron von Schwarzfels
• Baroness, his wife
• Master of Ceremonies
• Herald
• Skorokhod
• Friends of the prince, court gentlemen, ladies and pages in the princess's retinue, footmen, villagers, villagers, servants, swans and cubs

The action takes place in a fairyland in fairy-tale times.

History of creation

In 1875, the directorate of the imperial theaters approached Tchaikovsky with an unusual order. He was asked to write the ballet “Lake of Swans”. This order was unusual because “serious” composers had not previously written ballet music. The only exceptions were works in this genre by Adana and Delibes. Against the expectations of many, Tchaikovsky accepted the order. The script proposed to him by V. Begichev (1838-1891) and V. Geltser (1840-1908) was based on the motifs of fairy tales found among different peoples about enchanted girls turned into swans. It is curious that four years earlier, in 1871, the composer wrote a one-act ballet for children called “Lake of Swans,” so perhaps he had the idea of ​​​​using this particular plot in a large ballet. The theme of all-conquering love, triumphant even over death, was close to him: by that time the symphonic overture-fantasy “Romeo and Juliet” had already appeared in his creative portfolio, and the next year, after turning to “Swan Lake” (as the ballet began to be called in final version), but even before its completion, Francesca da Rimini was created.

The composer approached the order very responsibly. According to the recollections of his contemporaries, “before writing the ballet, he spent a long time trying to figure out who he could contact in order to obtain accurate information about the music necessary for dancing. He even asked... what should he do with the dances, what should be their length, count, etc.” Tchaikovsky carefully studied various ballet scores to understand “this type of composition in detail.” Only after this did he begin composing. At the end of the summer of 1875, the first two acts were written, and at the beginning of winter - the last two. The following spring, the composer orchestrated what he had written and completed work on the score. In the fall, work was already underway at the theater on staging the ballet. It began to be implemented by V. Reisinger (1827-1892), who was invited to Moscow in 1873 to the position of choreographer of the Moscow Bolshoi Theater. Unfortunately, he turned out to be an unimportant director. His ballets throughout 1873-1875 invariably failed, and when in 1877 another of his performances appeared on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater - the premiere of Swan Lake took place on February 20 (March 4, new style) - this event went unnoticed. Actually, from the point of view of balletomanes, this was not an event: the performance was unsuccessful and left the stage eight years later.

The real birth of Tchaikovsky's first ballet took place more than twenty years later, after the composer's death. The directorate of the imperial theaters was going to stage Swan Lake in the 1893-1894 season. The directorate had two excellent choreographers at its disposal - the venerable Marius Petipa (1818-1910), who worked in St. Petersburg since 1847 (he made his debut as both a dancer and a choreographer and created an entire era in Russian ballet), and Lev Ivanov (1834-1901), an assistant Petipa, who staged mainly small ballets and divertissements on the stages of the Mariinsky, Kamennoostrovsky and Krasnoselsky theaters. Ivanov was distinguished by his amazing musicality and brilliant memory. He was a real gem; some researchers call him “the soul of Russian ballet.” A student of Petipa, Ivanov gave his teacher’s work even greater depth and a purely Russian character. However, he could create his choreographic compositions only to beautiful music. His best achievements include, in addition to the scenes of “Swan Lake”, “Polovtsian Dances” in “Prince Igor” and “Hungarian Rhapsody” to the music of Liszt.

The script for the new production of the ballet was developed by Petipa himself. In the spring of 1893, his collaboration with Tchaikovsky began, which was interrupted by the composer’s untimely death. Shocked both by Tchaikovsky's death and by his own personal losses, Petipa fell ill. At the evening dedicated to the memory of Tchaikovsky and held on February 17, 1894, among other numbers, the 2nd scene of “Swan Lake” staged by Ivanov was performed.

With this production, Ivanov opened a new page in the history of Russian choreography and gained fame as a great artist. Until now, some troupes stage it as a separate independent work. “...Lev Ivanov’s discoveries in Swan Lake are a brilliant breakthrough into the 20th century,” writes V. Krasovskaya. Highly appreciating Ivanov's choreographic discoveries, Petipa assigned him the swan scenes. In addition, Ivanov staged Csardas and a Venetian dance to Neapolitan music (later released). After his recovery, Petipa completed the production with his characteristic skill. Unfortunately, a new plot twist - a happy ending instead of the originally intended tragic one - proposed by Modest Tchaikovsky, the brother and librettist of some of the composer's operas, led to the relative failure of the finale.

On January 15, 1895, the premiere finally took place at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, giving Swan Lake a long life. Throughout the 20th century, the ballet was performed on many stages in various versions. His choreography absorbed the ideas of A. Gorsky (1871-1924), A. Vaganova (1879-1951), K. Sergeev (1910-1992), F. Lopukhov (1886-1973).

Plot

(original version)

In the park of the Sovereign Princess's castle, friends are waiting for Prince Siegfried. The celebration of his coming of age begins. To the sound of fanfare, the princess appears and reminds Siegfried that tomorrow at the ball he will have to choose a bride. Siegfried is saddened: he does not want to bind himself while his heart is free. At dusk, a flock of swans is visible flying by. The prince and his friends decide to end the day with a hunt.

Swans are swimming on the lake. Hunters with Siegfried and Benno come ashore to the ruins of the chapel. They see swans, one of which has a golden crown on its head. The hunters shoot, but the swans swim away unharmed and in a magical light turn into beautiful girls. Siegfried, captivated by the beauty of the swan queen Odette, listens to her sad story about how an evil genius bewitched them. Only at night do they take on their true appearance, and with sunrise they become birds again. Witchcraft will lose its power if a young man who has never sworn love to anyone falls in love with her and remains faithful to her. At the first rays of dawn, the girls disappear into the ruins, and now swans are swimming across the lake, and a huge eagle owl is flying behind them - their evil genius.

There's a ball at the castle. The prince and princess greet the guests. Siegfried is full of thoughts about the swan queen, none of the girls present touches his heart. Trumpets sound twice to announce the arrival of new guests. But then the trumpets sounded for the third time; It was the knight Rothbart who arrived with his daughter Odile, who was surprisingly similar to Odette. The prince, confident that Odile is the mysterious swan queen, joyfully rushes towards her. The princess, seeing the prince's passion for the beautiful guest, declares her Siegfried's bride and joins their hands. The swan Odette appears in one of the windows of the ballroom. Seeing her, the prince understands the terrible deception, but the irreparable has happened. The prince, overcome with horror, runs to the lake.

Lake Shore. The swan girls are waiting for the queen. Odette runs in in despair at the prince's betrayal. She tries to throw herself into the waters of the lake, her friends try to console her. The prince appears. He swears that he saw Odette in Odile and that is why he uttered the fatal words. He is ready to die with her. The evil genius in the guise of an owl hears this. The death of a young man in the name of love for Odette will bring him death! Odette runs to the lake. The evil genius tries to turn her into a swan to prevent her from drowning, but Siegfried fights him and then rushes after his beloved into the water. The owl falls dead.

Music

In Swan Lake, Tchaikovsky still remains within the framework of the genres and forms of ballet music that had developed by that time according to certain laws, although he fills them with new content. His music transforms ballet “from the inside”: traditional waltzes become poetic poems of enormous artistic significance; adagios are the moment of greatest concentration of feeling, saturated with beautiful melodies; the entire musical fabric of Swan Lake lives and develops symphonically, and does not become, as in most contemporary ballets, simply an accompaniment to one dance or another. In the center is the image of Odette, characterized by a reverent, excited theme. The associated soulful lyrics extend throughout the entire work, permeating it with beautiful melodies. Characteristic dances, as well as pictorial episodes, occupy a relatively small place in the ballet.

L. Mikheeva

In the photo: “Swan Lake” at the Mariinsky Theater

“Swan Lake” was composed by the young Tchaikovsky during one of his most active creative periods. Three symphonies and the now famous concert for piano and orchestra (1875) had already been created, a little later - the fourth symphony (1878) and the opera “Eugene Onegin” (1881). The approach of a composer of this level to composing ballet music was not common for that time. In the imperial theaters there were full-time composers for this type of creativity - Caesar Pugni, Ludwig Minkus, and later Riccardo Drigo. Tchaikovsky did not set himself the task of a “revolution” in ballet. With his characteristic modesty, he scrupulously studied ballet scores, striving, without breaking with the established forms and traditions of ballet performances, to saturate their musical basis with high content from within.

It is now generally accepted that it was “Swan Lake” that opened up unprecedented musical horizons for Russian ballet, which were subsequently developed by Tchaikovsky himself and his followers in this area. However, Boris Asafiev is also right: “In comparison with the luxurious baroque of The Sleeping Beauty and the masterful symphonic action of The Nutcracker, Swan Lake is an album of soulful “songs without words.” It is more melodious and simple-minded than other ballets.” One can hardly demand perfection of musical dramaturgy from the “firstborn”. To this day, in productions of Swan Lake, no ideal correspondence has been found between the composer’s musical intentions and the stage action.

The music was composed from May 1875 to April 1876 by order of the Moscow Bolshoi Theater. The ballet is based on a fairy-tale plot “from knightly times.” There are many opinions about his literary sources: they call Heine, the German storyteller Muzeus, Russian fairy tales about the swan girl and even Pushkin, but the story itself is completely independent. The idea probably belonged to the composer, but the authors of the libretto are considered to be the inspector of Moscow theaters Vladimir Begichev and the ballet dancer Vasily Geltser. The play premiered on February 20, 1877. Its, alas, extremely unsuccessful choreographer was Vaclav Reisinger. Unfortunately, the failure of this production cast a long shadow on the ballet itself. When, almost immediately after Tchaikovsky’s death, in 1893 the question arose about staging “Swan Lake” at the Mariinsky Theater, the most important development to a full stage realization had to be done without the author.

The composer’s brother Modest Tchaikovsky (librettist of “The Queen of Spades” and “Iolanta”), director of the Imperial Theaters Ivan Vsevolozhsky and Marius Petipa took part in modifying the plot basis. According to the latter’s instructions, conductor Drigo, who revered Tchaikovsky’s music, made significant adjustments to the ballet’s score. So the first two acts became two scenes of the initial act. The duet of the Prince and the villager from the first film became the now famous pas de deux of Odile and the Prince, replacing the sextet with the participation of the main characters at the ball. The storm scene, which, according to the composer's plan, concluded the ballet, was removed from the final act. Moreover, Drigo orchestrated and inserted three piano pieces by Tchaikovsky into the ballet: “Naughty” became a variation of Odile in the pas de deux, “Sparkle” and “A Little Bit of Chopin” were included in the third act.

It was to this modified score that the famous production of 1895 was created, which gave immortality to the ballet. Petipa, in addition to the general direction of the production, composed the choreography of the first film and a number of dances at the ball. Lev Ivanov has the honor of composing swan paintings and some of the dances at the ball. The main role of Odette-Odile was danced by the Italian ballerina Pierina Legnani, and the role of Siegfried was performed by Pavel Gerdt. The famous artist was turning 51, and the choreographers had to compromise: in the lyrical white adagio, Odette danced not with the Prince, but with his friend Benno, and Siegfried only mimed nearby. In the pas de deux the male variation was stopped.

Balletomanes of that time did not immediately appreciate the merits of the premiere. However, the audience, who had previously loved The Sleeping Beauty, The Queen of Spades and The Nutcracker, warmly accepted Tchaikovsky’s new ballet, in which the sincere lyricism of the music was successfully combined with the soulful choreography of Lev Ivanov’s swan scenes, and the festive pictures included such masterpieces by Marius Petipa as pas de trois and pas de deux. It was this production that gradually (and with inevitable changes) conquered the whole world.

In Russia, the first changes began within 6 years. The first “editor” was Alexander Gorsky, one of the performers of the role of Benno in St. Petersburg. The Jester appeared in the first picture, but Benno disappeared in the second. The Spanish ball dance composed by Gorsky is now performed everywhere. Ivanov-Petipa's Swan Lake ran at the Mariinsky Theater with minor adjustments until 1933.

Over the years, Matilda Kshesinskaya, Tamara Karsavina, and Olga Spesivtseva shone in ballet. In 1927, young Marina Semenova amazed everyone with her proud Odette and demonically powerful Odile.

The idea of ​​a decisive rethinking of classical ballet belonged to Agrippina Vaganova and her co-authors: musicologist Boris Asafiev, director Sergei Radlov and artist Vladimir Dmitriev. Instead of a “fantastic ballet”, a romantic short story appeared before the audience. The action was moved to the beginning of the 19th century, the Prince became a Count, fascinated by ancient legends, Rothbardt became his neighbor, the Duke, who wants to marry off his daughter. The swan only appeared in the count’s dreams as a girl. The bird shot by the Duke died in the arms of the Count, who in anguish stabbed himself with a dagger. In the updated “Swan Lake,” the two heroines were danced not by one, as before, but by two ballerinas: the Swan by Galina Ulanova, Odile by Olga Jordan. The curious adaptation of the ballet lasted less than ten years, but what remained was the reverent choreographic scene “The Bird and the Hunter,” which replaced Odette’s obscure story about her fate at the beginning of the second film.

In 1937, at the Moscow Bolshoi Theater, Asaf Messerep also updated Swan Lake. It was then that the tragic death of the heroes, so important for Tchaikovsky’s plan, was replaced by a straightforward “happy ending”. It seems that the date of this correction, which became mandatory for productions of the Soviet period, is not accidental. Since 1945, in Leningrad, the Prince began to defeat the villain Rothbardt in hand-to-hand combat. Fairness requires that it be noted that choreographer Fyodor Lopukhov is not the only one responsible for this innovation. He interpreted the whole picture of the ball as an extended witchcraft - the dancers and guests appeared on Rothbardt’s orders.

For more than half a century, the “stage and choreographic version” of Konstantin Sergeev’s “Swan Lake” (1950) has been preserved on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater. And although little remains of the choreography of 1895 (the second scene, supplemented by the dance of large swans, mazurka, Hungarian, and also partly a pas de deux in the ball scene), it itself has become a “classic” for more than half a century, thanks to tours theater audiences from all continents admired her. It accumulated the dance and artistic skills of dozens of excellent performers of the main roles: from Natalia Dudinskaya to Ulyana Lopatkina, from Konstantin Sergeev to Farukh Ruzimatov.

Two productions that enriched the stage history of Swan Lake were staged in Moscow in the second half of the 20th century. The performances, almost diametric in style and concept, had one thing in common - a declarative return to Tchaikovsky’s original score (though not in full) and a corresponding rejection of the 1895 production: only Ivanov’s second picture was preserved, and even then with Gorsky’s amendments.

Vladimir Burmeister performed his version on the stage of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater (1953). For the introduction to the ballet, a scene was composed explaining to the audience how and why Rothbardt turned Odette and her friends into swans. In the second act, developing Lopukhov's idea, the choreographer interpreted the suite of characteristic dances as a series of temptations of the Prince, each of which demonstrated another face of the insidious Odile and her world. In the last act, the dance scene of the raging elements was impressive, consonant with the apogee of the characters’ feelings. In the finale, love triumphed, and the swans, almost before the viewer’s eyes, transformed into girls.

P.I. Tchaikovsky ballet "Swan Lake"

The ballet “Swan Lake” has captivated the hearts of classical music fans for more than a century. It is rightfully considered the standard of high art, and many world-famous dancers were proud that they were so lucky to perform a part in this performance. “Swan Lake” without a grain of exaggeration can be called a pearl of Russian classics, and P.I. Tchaikovsky - a great composer. The ballet is based on a fairy tale from the knightly era. This is a tender and beautiful love story, filled with many obstacles and trials that await young lovers.

Read a summary of Tchaikovsky's ballet "" and many interesting facts about this work on our page.

Summary of “Swan Lake”

The action of the ballet begins in an ancient castle, during the celebration of the coming of age of the heir to the throne, Siegfried. The plot is imbued with the spirit of the era, this is largely facilitated by the rite of knighting, which means that the heir enters adulthood. But he longs for love, and of course there are a sufficient number of beauties among the guests, each of whom would be happy to be next to him. The prince dreams of a bright feeling and, like a real romantic, cherishes the image of an ideal beloved in his soul.

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

But in vain does the heir to the throne rejoice at such luck. Fate prepares real obstacles for him, preventing their mutual love and tests the beautiful couple with jealousy and betrayal. Turning into a mysterious knight and appearing in the prince’s castle with Odette’s double, she forces the young man in love, blinded by emotions, to break all his vows to his chosen one. But even after going through all the obstacles, the lovers are not destined to be together; no one is able to disrupt 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 failed at its first premiere. The deeply upset author said that he would be appreciated, but later and the time for this work was still ahead. This “later” came 18 years later 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”? It denotes an artist who has not achieved success in his career, who is forced to constantly be content with minor roles and extras.
• The roles of Odette and Odile are performed by one ballerina.
• Maya Plisetskaya performed the role of Odette-Odile on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater for 30 years.

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

• Work on the performance lasted about a year, with short breaks due to the fact that the composer was also composing the Third Symphony during this period.
• Many admirers of Tchaikovsky's work wonder what could have inspired him to write such soulful and beautiful music? There is an opinion that this is the merit of the lake in the Cherkasy region, where swans live. The composer rested there for several days, admiring the local nature. But in Germany they are sure that the ballet tells specifically about Swan Lake, which is located near the city of Vossen.
• Initially, prima Anna Sobeshchanskaya was chosen for the premiere in 1876, but she had a strong quarrel with the composer, so this role was offered to Polina Karpakova. As it turned out, the reason for the conflict was that Prima was not satisfied with 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 to insert a solo to his music into this action. If the choreographer complied with her request, the composer flatly refused to insert a fragment of music that was not his own. Soon Tchaikovsky offered to resolve the conflict and wrote a solo for her, a little later variations were added to it.

• The estimate for the premiere screening of “Swan Lake” was very small and amounted to about 6,800 rubles.
• The famous critic Hermann Laroche noted the music of the ballet after the premiere, but he called everything related to the dance side “boring and poor.”
• Only the work of the artist Carl Waltz, who specially developed a technology that provides the illusion of fog using steam, received praise from journalists.
• Researchers suggest that the literary source may be based on: the fairy tale “Swan Pond”, “The Stolen Veil” by Mazues, as well as an ancient German legend.
• Lev Ivanov, while working on the ballet, rethought the costumes of the dancers, removing the swan wings to free up their hands, giving them the opportunity to move. He also owns the already legendary “” from the second act.

• The laurels of the best performer of the role of Odette belong to Pierina Legnani, who performed all the dance movements with particular grace, even the 32 fouettés. 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 that occurred in 1991, this particular performance was broadcast by all television channels.
• In everyone’s favorite cartoon “Well, wait a minute!” (15th issue) shows a parody of the Dance of the Little Swans. In general, classical music can be heard quite often in cartoons . You can find out more about this in a special section.

Popular numbers from the ballet “Swan Lake”

Dance of the little swans - listen

Spanish dance - listen

Odette's theme - listen

Neapolitan dance - listen

Great Waltz - listen

The history of the creation of “Swan Lake”

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

Tchaikovsky plunged into his work headlong and approached every step very responsibly. The composer had to study the entire dances, their order, as well as 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 was he able to start writing music. As for the score, the ballet “Swan Lake” reveals two figurative worlds - fantastic and real, however, sometimes the boundaries between them are erased. The most tender theme of Odette runs through the entire work as a red thread.

Literally within a year, the ballet score was ready and he began orchestration. Thus, by the autumn of 1876, work had already begun on staging the play, which was entrusted to V. Reisinger. By that time, he had already worked for several years as a choreographer at the Bolshoi Theater. But many of his works, starting in 1873, were a fiasco.

Productions

The long-awaited premiere of Swan Lake in February 1877 was received rather coolly by the public, despite the enormous work done by the entire troupe. Connoisseurs of that time considered this work completely unsuccessful and it was soon removed from the stage. The main culprits for such an unsuccessful production were mainly recognized as the choreographer Wenzel Reisinger and Polina Karpakova, who performed the part of Odette.

Almost twenty years later, the management of the imperial theaters again turned their attention to Tchaikovsky’s work in order to stage it in the new season of 1893-1894. Thus, the famous Marius Petipa developed a new script for the play, and work on it literally immediately began, together with Tchaikovsky. But the sudden death of the composer interrupted this work, and the choreographer himself was deeply shocked by this. A year later, Petipa's student and assistant staged one picture from the ballet, which was very enthusiastically received by the public. After such success and the highest critical acclaim, the choreographer assigned 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 the two directors, the plot of the play was incredibly enriched. Ivanov decided to introduce the White Swan Queen, and Petipa suggested contrasting Odile with her. Thus, the “black” pas de deux from the second act arose.

The new premiere took place in January 1895 in St. Petersburg. It was from this moment that the ballet received well-deserved recognition both among the public and among music critics, and this version was recognized as the best.

The production on the stage of the Vienna Opera, which took place in 1964, caused incredible delight among the public. The performers of the part of Odette - Margot Fonteyn and Siegfried - Rudolf Nureyev were called for an encore eighty-nine times! It is curious that the director of the play was Nuriev himself. In his version, all the action was focused specifically on the prince.

It is worth noting that basically all academic productions of the ballet took the version of L. Ivanov and M. Petipa as a basis. Among subsequent works, it is worth noting the production by V.P. Burmeister in 1953. He introduced new characters and slightly changed the storyline. The choreographer also planned to change the tragic ending and make it bright. But contrary to expectations, the public did not immediately like this innovation. It was believed that it is the tragic ending that gives depth to the interpretation of the entire work.

Among the unusual interpretations, it is worth noting the work of John Normayer, for a production at the Hamburg Ballet. This is already an Illusion, like Swan Lake, where the main character turns into Ludwig II. There is nothing that reminds us of the original source - lakes, swans. Everything that happens around is nothing more than a fantasy of the protagonist’s sick mind.

Also, the work of British choreographer Matthew Bourne, staged in November 1995, is considered to be a rather bold and original version. If initially the idea of ​​​​replacing all the ballerinas with men caused disapproval of the public, over time, this version became a huge success. As Matthew Bourne 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. It is surprising that this particular version made it into the UK school curriculum.

Directed by Australian choreographer Graham Murphy, Odette is a psychiatric patient and the swans are a figment of her imagination.

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

Among the film adaptations of the play, it is worth noting Herbert Rappoport’s film “Masters of Russian Ballet,” which includes fragments from the production at the Mariinsky Theater. It is curious that in the film “Waterloo Bridge” some of the performance numbers were used to show the main character, the ballerina Myra Lester. This legendary work also inspired Darren Aronofsky, who directed the psychological thriller Black Swan. It shows all the intrigues that occur in the theater around the distribution of roles.

Despite the initial harsh criticism and resounding success afterwards, numerous changes in plots and scenes, one thing remains unchanged in this ballet - the beautiful, eternal music of P.I., enchanting from the first sounds. Tchaikovsky. It is no coincidence 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 watch “Swan Lake” by P.I. Tchaikovsky.

Video: watch the ballet “Swan Lake”