The 1895 Petipa/Ivanov/Drigo revival of Swan Lake is a famous version of the ballet Swan Lake, (ru. Лебединое Озеро), (fr. Le Lac des Cygnes). This is a ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky based on an ancient German legend, presented in either four acts, four scenes (primarily outside Russia and Eastern Europe), three acts, four scenes (primarily in Russia and Eastern Europe) or, more rarely, in two acts, four scenes. Originally choreographed by Julius Reisinger to the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (opus 20), it was first presented as The Lake of the Swans by the Ballet of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre on 20 February/4 March 1877 (Julian/Gregorian calendar dates) in Moscow, Russia. Although the ballet is presented in many different versions, most ballet companies today base their stagings both choreographically and musically on this revival by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, staged for the Imperial Ballet, first presented on 15 January/27 January 1895, at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia instead of the original version.
Background
In the 1880s Tchaikovsky was commissioned by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, director of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, to score what would become two of his greatest works: the operas The Enchantress (1886) and The Queen of Spades (1890). In 1887 Vsevolozhsky commissioned Tchaikovsky to score music for Marius Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty, a ballet which would prove to be one of both Tchaikovsky and Petipa's greatest masterworks. The first performance on 15 January 1890 by the Imperial Ballet was a great success and soon Vsevolozhsky commissioned a second score for a ballet and an opera from the composer, The Nutcracker and Iolanta, which premiered together on a double bill on 6 December 1892.
Prior to commissioning The Sleeping Beauty, Vsevolozhsky had considered reviving one act of Swan Lake for the 1886–1887 season and had even written a letter requesting the music from Tchaikovsky's publisher Jurgenson, who recommended that the fourth scene be staged. However, Tchaikovsky suggested that the second scene be staged instead, which he considered to be " ... the best in all respects." Though this production never materialized, Vsevolozhsky continued showing interest in Swan Lake, and even as The Nutcracker was being readied for production in 1892 he was designing costumes for a possible revival of the work that would be produced by Petipa (Vsevolozhsky was a talented costume designer, having designed the costumes for the first productions of both The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, as well as Raymonda, among many other ballets).
Tchaikovsky was delighted at the prospect of Swan Lake being revived by Petipa, of whom he had the greatest respect, asserting that "never with anyone but Petipa would I produce ballets." According to the composer/conductor Riccardo Drigo, "While (Tchaikovsky) was still alive I knew of his dissatisfaction with the instrumentation of (Swan Lake), and that he intended to take up the matter, but he never managed to do this." Tchaikovsky died on 6 November 1893, just when plans to revive Swan Lake were beginning to come to fruition.
Even with this statement from Drigo (which is from his memoirs written some thirty years after Tchaikovsky's death), it is not known for certain if Tchaikovsky was even going to revise the music for the prospected revival of Swan Lake. At some point before his death, Tchaikovsky approved of three numbers orchestrated by Drigo from his Op. 72 (18 Pieces, for piano) for interpolation into the production (i.e. the Variation of Odile from the third scene and, for the fourth scene, the so-called Waltz for White and Black Swans and the Scène Dansante/Pas d'action). According to Tchaikovsky's brother Modeste, "...he [Tchaikovsky] was so delighted with Maestro Drigo's score for Petipa's The Talisman that he was not opposed to the idea of having him perform some of the necessary revisions [to Swan Lake]...". Whatever the case, as a result of Tchaikovsky's death, Drigo was forced to revise the score himself, but not before receiving approval from Modest.
Vsevolozhsky then planned a memorial concert to be given by the Imperial Ballet and Opera at the Mariinsky Theatre in honor of the composer, with the bill consisting of the first act of Tchaikovsky's opera The Maid of Orleans, his Romeo and Juliet overture, the Coronation Cantana, and the second scene of Swan Lake. The concert was given twice, on 17 and 22 February 1894, with the Swan Lake excerpt being presented in a staging by Lev Ivanov, Second Balletmaster to the Imperial Ballet. Ivanov's choreography for the memorial concert was unanimously hailed as wonderful and though the concert itself was not a success (due to high ticket prices the turnout was poor), Ivanov nevertheless won laurels for his work. The critic Bezobrazov complemented Ivanov: "The staging of the dances in Swan Lake is the work of the Balletmaster Lev Ivanov and does him great honor. Mr. Ivanov revealed a great deal of the finest, most elegant taste. To all the dances the Balletmaster imparted a noble stamp and consistent style."
The ballerina who danced Odette was the Italian virtuosa Pierina Legnani, considered by the critics, public, and her fellow dancers alike to be among the greatest, if not the greatest ballerina to ever grace the Imperial stage. She had made her début with the Imperial Ballet in Cinderella (choreographed by Petipa, Ivanov, and Enrico Cecchetti to the music of Baron Boris Fitinhof-Schell) in December 1893, and when she took to the stage she immediately swept all before her. In the Grand Pas d'action of the ballet's second act she demonstrated her phenomenal technique - next to her flawless placement and perfection of port de bras she performed pique turns with quadruple and quintuple pirouettes en pointe, accented with double turns no less than four times in a row - a feat even modern-day ballerinas have difficulty achieving. In the Grand Pas of the last act Legnani completely out-did herself - in her variation she completed no less than thirty-two fouettés en tournant, the first ballerina ever to perform such a feat. The dazzled public roared with demands for an encore, and the ballerina repeated her variation, this time performing twenty-eight fouettés en tournant. According to press accounts of the production the ballerina "did not move at all from the place she started."
Soon after Legnani was named Prima Ballerina Assoluta of the Imperial Ballet, and it was because of her great talent that the prospected revival of Swan Lake was planned for her benefit performance in the 1894–1895 season. However, the death of Tsar Alexander III on 1 November 1894 and the period of official mourning which followed it brought all ballet performances and rehearsals to a close for some time, and as a result, all efforts were able to be concentrated on the pre-production of the revival of Swan Lake. Ivanov and Petipa chose to collaborate on the production, with Ivanov retaining his dances for the second scene while choreographing the fourth, and with Petipa staging the first and third scenes. Ivanov was also entrusted with staging the Neapolitan Dance and the Hungarian Dance in the Grand Divertessment of the third scene.
Tchaikovsky's brother Modest was called upon to make the required changes to the ballet's libretto, the most prominent being his revision of the ballet's finale: instead of the lovers simply drowning at the hand of the wicked Rothbart as in the original 1877 scenario, Odette commits suicide 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 II becoming Act I-Scene 2, Act III becoming Act II, and Act IV becoming Act III.
All was ready by the beginning of 1895 and the ballet had its premiere on 15 January. Pierina Legnani danced Odette/Odile, with Pavel Gerdt as Prince Siegfried, Alexei Bulgakov as Von Rothbart, and Alexander Oblakov as Benno.
Notation of Swan Lake and the 1895 première
The 1895 Petipa/Ivanov/Drigo edition of Swan Lake was notated in the method of Stepanov Choreographic Notation in or around 1901, and completed between April 1906 and April 1907, documenting a performance of the work with the Ballerina Vera Trefilova as Odette/Odile. This choreographic notation is today housed in the Harvard University Library Theatre Collection and is part of a whole cache of notation known as the Sergeyev Collection, which documents the works of Marius Petipa that comprised the repertory of the Imperial Ballet at the turn of the 20th century. Here are descriptions of some of the scenes and dances of his and Ivanov's 1895 edition of Swan Lake.
Act I (or Act I-Scene 1)
Petipa's famous pas de trois from the first scene is still danced today by most companies nearly unchanged, as Petipa usually did when staging a pas de trois classique, having the ballerina who dances the first variation leaving the stage before the end of the Entrée (as in Petipa's Grand Pas de Trois des Odalisques from Le Corsaire, or his Pas de Trois from Paquita). The first dancers to perform the pas de trois in the 1895 revival were Olga Preobrajenskaya, Georgy Kyaksht (famous for creating the role of Harlequin in Petipa's original 1900 Harlequinade), and Varvara Rykhlyakova. According to a press account: "...a captivating Pas de Trois, which is technically difficult, is performed en pointe for the most part with multiple turns, and was excellently performed by the Danseuses and their partner."
The Waltz of the first scene or the Valse Champêtre (or the Valse Villageoise) is danced in many different versions by ballet companies today. Perhaps the only company to dance this Waltz today in Petipa's original version is the Royal Ballet. The notation documents Petipa's original choreography - one of his signature lavish dances for a massive corps de ballet. According to the notation the choreography called for forty dancers (20 men and 20 women), with sixteen of them using footstools painted both red and green to form geometric patterns and make various poses, with the corps de ballet at all times remaining inside the space made by the footstools. A Maypole was brought out toward the finale of the Waltz. One critic who saw the first performance described it: "At the end of the Waltz a (Maypole) is introduced, the high point of which ribbons are dropped in sequential order: red ribbons, blue, and yellow. The dancers pick up the ends of the ribbons, forming thereby a kind of umbrella; it turned out to be quite an effective picture."
Act II (or Act I-Scene 2)
Perhaps only the Royal Ballet's 1987 revival of Swan Lake (staged by Anthony Dowell and Roland John Wiley) retains Ivanov's original scheme for the second scene, while most other productions present a version which has been handed down primarily by way of Soviet-era revisions. In the 1895 production, Prince Siegfried made his way to the enchanted lake with a group of hunters, not by himself as in many modern versions. When he first encountered Odette, there was (as is preserved in the notation) an extensive mime sequence between the two characters, a passage which is rarely performed in modern times (American Ballet Theatre director Kevin McKenzie created a mime sequence in the same manner as the original for his recent production of Swan Lake, while the Royal Ballet still performs a rendition of Ivanov's original mime).