Swan Lake is one of the most popular classical ballets and the first Tchaikovskyhis three ballets (the others being The Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker) which opened a golden age of Russian ballet. It is a romantic ballet in four acts composed between 1875 and 1876 and premiered on March 4, 1877 at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow with choreography by Julius Reisinger. However, what we see most often today is a revised version of the score with choreography by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov which premiered at the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg on January 27, 1895, two years after the death of Tchaikovsky.
Listen to our recommended Tchaikovsky recording Swan Lakefeatured on Tchaikovsky: Ballet Suites performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Mstislav Rostropovitch, on Apple Music and Spotify and scroll down to read our ballet masterpiece.
Swan Lake: Guide to Tchaikovsky’s Romantic Ballet Masterpieces
For such a famous work, the genesis of Swan Lake, the greatest of all romantic ballets, is surprisingly vague. Every summer Tchaikovsky used to visit the same three places and friends. It was in these places that he wrote the Second and Third Symphonies, and Swan Lake. Family lore records that there was a house production of a ballet called Swan Lake in the summer of 1871 that Tchaikovsky wrote for his nieces and nephews. It was performed at the country estate of Tchaikovsky’s sister, Alexandra Davydova, in Kamenka (Ukraine). An informant claimed that the familiar “swan theme” of later ballet made its first appearance around this time; another claimed that production took place in the summer of 1867.
There is also uncertainty as to who provided the libretto for the ballet. Russian culture has always drawn heavily from fairy tales, but the two or three often cited as possible sources of Swan Lake little resemblance to the story being danced on stage. One theory is that Reisinger provided the libretto, another says that it was Vladimir Begichev, director of the Imperial Theaters in Moscow, in collaboration with dancer Vasily Geltser. No literary source is cited in the printed booklet.
Tchaikovsky studied the music of “specialist” ballet composers
We know, however, that it was Begichev who commissioned the score in May 1875 for the amount of 800 rubles. We also know that before setting to work, Tchaikovsky studied the music of composers “specialists” in ballet such as Cesare Pugni (1802-70) and Ludwig Minkus (1826-1917) whose light, rhythmic, melodious but insipid works were in high demand. The two composers whose ballet music he most admired were French: Adolphe Adam and Leo Delibes. Adam 1844 Gisele, still one of the most famous in the repertoire, was Tchaikovsky’s favorite ballet. Adam uses leitmotifs – the technique that associates certain musical themes with particular characters and emotions, a device that Tchaikovsky adopted for Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. As for Delibes, Tchaikovsky would later write to his protege the composer Sergei Taneyev that he “listened to the ballet Delibes Sylvia… what charm, what elegance, what richness of melody, rhythm and harmony. I was ashamed, because if I had known this music then, I would not have written Swan Lake.”
Between July 18 and mid-August 1875, Tchaikovsky completed his Third Symphony and wrote two acts of Swan Lake. The score was finally completed in April 1876. Unlike The Sleeping Beauty, composed more than a decade later, there was little communication about the details of the music between Tchaikovsky and the ballet master, Reisinger. Curiously, there is no record of Tchaikovsky’s involvement with ballet during his rehearsal period for much of 1876, although he was living in Moscow at the time. Additionally, the score of Swan Lake leaves free rein to the ballet master to repeat or delete sections at will. No rehearsal material or performance score survives.
Main roles
The main roles are:
Odette (aka Queen Of The Swans and The White Swan), who was transformed into a white swan by Rothbart
Prince Siegfried, a handsome prince who falls in love with Odette
(Baron Von) Rothbart, an evil wizard, who enchanted Odette
Odile (The Black Swan), Rothbart’s daughter
Benno (von Sommerstern), the prince’s friend
The Princess (aka Queen Mother), Prince Siegfried’s mother
Wolfgang, his tutor
Although different productions present different versions and interpretations of the story, the essential elements are constant:
Act 1 – A magnificent park in front of a palace
Prince Siegfried celebrates his majority. The wine flows, Wolfgang flirts, everyone dances. The festivities are interrupted by the princess who, worried about her son’s carelessness, tells him that he must choose someone to marry the next evening. The princess leaves, the celebrations resume, but Siegfried is, understandably, miserable at the thought of not being able to marry for love. Night is falling. Benno tries to cheer up his friend, and when Siegfried sees a flock of swans flying overhead, he suggests they go hunting them.
Act 2 – A clearing by a lake in a forest near a ruined chapel
Separated from his friends, Siegfried arrives in the clearing just as the swans fly overhead. He takes aim with his crossbow but freezes when one of them transforms into a beautiful maiden – it was the swan he was about to kill. She is Odette who explains that she and her companions fall victim to a spell cast upon them by the evil Rothbart whereby they are transformed into swans during the day, only returning to their human form at night by the enchanted lake. The spell can only be broken by someone who has never loved before and swears to love Odette forever. The swans appear in the clearing. Siegfried breaks his crossbow and declares his undying love to Odette. But dawn breaks and fate turns her and her companions into swans.
Act 3 – A magnificent ball at the palace
Guests arrive, six princesses are presented to Siegfried as candidates to be his bride. He chooses none. Then Rothbart enters with his daughter Odile whom he has transformed to look like Odette. Of course, Siegfried only has eyes for her, whereupon Odette appears and tries to warn him about the ruse, but he doesn’t see her and tells her that he will marry Odile. Rothbart extends his hand to Siegfried Odile then shows him a magical vision of Odette. Realizing his mistake, Siegfried fled grief-stricken to the lake.
Act 4 – By the lake
Odette, comforted by her swans, is overwhelmed. Siegfried arrives and begs her forgiveness. She grants him this, but his betrayal means the spell can no longer be undone. A storm is rising. Rather than live forever as a swan, Odette chooses to die. Siegfried chooses to die with her and, falling into her arms, they disappear under the waters (or, in some productions, rise to heaven in an apotheosis). Rothbart’s spell on the swans is broken. He has lost all his evil powers and dies. The storm subsides, the moon appears, and a flock of swans appear on the tranquil lake.
Tchaikovsky’s magnificent score Swan Lake was revolutionary
Today, we take back the magnificent score of Tchaikovsky Swan Lake for granted but it was revolutionary in its time. There are 33 numbers in the complete ballet composed for a large symphony orchestra (five instruments more than the pit orchestra for Tristan and Isolda, for example). The music was no longer a series of unrelated dance moves with no attempt to represent characters or events on stage, as was customary in the fare provided by “specialist” ballet composers. Besides a full symphonic score, Tchaikovsky offered moments of magical orchestration too numerous to mention and, with the sophisticated use of different keys, ties together the various elements of the narrative into a cohesive whole (using B minor for the Swans, for example, F minor for Rothbart).
The premiere of Swan Lake was a fiasco
Yet with all of this, the premiere of Swan Lake Friday, March 4, 1877 at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, was a kind of fiasco. The conductor was unable to do justice to such a complex score, the sets and choreography were poor and, to top it off, the brilliant ballerina Anna Sobeshchanskaya, who was intended for the lead role of Odette, was dropped. after a Moscow official accused her of agreeing to marry him, taking all the jewelry she received as a gift, selling it, and then running away with another dancer. “The poverty of the staging”, wrote Modeste Tchaikovsky, the composer’s brother, “the absence of exceptional performers, the weakness of the imagination of the ballet master and, finally, the orchestra… all this allowed (Tchaikovsky) rightly to blame the failure on others.
Nevertheless – and this is not often recorded – this production survived in the repertoire for six years and had 41 performances, more than many other ballets in the Bolshoi repertoire. But it was only after Tchaikovsky’s death that Swan Lake got the acclaim it deserved in a revised version of the score by Riccardo Drigo (1846-1930), composer, conductor and longtime music director of the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet. Various changes to the libretto were made (see above) and the four acts became three (act 2 became act 1 scene 2). New Swan Lake premiered at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg on Friday, January 27, 1895, to warm acclaim.
One last point. One of the most famous parts of the whole ballet was an afterthought on Tchaikovsky’s one not included in the original production but danced in the revised version. Now, Act 3 features a no two danced by Siegfried and Odile. It ends with the famous 32 Whips By Turning. This, the graceful ‘Waltz’ from Act 1, and the ravishing ‘Dance Of The Cygnets’ from Act 2, are the best-known musical highlights of this great score.
Our recommended recording of Swan Lakefeatured on Tchaikovsky: Ballet Suites performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Mstislav Rostropovitch, can be purchased here.
