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3. The iconic corps de ballet as swans. Swan Lake is one of the most demanding productions for the corps de ballet. Not only is the choreography technically challenging, but in order to create the effect of a flock of swans, the corps de ballet need to move in complete unison.
- Femmes Fatales of Ballet
3. Odile in Swan Lake. Arguably the most popular ballet,...
- Swan Lake
Derek Deane’s Swan Lake in-the-round caused a sensation at...
- Femmes Fatales of Ballet
- Origins
- Plot
- A Rough Start
- Revival
- Iconic Choreography and Technical Challenges
- The Impact of Tchaikovsky’s Score
- Legacy
There is actually no existing evidence of where the idea of the plot of Swan Lakecame from, or what inspired its writer. The most accepted theory is that the content of the ballet is based on a Russian or German folktale. Legend has it that in 1871 Tchaikovsky composed a children’s ballet-pantomime, The Lake of the Swan, for his young nephews and n...
Like many powerful love stories, the magical ballet of Swan Lakehas a classic tragic love narrative, telling the story of the doomed love between Prince Siegfried and Princess Odette. Out hunting one night, Prince Siegfried chases a group of swans – one of whom transforms into a young woman, Princess Odette, who explains that she and her companions...
Tchaikovsky had often wanted to try his hand at this kind of music, and was commissioned to compose Swan Lake in 1875 by his friend Vladimir Petrovich Begichev, director of the Moscow Imperial Theatre. Through his study of composers such as Leo Delibes and Adolphe Adam, Tchaikovsky increasingly grew to appreciate and admire the music, and this enth...
One of the issues for the premiere performance was the absence of the Bolshoi’s prima ballerina, Anna Sobeshchanskaya. Sobeshchanskaya rejoined the production as Odette/Odile in April 1877 but insisted on making certain changes to the choreography and score. Two years later the original choreographer, Julius Reisinger, left Moscow and was replaced ...
Swan Lake has some of the most unique and iconic choreography in ballet history, and is known as one of the most demanding and iconic productions for a corps de balletto dance. The choreography is technically challenging – the corps de ballet need to move in complete unison to create the effect of a flock of swans. Whilst the dancers make it look e...
Today, Tchaikovsky’s score is considered one of his most important works, and his inventive orchestrations are seen to have raised the standard for all future ballet scores. Tchaikovsky used leitmotifs (repeated sections of music associated with a particular character, idea or situation), which helped reinvent music in ballet to be an essential par...
Many interpretations of Swan Lakehave been made – notably Frederick Ashton’s 1987 version (which saw the most revivals by the Royal Ballet), and indeed Matthew Bourne’s 2007 ground breaking all-male Swan Lake which was arguably the biggest shake-up to the ballet since the Mariinsky revival. In this version, it is the Prince who struggles against re...
- Amy Irvine
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- The Iconic Score. Composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was commissioned to write the score for Swan Lake in 1875. At the time, it was unusual for a composer as popular as Tchaikovsky to compose for the ballet.
- A Display of Technical Prowess. There’s no ballet moment as famous as Swan Lake’s infamous thirty-two fouettés section of the Black Swan pas de deux, where she completes thirty-two rotations without stopping once.
- The Mesmerizing Movement. As impressive as these sections from Swan Lake are, displays of physical mastery would not be enough to make it as lasting as it is.
- The Power of the Corps De Ballet. Another element that makes Swan Lake stand out is its use of the Corps de Ballet. Whether dancing in complete unison or creating kaleidoscopic patterns onstage, this large group of dancers seems to effortlessly move as a group of swans gliding on a pond.
Swan Lake is one of the most popular of all classical ballets, and the first of Tchaikovsky ’s three ballets (the others being The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker) that opened a golden age of ...
- The mystique of the Swan Queen. The ballerina’s dual role of Odette/Odile, or White Swan/Black Swan, is one of the most iconic in the repertoire, demanding technical mastery and emotional range to morph from vulnerable and pure Odette to audacious and deceptive Odile.
- The stirring Tchaikovsky score. Swan Lake was Tchaikovsky’s first ballet. By creating a score that was more like a symphonic work, he radically raised the bar for ballet music.
- Those chill-inducing swan arms. The undulating port de bras of the swans – a movement quality unique to Swan Lake – lends its own mystique to the classical vocabulary.
- New scenic designs by acclaimed designer Peter Farmer. This February, PBT will debut new scenery by the late Peter Farmer, the same visionary behind PBT’s 2016 recreation of Giselle.
If you want to put it in a New York City Ballet perspective, just before this ballet, he wrote the Third Symphony, which we know as Diamonds. Three years after Swan Lake, he wrote Serenade for ...
Mar 11, 2018 · Updated on 03/11/18. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 's Swan Lake was composed in 1875 after he received a commission from Vladimir Petrovich Begichev, the intendant of Moscow's Russian Imperial Theatres. The ballet's content is based on a Russian folktale, and over the course of two acts, tells the story of a princess turned into a swan.
