96-425: Swan Lake (Russian: Лебеди́ное о́зеро , romanized : Lebedínoje ózero , IPA: [lʲɪbʲɪˈdʲinəjə ˈozʲɪrə] listen ), Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76. Despite its initial failure, it is now one of the most popular ballets of all time. The scenario, initially in two acts, was fashioned from Russian and German folk tales and tells
192-442: A native Russian keyboard layout ( JCUKEN ). In the latter case, they would type using a system of transliteration fitted for their keyboard layout , such as for English QWERTY keyboards, and then use an automated tool to convert the text into Cyrillic. There are a number of distinct and competing standards for the romanization of Russian Cyrillic , with none of them having received much popularity, and, in reality, transliteration
288-659: A repétiteur score was accidentally found in the archives of the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre, among orchestral parts for Alexander Gorsky's revival of Le Corsaire (Gorsky had included the piece in his version of Le Corsaire staged in 1912). In 1960 George Balanchine choreographed a pas de deux to this music for Violette Verdy and Conrad Ludlow , performed at the City Center of Music and Drama in New York City as Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux , as it
384-709: A "Military Spectacle" about the Duke of Marlborough , with music by Adam. The piece was received with "loud and general plaudits", but The Dark Diamond , a historical melodrama in three acts, which followed on 5 November, failed to repeat its success, and Adam went home to Paris in December. He returned briefly to London when his ballet Faust was presented at the King's Theatre in February and March 1833. In 1834 Adam had one of his greatest popular successes with Le chalet , at
480-608: A Latin alphabet for the Russian language was discussed in 1929–30 during the campaign of latinisation of the languages of the USSR , when a special commission was created to propose a latinisation system for Russian. The letters of the Latin script are named in Russian as following (and are borrowed from French and/or German ): Adolphe Adam Adolphe Charles Adam ( French: [adɔlf adɑ̃] ; 24 July 1803 – 3 May 1856)
576-435: A chapel. A moonlit night. Siegfried has become separated from his friends. He arrives at the lakeside clearing, just as a flock of swans land [Scène. Moderato]. He aims his crossbow [Scène. Allegro moderato], but freezes when one of them transforms into a beautiful maiden named Odette [Scène. Moderato]. At first, she is terrified of him. When he promises not to harm her, she explains that she and her companions are victims of
672-574: A member of the chorus at the Vaudeville. Adam's biographer Arthur Pougin describes the marriage as "an important and unfortunate event for him". By Pougin's account, Lescot manoeuvred Adam into marriage, and on his side – and later hers also – it was a loveless union; they separated in 1835. Their only child, Léopold-Adrien, born in 1832, killed himself in 1851. Adam's first full length operas were premiered in 1829: Le jeune propriétaire et le vieux fermier and Danilowa , opéras comiques given at
768-676: A musical career. Adam defied his father, and his many operas and ballets earned him a good living until he lost all his money in 1848 in a disastrous bid to open a new opera house in Paris in competition with the Opéra and Opéra-Comique . He recovered, and extended his activities to journalism and teaching. He was appointed as a professor at the Paris Conservatoire , France's principal music academy. Together with his older contemporary Daniel Auber and his teacher Adrien Boieldieu , Adam
864-477: A new pas de deux , but soon a problem arose: Sobeshchanskaya wanted to retain Petipa's choreography. Tchaikovsky agreed to compose a pas de deux that would match to such a degree, the ballerina would not even be required to rehearse. Sobeshchanskaya was so pleased with Tchaikovsky's new music, she requested he compose an additional variation, which he did. Until 1953 this pas de deux was thought to be lost, until
960-691: A poem by Byron ; it was presented at the Opéra in January 1856, after a year's preparation. His final stage work, the one-act opérette Les Pantins de Violette (Violette's Puppets) was given at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens on 29 April 1856. Four nights later Adam died in his sleep, at the age of 52. He was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery . In Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians , Forbes writes that much of Adam's prolific output
1056-409: A professional composer: he would have preferred him to pursue a commercial or academic career, and although he gave Adam board and lodging he refused to subsidise any musical activities. By the age of 20 Adam was contributing songs to the Paris vaudeville theatres, writing what he later called "bad romances and worse piano pieces", and giving music lessons. Duchaume, timpanist and chorus master of
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#17327809608771152-552: 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
1248-444: A spell cast by the evil owl-like sorcerer named Rothbart. By day they are turned into swans and only at night, by the side of the enchanted lake – created from the tears of Odette's mother – do they return to human form. The spell can only be broken if one who has never loved before swears to love Odette forever. Rothbart suddenly appears [Scène. Allegro vivo]. Siegfried threatens to kill him but Odette intercedes – if Rothbart dies before
1344-453: A swan. A magnificent park before a palace [Scène: Allegro giusto] Prince Siegfried is celebrating his birthday with his tutor, friends, and peasants [Waltz]. The revelries are interrupted by his mother, the Queen [Scène: Allegro moderato], who is concerned about his carefree lifestyle. She tells him that he must choose a bride at the royal ball the following evening (some productions include
1440-412: Is credited with creating the later Romantic French form of opera. Adam was born in Paris on 24 July 1803, the elder of the two children, both sons, of (Jean) Louis Adam and his third wife, Élisa, née Coste. She was the daughter of a prominent physician, and was a former pupil of her husband, a well-known composer, pianist and professor at the Paris Conservatoire . Louis Adam gave his son lessons, but
1536-421: Is evident from the speed with which he composed: commissioned in the spring of 1875, the piece was created within one 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
1632-467: Is generally presented in either four acts, four scenes (primarily outside Russia and Eastern Europe) or three acts, four scenes (primarily in Russia and Eastern Europe). The biggest difference of productions all over the world is that the ending, originally tragic, is now sometimes altered to a happy ending. Some productions include a prologue that shows how Odette first meets Rothbart, who turns Odette into
1728-597: Is often carried out without any consistent standards. Scientific transliteration, also known as the International Scholarly System , is a system that has been used in linguistics since the 19th century. It is based on the Czech alphabet and formed the basis of the GOST and ISO systems. OST 8483 was the first Soviet standard on romanization of Russian, introduced on 16 October 1935. Developed by
1824-510: Is still known and performed today. Julius Reisinger's successor as balletmaster was Joseph Peter Hansen. Hansen made considerable efforts to salvage Swan Lake and on 13 January 1880 he presented a new production of the ballet for his own benefit performance. The part of Odette/Odile was danced by Evdokia Kalmykova, a student of the Moscow Imperial Ballet School , with Alfred Bekefi as Prince Siegfried. This production
1920-706: Is the main system of the Oxford University Press, and a variation was used by the British Library to catalogue publications acquired up to 1975. The Library of Congress system (ALA-LC) is used for newer acquisitions. The BGN/PCGN system is relatively intuitive for Anglophones to read and pronounce. In many publications, a simplified form of the system is used to render English versions of Russian names, typically converting ë to yo , simplifying -iy and -yy endings to -y , and omitting apostrophes for ъ and ь . It can be rendered using only
2016-486: Is usually shown as an owl-like creature. In most productions, the couple's sacrifice results in his destruction. However, there are versions in which he is triumphant. Yury Grigorovich 's version, which has been danced for several decades by the Bolshoi Ballet , is noted for including both endings: Rothbart was defeated in the original 1969 version, in line with Soviet-era expectations of an upbeat conclusion, but in
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#17327809608772112-814: 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 Stolen Veil" by Johann Karl August Musäus , but both those tales differ significantly from
2208-868: The Alhambra Theatre in London and on 1 December 1884 he presented a one-act ballet titled The Swans , which was inspired by the second scene of Swan Lake . The music was composed by the Alhambra Theatre's chef d'orchestre Georges Jacoby. The second scene of Swan Lake was then presented on 21 February in Prague by the Ballet of the National Theatre in a version mounted by the Balletmaster August Berger. The ballet
2304-568: The Russian language (the transliteration of Russian text from the Cyrillic script into the Latin script ), aside from its primary use for including Russian names and words in text written in a Latin alphabet, is also essential for computer users to input Russian text who either do not have a keyboard or word processor set up for inputting Cyrillic, or else are not capable of typing rapidly using
2400-603: The San Francisco Ballet became the first American company to stage a complete production of Swan Lake . The enormously successful production starred Lew Christensen as Prince Siegfried, Jacqueline Martin as Odette, and Janet Reed as Odile. Willam Christensen based his choreography on the Petipa–Ivanov production, turning to San Francisco's large population of Russian émigrés , headed by Princess and Prince Vasili Alexandrovich of Russia , to help him ensure that
2496-797: The Théâtre des Nouveautés and the Opéra-Comique respectively. Danilowa ran well until Parisian life was disrupted by the July Revolution . That, and an outbreak of cholera , led Adam to move to London; this was at the suggestion of his brother-in-law, Pierre François Laporte, manager of the King's Theatre, Haymarket . In 1832 Laporte leased the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden , and in October, as an afterpiece to The Merchant of Venice , he presented James Planché 's His First Campaign ,
2592-419: The "Love Duet") from the second scene of Swan Lake was fashioned from the final love duet from his opera Undina , abandoned in 1873. 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
2688-442: The 1895 production, she did not), and appears only in act 3. In most modern productions, she is portrayed as Odette's exact double (though the resemblance is because of Rothbart's magic), and therefore Siegfried cannot be blamed for believing her to be Odette. There is a suggestion that in the original production, Odette and Odile were danced by two different ballerinas. This is also the case in some avant garde productions. Swan Lake
2784-517: The 2001 revision, Rothbart plays a wicked game of fate with Siegfried, which he wins at the end, causing Siegfried to lose everything. In the second American Ballet Theatre production of Swan Lake , he is portrayed by two dancers: a young, handsome one who lures Odette to her doom in the prologue, and a reptilian creature. In this version, the lovers' suicide inspires the rest of Rothbart's imprisoned swans to turn on him and overcome his spell. Odile, Rothbart's daughter usually wears jet black (though in
2880-608: The Bargewoman of Brientz), comprising an overture and eleven numbers; it was produced at the Gymnase on 28 December 1827. A little over a year later, in February 1829, Adam's second one-act opera, Pierre et Catherine was given in a double bill at the Opéra-Comique with Auber and Scribe's La Fiancée , and ran for more than 80 performances. Seven months after the premiere of Pierre et Catherine Adam married Sara Lescot,
2976-456: The British Library since 1975. The formal, unambiguous version of the system for bibliographic cataloguing requires some diacritics, two-letter tie characters , and prime marks. The standard is also often adapted as a "simplified" or "modified Library of Congress system" for use in text for a non-specialized audience, omitting the special characters and diacritics, simplifying endings, and modifying iotated initials. British Standard 2979:1958
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3072-542: The Latin Alphabet is an adoption of ISO 9:1995 . It is the official standard of both Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). GOST 52535.1-2006 Identification cards. Machine readable travel documents. Part 1. Machine readable passports is an adoption of an ICAO standard for travel documents. It was used in Russian passports for a short period during 2010–2013 ( see below ). The standard
3168-685: The National Administration for Geodesy and Cartography at the USSR Council of Ministers , GOST 16876-71 has been in service since 1973. Replaced by GOST 7.79-2000. This standard is an equivalent of GOST 16876-71 and was adopted as an official standard of the COMECON . GOST 7.79-2000 System of Standards on Information, Librarianship, and Publishing–Rules for Transliteration of the Cyrillic Characters Using
3264-484: The Opéra-Comique at the time of the revolution, Adam was able to return to what Forbes calls his spiritual home under its new director, Émile Perrin . In July 1850 Giralda , ou La nouvelle psyché – one of Adam's best operas in Forbes's view – was given at the Opéra-Comique. In 1851 his estranged wife died, and Adam married the singer Chérie-Louise Couraud (1817–1880), with whom he lived for his remaining years. For
3360-621: The Opéra-Comique. This was a one-act opéra comique with words by Scribe and Mélesville based on Goethe 's Jery und Bätely . It was given more than 1000 times in Paris over the next four decades. In May 1836 Adam was appointed as a chevalier of the Legion of Honour , later promoted to officer of the order. His first work for the Paris Opéra was a ballet, La fille du Danube , introduced by Marie Taglioni in September 1836. Within days of
3456-473: The Théâtre-Lyrique, the revived incarnation of his failed Opéra-National, Adam wrote the successful Si j'étais roi , first given in September 1852. In that year he produced six new works, enabling him to clear all his debts. During the last three years of his life Adam continued to compose prolifically. His late works include what Forbes rates as one of his finest ballets, Le Corsaire , based on
3552-604: The advantage of a particularly memorable plot, La jolie fille de Gand , La filleule des fées and Le corsaire are of equal quality musically. Little of Adam's religious music has entered the regular repertory, with the exception of his Cantique de Noël , "Minuit, chrétiens!", known in English as " O Holy Night ". Adam's memoirs were published posthumously, in two volumes: Souvenirs d'un musicien (1857) and Derniers souvenirs d'un musicien (1859). In 2023 an exhaustive two-volume study of his stage works (one volume on opera,
3648-521: The age of 17 Adam enrolled at the Conservatoire, where he studied the organ with François Benoist , counterpoint with Anton Reicha and composition with Adrien Boieldieu . Adam's biographer Elizabeth Forbes calls Boieldieu the chief architect of Adam's musical development. He set his student exercises that taught him to compose sustained melodies without showy modulations and other technical devices. Adam's father did not want his son to become
3744-570: The ballerina they were composed for). Petipa created the pas de deux to music by Ludwig Minkus , ballet composer to the St Petersburg Imperial Theatres. The piece was a standard pas de deux classique consisting of a short entrée , the grand adage , a variation for each dancer individually, and a coda . Tchaikovsky was angered by this change, stating that whether the ballet was good or bad, he alone should be held responsible for its music. He agreed to compose
3840-468: The ballet premiered at the Opéra on 28 June 1841 with Carlotta Grisi in the title role. Adam continued his prolific output, including his first grand opera , Richard en Palestine , which was produced at the Opéra in 1844 but aroused little interest. In that year he was elected to membership of the Académie des Beaux-Arts . In 1845 François-Louis Crosnier , director of the Opéra-Comique, resigned and
3936-430: The ballet's finale: instead of the lovers simply drowning at the hand of Odette's stepmother as in the original 1877 scenario, Odette dies by drowning herself, with Prince Siegfried choosing to die as well, rather than live without her, and soon the lovers' spirits are reunited in an apotheosis . Aside from the revision of the libretto the ballet was changed from four acts to three—with act 2 becoming act 1, scene 2. All
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4032-624: 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. Moscow première (world première) St. Petersburg première Other notable productions Original interpreters The première on 4 March 1877
4128-571: The ballet. 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
4224-622: The basic letters and punctuation found on English-language keyboards: no diacritics or unusual letters are required, although the interpunct character (·) may be used to avoid ambiguity. This particular standard is part of the BGN/PCGN romanization system which was developed by the United States Board on Geographic Names and by the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use . The portion of
4320-584: The boy was reluctant to learn even the basics of musical theory, and instead played fluently by ear: He later said that he never became a fluent sight-reader of a score. His mother concluded that her son needed a rigorous education, and he was sent to a boarding school, the Hix institute in the Champs-Élysées . It had a high reputation both academically and musically: his elder contemporary (and pupil of Louis Adam) Ferdinand Hérold had been educated there, and
4416-405: The cantata he wrote for the 1825 Prix de Rome competition) which she ranks with Adam's best works for its freshness of invention. For the musicologist Theodore Baker , Adam ranks with Auber and Boieldieu as one of the creators of French opera, thanks to the expressive power of his melodic material and his keen sense of dramatic development. In France, during Adam's lifetime and beyond, Le chalet
4512-604: 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. Another number which included a theme from The Voyevoda was the Entr'acte of the fourth scene and the opening of the Finale (Act IV, No. 29). The Grand adage (a.k.a.
4608-446: The concert with praise. The revival of Swan Lake was planned for Pierina Legnani 's benefit performance in the 1894–1895 season. The death of Tsar Alexander III on 1 November 1894 and the ensuing period of official mourning brought all ballet performances and rehearsals to a close for some time, and as a result all efforts could be concentrated on the pre-production of the full revival of Swan Lake . Ivanov and Petipa collaborated on
4704-496: The introduction of a dedicated Latin alphabet for writing the Russian language. Such an alphabet would not necessarily bind closely to the traditional Cyrillic orthography. The transition from Cyrillic to Latin has been proposed several times throughout history (especially during the Soviet era), but was never conducted on a large scale, except for informal romanizations in the computer era. The most serious possibility of adoption of
4800-449: The later operas, Grove singles out Giralda and Si j'étais roi as "the most stylish, tuneful and accomplished". Although he was a prolific composer of opera, Adam wrote ballet music even more fluently. He commented that it was fun, rather than work. Giselle is the best known; Baker calls it a major work in the history of choreography, which continues to be performed with the same success. Forbes comments that although Giselle has
4896-426: The librettist Eugène Scribe , with whom he later collaborated on nine stage works. During 1824–1827 Adam wrote or arranged the music for several one-act vaudevilles given at the Gymnase and the Théâtre du Vaudeville , including four written by Scribe as sole or co-author. In late 1827 Scribe provided the text for Adam's first opera, a one-act comic piece, Le Mal du pays, ou La Batelière de Brientz (Homesickness, or
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#17327809608774992-431: 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
5088-516: 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. 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. Unlike the instructions for the scores of The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker , none of
5184-547: The music master was Henry Lemoine , another of Louis' former students. Adolphe was not an academic child, and recalled in his memoirs how he had recoiled from the study of Latin, which he found "barbaric". The fall of the French Empire in 1814–15, and the ensuing economic problems badly affected Louis Adam's income, and to save money his son was sent to a less expensive school. The staff there were capable, but Adam remained as indifferent to musical theory as to Latin. At
5280-411: The music of Ludwig Minkus . Hansen's version of Swan Lake was given only four times, the final performance being on 2 January 1883, and soon the ballet was dropped from the repertory altogether. In all, Swan Lake was performed 41 times between its première and the final performance of 1883 – a rather lengthy run for a ballet that was so poorly received upon its première. Hansen became Balletmaster to
5376-488: The new Théâtre du Gymnase , offered Adam an unpaid post playing the triangle in the orchestra. Adam said that as he would have paid to be allowed to join he was happy to serve without a salary, but he was quickly promoted to a well paid position: In 1824 Adam entered the Conservatoire's most important musical competition, the Prix de Rome . He gained an honourable mention, and the following year, at his second attempt, he won
5472-484: The new system and the old one, citizens who wanted to retain the old version of a name's transliteration, especially one that had been in the old pre-2010 passport, could apply to the local migration office before they acquired a new passport. The standard was abandoned in 2013. In 2013, Order No. 320 of the Federal Migration Service of Russia came into force. It states that all personal names in
5568-515: The orchestra ... all of this together permitted (Tchaikovsky) with good reason to cast the blame for the failure on others. Yet the fact remains (and is too often omitted in accounts of this initial production) that this staging survived for six years with a total of 41 performances – many more than several other ballets from the repertoire of this theatre. On 26 April 1877, Anna Sobeshchanskaya made her début as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake , and from
5664-513: The original written instruction was thought to have survived. Most of what scholars knew about information such as choreography came from gossip and reviews of the performance. However, rehearsal notes dating as early as 1876 have been recently discovered in the Institute for Art Studies in Moscow, revealing more information about what the original 1877 production may have looked like. From around
5760-459: The outset its prospects looked doubtful. Financial and artistic performance alike were poor, and the 1848 Revolution was the final blow to the enterprise. The theatres were closed by the incoming régime, and when they were permitted to re-open, there was little demand for tickets at Adam's opera house, which closed on 28 March 1848, after the production of nine operas during its four months of existence, leaving him financially ruined. Adam assigned
5856-509: The passports must be transliterated by using the ICAO system , which is published in Doc 9303 " Machine Readable Travel Documents, Part 3 ". The system differs from the GOST R 52535.1-2006 system in two things: ц is transliterated into ts (as in pre-2010 systems), ъ is transliterated into ie (a novelty). In a second sense, the romanization or Latinization of Russian may also indicate
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#17327809608775952-524: The premiere of that piece, his three-act opéra comique Le postillon de Lonjumeau opened successfully at the Opéra-Comique. It was the composer's greatest operatic success internationally, quickly taken up by foreign managements and seen in London in 1837 and New York in 1840. During 1838 and 1839 Adam composed the music for Les Mohicans , a ballet for the Opéra, and four operas for the Opéra-Comique, and in September 1839 he left Paris for St Petersburg. His ballet for Taglioni, L'Écumeur de mer (The Pirate)
6048-405: The presentation of some possible candidates). He is upset that he cannot marry for love. His friend, Benno, and the tutor try to lift his troubled mood. As evening falls [ Sujet ], Benno sees a flock of swans flying overhead and suggests they go on a hunt [Finale I]. Siegfried and his friends take their crossbows and set off in pursuit of the swans. A lakeside clearing in a forest by the ruins of
6144-500: The production succeeded in its goal of preserving Russian culture in San Francisco. Several notable productions have diverged from the original and its 1895 revival: Swan Lake is scored for the typical late 19th-century large orchestra: By 1895, Benno von Sommerstern had become just "Benno", and Odette "Queen of the Swans". Also Baron von Stein, his wife, and Freiherr von Schwarzfels and his wife were no longer identified on
6240-410: The production, with Ivanov retaining his dances for the second act while choreographing the fourth, with Petipa staging the first and third acts. Modest Tchaikovsky was called upon to make changes to the ballet's libretto, including the character of Odette changing from a fairy swan-maiden into a cursed mortal woman, the ballet's villain changing from Odette's stepmother to the magician von Rothbart, and
6336-399: The program. The sovereign or ruling Princess is often rendered "Queen Mother". The character of Rothbart (sometimes spelled Rotbart) has been open to many interpretations. The reason for his curse upon Odette is unknown; several versions, including two feature films, have suggested reasons, but none is typically explained by the ballet. He is rarely portrayed in human form, except in act 3. He
6432-482: The royalties from his earlier works to help pay off his debts, and like many other French composers in need of money he turned to journalism to earn extra income. He contributed reviews and articles to Le Constitutionnel and the Assemblée nationale . He also became a teacher, accepting the post of professor of composition at the Conservatoire, where his students included Léo Delibes . Meanwhile, Basset having left
6528-436: The rôle as was her Italian predecessor. Throughout the performance history of Swan Lake , the 1895 edition has served as the version on which most stagings have been based. Nearly every balletmaster or choreographer who has re-staged Swan Lake has made modifications to the ballet's scenario, while still maintaining much of the traditional choreography for the dances, which is regarded as virtually sacrosanct. Likewise, over time
6624-479: The rôle of Siegfried has become more prominent, due largely to the evolution of ballet technique. In 1922, Finnish National Ballet was the first European company that staged a complete production of the ballet. By the time Swan Lake premiered in Helsinki in 1922, it had only ever been performed by Russian and Czech ballet groups, and only visiting Russian ballet groups had brought it to Western Europe. In 1940,
6720-478: The second act of Swan Lake , choreographed by Lev Ivanov , Second Balletmaster to the Imperial Ballet. The turnout for the revival concert was not as great as anticipated due to the mixed program as well as higher-than-usual ticket prices, leaving the theater hall half-empty. Despite the small audience, Ivanov's choreography for the memorial concert was unanimously praised by critics, and audiences received
6816-475: The second prize. Forbes writes that Adam derived more benefit from helping Boieldieu with the preparation of his opera La Dame blanche , produced at the Opéra-Comique in December 1825. Adam's piano transcriptions of themes from the opera were published in 1826 and made him enough money to tour the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland in summer 1826 with a family friend, Sébastien Guillié. In Geneva he met
6912-460: The spell is broken, it can never be undone. As Rothbart disappears, the swan maidens fill the clearing [Scène: Allegro, Moderato assai quasi andante]. Siegfried breaks his crossbow, and sets about winning Odette's trust as they fall in love. But as dawn arrives, the evil spell draws Odette and her companions back to the lake and they are turned into swans again. An opulent hall in the palace Romanization of Russian The romanization of
7008-414: The start, she was completely dissatisfied with the ballet. Sobeshchanskaya asked Marius Petipa — Premier Maître de Ballet of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres—to choreograph a pas de deux to replace the pas de six in the third act (for a ballerina to request a supplemental pas or variation was standard practice in 19th-century ballet, and often these "custom-made" dances were the legal property of
7104-562: 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 (Václav Reisinger). The ballet was premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet on 4 March [ O.S. 20 February] 1877 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow . Although it is presented in many different versions, most ballet companies base their stagings both choreographically and musically on
7200-502: The system pertaining to the Russian language was adopted by BGN in 1944 and by PCGN in 1947. In Soviet international passports , transliteration was based on French rules but without diacritics and so all names were transliterated in a French-style system . In 1997, with the introduction of new Russian passports , a diacritic-free English-oriented system was established by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs , but
7296-447: The system was also abandoned in 2010. In 2006, GOST R 52535.1-2006 was adopted, which defines technical requirements and standards for Russian international passports and introduces its own system of transliteration. In 2010, the Federal Migration Service of Russia approved Order No. 26, stating that all personal names in the passports issued after 2010 must be transliterated using GOST R 52535.1-2006. Because of some differences between
7392-617: 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
7488-401: The two artists were required to collaborate, each seemed to prefer working as independently of the other as possible. At times, Tchaikovsky actually ended up turning to Alina Bryullova, a family acquaintance, for advice on how he should write music for ballet; she later recalled that due to her lack of expertise she "could give him practically no advice." Tchaikovsky's excitement with Swan Lake
7584-671: The use of diacritics) that faithfully represents the original and allows for reverse transliteration for Cyrillic text in any contemporary language. The UNGEGN , a Working Group of the United Nations , in 1987 recommended a romanization system for geographical names, which was based on the 1983 version of GOST 16876-71 . It may be found in some international cartographic products. American Library Association and Library of Congress (ALA-LC) romanization tables for Slavic alphabets are used in North American libraries and in
7680-498: Was "unimaginative and altogether unmemorable." The German origins of the story were "treated with suspicion while the tale itself was regarded as 'stupid' with unpronounceable surnames for its characters." Karpakova was a secondary soloist and "not particularly convincing." The poverty of the production, meaning the décor and costumes, the absence of outstanding performers, the Balletmaster's weakness of imagination, and, finally,
7776-463: Was a French composer, teacher and music critic. A prolific composer for the theatre, he is best known today for his ballets Giselle (1841) and Le corsaire (1856), his operas Le postillon de Lonjumeau (1836) and Si j'étais roi (1852) and his Christmas carol "Minuit, chrétiens!" (Midnight, Christians, 1844, known in English as " O Holy Night "). Adam was the son of a well-known composer and pianist, but his father did not wish him to pursue
7872-567: 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 –
7968-622: Was better received than the original, but by no means a great success. Hansen presented another version of Swan Lake on 28 October 1882, again with Kalmykova as Odette/Odile. For this production Hansen arranged a Grand Pas for the ballroom scene which he titled La Cosmopolitana . This was taken from the European section of the Grand Pas d'action known as The Allegory of the Continents from Marius Petipa's 1875 ballet The Bandits to
8064-609: Was danced by Berger himself with the ballerina Giulietta Paltriniera-Bergrova as Odette. Berger's production was only given eight performances and was even planned for production at the Fantasia Garden in Moscow in 1893, but it never materialised. During the late 1880s and early 1890s, Petipa and Vsevolozhsky discussed with Tchaikovsky the possibility of reviving Swan Lake . However, Tchaikovsky died on 6 November 1893, just when plans to revive Swan Lake were beginning to come to fruition. It remains uncertain whether Tchaikovsky
8160-468: Was ephemeral. This includes the many popular numbers he wrote for vaudevilles in his early years, a large number of piano arrangements, transcriptions and potpourris of favourite operatic arias, and numerous light songs and ballads. Nonetheless, "there remain several operas and ballets that are not merely delightful examples of their kind, but are also scores full of genuine inspiration". In this category Forbes includes Le chalet (which incorporates music from
8256-452: Was given as a benefit performance for the ballerina Pelageya Karpakova (also known as Polina Karpakova), who performed the role of Odette, with première danseur Victor Gillert as Prince Siegfried. Karpakova may also have danced the part Odile, although it is believed the ballet originally called for two different dancers. It is now common practice for the same ballerina to dance both Odette and Odile. The Russian ballerina Anna Sobeshchanskaya
8352-610: Was given before the imperial court in February 1840, and two of his operas were staged. He left Russia for Paris at the end of March, stopping off in Berlin, where he wrote an opera-ballet, Die Hamadryaden (The Tree Nymphs), which he conducted at the Court Opera in April 1840. Adam's next substantial work was the composition by which he has become best known: the ballet Giselle . Based on Heinrich Heine 's version of an old tale,
8448-410: Was given during two concerts which were conducted by Tchaikovsky. The composer noted in his diary that he experienced "a moment of absolute happiness" when the ballet was performed. Berger's production followed the 1877 libretto, though the names of Prince Siegfried and Benno were changed to Jaroslav and Zdeňek, with the rôle of Benno danced by a female dancer en travestie . The rôle of Prince Siegfried
8544-406: Was given only sixteen performances between the première and the 1895–1896 season, and was not performed at all in 1897. Even more surprising, the ballet was performed only four times in 1898 and 1899. The ballet belonged solely to Legnani until she left St. Petersburg for her native Italy in 1901. After her departure, the ballet was taken over by Mathilde Kschessinskaya , who was as much celebrated in
8640-418: Was his most popular opera. In other countries the favourite was Le postillon de Lonjumeau . In Germany in particular the opera was celebrated for its tenor aria "Mes amis, écoutez l'histoire" (given in translation as "Freunde, vernehmet die Geschichte") , with its demanding high D . Grove comments that the opera has distinctive and well characterised roles and a sense of theatre, found in all Adam's operas. Of
8736-499: Was originally cast as Odette, but was replaced when a governing official in Moscow complained about her, claiming she had accepted jewelry from him, only to then marry a fellow danseur and sell the pieces for cash. The première was not well received. Though there were a few critics who recognised the virtues of the score, most considered it to be far too complicated for ballet. It was labelled "too noisy, too ' Wagnerian ' and too symphonic." The critics also thought Reisinger's choreography
8832-519: Was prepared to revise the music for this revival. Whatever the case, as a result of Tchaikovsky's death, Riccardo Drigo revised the score, after receiving approval from Tchaikovsky's younger brother, Modest . There are major differences between Drigo's and Tchaikovsky's scores . Today, it is Drigo's revision, and not Tchaikovsky's original score of 1877, that most ballet companies use. In February 1894, two memorial concerts planned by Vsevolozhsky were given in honor of Tchaikovsky. The production included
8928-495: Was ready by the beginning of 1895 and the ballet had its première on 27 January. Pierina Legnani danced Odette/Odile, with Pavel Gerdt as Prince Siegfried, Alexei Bulgakov as Rothbart, and Alexander Oblakov as Benno. Most of the reviews in the St. Petersburg newspapers were positive. Unlike the première of The Sleeping Beauty , Swan Lake did not dominate the repertory of the Mariinsky Theatre in its first season. It
9024-519: Was substituted in 2013 by GOST R ISO/ IEC 7501-1-2013, which does not contain romanization, but directly refers to the ICAO romanization ( see below ). Names on street and road signs in the Soviet Union were romanized according to GOST 10807-78 (tables 17, 18), which was amended by newer Russian GOST R 52290-2004 (tables Г.4, Г.5), the romanizations in both the standards are practically identical. ISO/R 9, established in 1954 and updated in 1968,
9120-714: Was succeeded by Alexandre Basset . Basset soon fell out with Adam and told him that as long as he was director, Adam's works would never be performed at the Opéra-Comique. Early in 1847 a theatre in the Boulevard du Temple became available, and Adam, in partnership with the actor Achille Mirecour, took it over, rechristening it the Opéra-National . The cost of refurbishing the theatre was enormous, and in addition to investing his own money, Adam raised large sums in loans. The new opera house opened in November 1847, but from
9216-570: Was the adoption of the scientific transliteration by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It covers Russian and seven other Slavic languages. ISO 9:1995 is the current transliteration standard from ISO. It is based on its predecessor ISO/R 9:1968, which it deprecates; for Russian, the two are the same except in the treatment of five modern letters. ISO 9:1995 is the first language-independent, univocal system of one character for one character equivalents (by
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