Tchaikovsky swan lake Russian National Orchestra Mikhail Pletnev Complete Recording · Gesamtaufnahme1 Peter Tchaikovsky in 1875 2 PETER TCHAIKOVSKY (1840–1893) swanBallet in four acts, lake Op. 20 Libretto: Vladimir Begichev and Vasily Geltzer, after an ancient German legend and Russian folk tales Russian National Orchestra MIKHAIL PLETNEV Complete Recording · Gesamtaufnahme 3 DISC 1 [78’44] 1 Introduction 3’05 PREMIER ACTE 2 N0 1 Scène 2’49 3 N0 2 Valse (Corps de ballet) 7’07 4 N0 3 Scène 3’35 N0 4 Pas de trois 5 I. Intrada. Allegro 2’08 6 II. Andante sostenuto 5’54 7 III. Allegro simplice 1’18 8 IV. Moderato 1’10 9 V. Allegro 1’10 10 VI. Coda. Allegro vivace 1’32 N0 5 Pas de deux 11 I. Tempo di valse ma non troppo vivo, quasi moderato 2’35 12 II. Andante 5’41 13 III. Tempo di valse 1’33 14 IV. Coda. Allegro molto vivace 1’49 15 N0 6 Pas d’action 2’06 16 N0 7 Sujet 0’50 17 N0 8 Danse des coupes 5’31 18 N0 9 Finale 2’43 4 DEUXIÈME ACTE 19 N0 10 Scène 3’00 20 N0 11 Scène 5’04 21 N0 12 Scène 3’07 22 N0 13 Danse des cygnes 22 I. Tempo di valse 2’21 23 II. Moderato assai (Odette solo) 1’49 24 III. Tempo di valse 2’17 25 IV. Allegro moderato (Danse des petits cygnes) 1’26 26 V. Pas d’action (Odette et le prince) 6’46 27 VI. (Tout le monde danse) Tempo di valse 1’31 28 VII. Coda. Allegro vivo 1’41 DISC 2 [64’08] 1 N0 14 Scène 2’54 TROISIÈME ACTE 2 N0 15 Allegro giusto 2’33 3 N0 16 Danses du corps de ballet et des nains 2’31 4 N0 17 Scène. La sortie des invités et la valse 7’52 5 N0 18 Scène 1’38 5 N0 19 Pas de six 6 Intrada. Moderato assai 2’37 7 Variation I. Allegro 1’13 8 Variation II. Andante con moto 3’10 9 Variation III. Moderato 0’41 10 Variation IV. Allegro 0’58 11 Variation V. Moderato 1’33 12 Coda. Allegro molto 1’39 13 N0 20 Danse hongroise. Czardas 3’00 14 N0 21 Danse espagnole 2’42 15 N0 22 Danse napolitaine 2’00 16 N0 23 Mazurka (Solistes et corps du ballet) 4’04 17 N0 24 Scène 3’41 QUATRIÈME ACTE 18 N0 25 Entr’acte 2’22 19 N0 26 Scène 2’35 20 N0 27 Danse des petits cygnes 5’01 21 N0 28 Scène 2’55 22 N0 29 Scène finale 6’26 Pelageia Karpakova (first performer of the part of Odette at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1877) 6 Pelageia Karpakova (first performer of the part of Odette at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1877) 7 TCHAIKOVSKY’S BALLET “SWAN LAKE” by Malcolm MacDonald Swan Lake is a comparatively early work of Tchaikovsky, but one of huge historic as well as artistic significance. Not only was it his first ballet, but the first ballet to be commissioned in Russia from a symphonic composer, rather than a ballet specialist. It had a mixed and on the whole negative critical reception in his lifetime: all the more remarkable, then, that it has come to be regarded as the very quintessence of Russian ballet. I ORIGINS In May 1875 Tchaikovsky was commissioned by his friend Vladimir Petrovich Begichev, Intendant of the Russian Imperial Theatres in Moscow, to write a score for a ballet for the sum of 800 roubles. “I have taken to doing this work partly because of the money I am in need of, partly because I have longed to try and compose in this genre for quite some time”, Tchaikovsky wrote to his brother Modest in September 1875. It has generally been assumed that it was Begichev who came up with the initial idea for the scenario of Swan Lake – whose libretto was probably inspired by ‘The Stolen Veil’, a German fairy-tale first published in a collection of tales by Karl August Musäus in 1786. Yet it is well attested that four years earlier Tchaikovsky had written (and choreographed) a tiny domestic ballet around the same theme that was danced by his nieces and nephews, the Davydovs, on their estate at Kamenka in the Ukraine: Modest Tchaikovsky was there also, and took the part of Siegfried. There are many myths surrounding swans and the transformation of women into these beautiful white birds: myths that recur in Celtic, Norse, Scandinavian, and Russian folk-tales. Although the Swan Lake scenario is based on a German story, elements of Russian folklore are also annexed to it. II RECEPTION Composed between August 1875 and March 1876, the score was first produced at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre with choreography by Julius Reisinger on 20 February 1877. Rehearsals had 8 begun even before Tchaikovsky had finished the score, and he gave Modest an early report of how they were going on 24 March 1876. If you could have seen how comical the ballet-master looked, composing the dances in a most serious and concentrated manner, to the accompaniment of a little fiddle. At the same time it was a pleasure to watch the male and female dancers smiling at the future audience and looking forward to the possibility of jumping, pirouetting, and turning about in the execution of their holy duty. Everybody in the theatre is delighted with my music. In fact the rehearsals were to last a full 11 months, and continuing delight in Tchaikovsky’s music proved to be in short supply. The structure and emotional content of the ballet were in fact revolutionary – so far in advance of what the Moscow dancers were used to that it was soon being criticized as “undanceable”. In the view of some critics, the music was too “Wagnerian”. Even the conductor considered it altogether too complex and difficult rhythmically. Reisinger, an Austrian, reputedly was baffled by the score and left it to the dancers to compose their own variations. The reigning ballerina, Anna Sobeshchanskaya, who had not been able to dance Odette in the first run of performances, disliked Reisinger’s ideas, and had the illustrious choreographer Marius Petipa, ballet-master in St Petersburg, create an additional third-act pas de deux for her, choreographed to a piece by the experienced ballet composer Minkus, to replace Tchaikovsky’s Grand pas de six. Appalled at the prospect of having Minkus’s music inserted into his score, Tchaikovsky eventually agreed to write his own pas de deux for Sobeshchanskaya, following Minkus’s music “bar for bar, note for note” and thus retaining Petipa’s choreography. Sobeshchanskaya was so taken with the result that she persuaded Tchaikovsky to compose her an additional variation. (This Pas de deux was later lost and only rediscovered in the archives of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre in 1953; it has since been performed as a separate piece and is not included in the present recording which, as is normal, features the Grand pas de six.) Nevertheless the cool reception of Swan Lake caused Tchaikovsky to feel his music was at fault. In November 1877 he heard and admired Sylvia by Delibes, and wrote to his friend Sergei Taneyev: “If I had known this music earlier I would not have written my Swan Lake”. Yet if it was not a brilliant success, the ballet achieved a respectable number of performances, notably those produced by Joseph Peter Hansen, which required some revisions to the score. Swan Lake was definitively withdrawn from the repertoire in 1883, supposedly because the scenery had 9 deteriorated so much it was falling apart. Tchaikovsky was heartened, however, by a successful production of Act 2 in Prague in 1888; he intended to produce a thoroughly revised version of the whole score, but died in 1893 without achieving this aim. On 27 January 1895 a completely new version of Swan Lake was mounted at the Imperial Theatre in St Petersburg, as a memorial to Tchaikovsky, with choreography by Petipa and his assistant Lev Ivanov, who had already produced a new version of Act 2 for a concert in Tchaikovsky’s memory in 1893. This may have been Petipa’s own idea, or that of Ivan Vsevolozhsky, the Director of the Imperial Theatre, but it was this Petipa version – in which the music was edited and somewhat reshuffled by Riccardo Drigo – that first established the greatness of Tchaikovsky’s score. Whereas in earlier productions the roles of Odette and Odile had been danced by two ballerinas, Petipa transformed this into a single role to exhibit the virtuosity of Pierina Lagnani, the Imperial Theatre’s Prima Ballerina. The new production was an immediate critical and popular success and since that time most productions of the full-length Swan Lake are danced by one ballerina in the dual role of Odette and Odile. III SYNOPSIS (There are a number of variants of the synopsis, especially as regards the ending, depending on the individual production and requirements of the choreographer. The role of von Rothbart, who appears partly in the guise of a winged beast, is sometimes less prominent; some productions introduce instead the baleful figure of a great owl, said to be Odette’s evil stepmother. The following is an attempt to establish the constant features of the story.) Act 1 is set in a magnificent park before a castle, where the peasants are celebrating the impending 21st birthday of Prince Siegfried, the heir to the kingdom.