Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake -1877 - Composition and Premiere

 

Tchaikovsky in 1877, the year the ballet premiered. In the photo, he poses alongside Antonina Miliukova, whom he married that same year

Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake -1877 - Composition and Premiere

“Swan Lake” had technically had two premiers. One in 1877 at the Bolshoi and another in 1895 at the Mariinsky. There had been several other attempts to re-stage the ballet in the interim years, but all had failed*.

Swan Lake , Op. 20 (TH 12 ; ČW 12), was the first of Tchaikovsky's ballet scores, composed between August 1875 and April 1876, with additions and revisions in February and April 1877. The ballet's original title, as indicated on the manuscript score, was The Lake of Swans or Lake of the Swans, and its story derives from a German fairy tale.

After the composer's death, a revised version of the ballet was compiled by his brother Modest Tchaikovsky and the conductor Riccardo Drigo, which differs in many respects from the original score.

Original Version

The first performance of the ballet took place in Moscow, on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre, on 20 February/4 March 1877, at a benefit for the ballerina Pelageya Karpakova, choreographed by Julius Reisinger, and conducted by Stepan Ryabov.

None of Tchaikovsky's other stage works were subject to such changes and misrepresentation in productions as Swan Lake. Unfortunately, up to the present time it is still not possible to find materials which would show conclusively how the ballet was performed during the composer's lifetime.

The premiere was not well received, with almost unanimous criticism of the dancers, orchestra, and scenery. Unfortunately, Tchaikovsky’s masterful score was lost in the debacle of the poor production. Although some recognized its merits, most considered it too complicated for ballet. The critics themselves were generally not familiar with ballet or music, but rather with spoken melodrama. Tchaikovsky’s music seemed to them "too loud, too Wagnerian, and too symphonic.

The production did not succeed for several reasons. The German origins of the story of Swan Lake were "treated with distrust, while the story itself was considered 'stupid' with unpronounceable surnames for its characters." The ballerina playing Odette (and probably Odile, although this has never been proven with certainty) was a secondary soloist and "not particularly convincing."

"The poverty of the production, that is, the scenery and costumes, the absence of prominent performers, the imaginative weakness of the choreographer, and finally, the orchestra... all this together gave (Tchaikovsky) good reason to blame the failure on others."
— Modest Tchaikovsky, the composer’s brother

Posthumous Version

Although the version of the ballet widely promulgated in the 20th century originated after the composer's death, it still played an important part in popularising Tchaikovsky's music and revealing the musical dramaturgy of his first ballet.

On 17 February/1 March 1894 in Saint Petersburg, there was a memorial performance for Tchaikovsky, at which Act II of Swan Lake was staged by the balletmaster Lev Ivanov, and conductor Riccardo Drigo.

The ballet was only performed with the music intact for the first time on the stage of the Chernyshevsky State Opera and Ballet Theatre in Saratov (1955/56 season).

Influences of Tchaikovsky

From the beginning of the 19th century until the early 1890s, ballet scores were almost always written by composers known as "specialists": composers who were highly skilled at writing light, decorative, melodious, and rhythmically clear music that was in vogue for ballet at that time. Tchaikovsky studied the music of these "specialists," such as the Italian Cesare Pugni and the Austrian Leon Minkus, before starting work on Swan Lake. Tchaikovsky initially had a rather negative opinion of "specialist" ballet music until he studied it in detail, becoming impressed by the almost limitless variety of catchy melodies contained in their scores. Tchaikovsky particularly admired the ballet music of composers like Léo Delibes, Adolphe Adam, and Riccardo Drigo. He would later write to his protégé, the composer Sergey Taneyev, "I listened to Delibes' ballet 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." Tchaikovsky greatly admired Adam's score for Giselle (1844), which featured the use of a technique known as leitmotif: associating certain themes with specific characters or moods, a technique he would use in Swan Lake, and later in The Sleeping Beauty.

Compositional Process

Tchaikovsky’s enthusiasm for Swan Lake is evident from the speed with which he composed it. Commissioned in the spring of 1875, the piece was completed in a year. However, his letters to Sergey Taneyev from August 1875 indicate that it was not just his excitement that compelled him to create so quickly, but also his desire to finish it as soon as possible to allow him to start working on an opera. First, he created the scores for the first three numbers of the ballet, then did the orchestration during the fall and winter, and was still struggling with the instrumentation in the spring. On April 10, 1876, the work was complete. Tchaikovsky’s mention of a draft suggests the presence of some type of outline, but no such draft is known to exist. Tchaikovsky wrote several letters to his friends expressing his long-standing desire to work with this type of music, as well as his enthusiasm about his stimulating, though laborious, current task.

Nevertheless, Tchaikovsky also relied on his previous compositions. He used material from The Voyevoda, an opera he had abandoned in 1868. The Grand Adagio (also known as the Love Duet) from the second act of Swan Lake is a verbatim copy of the duet between the protagonists of his opera Undina, as is the Valse des fiancées from the third act. Another number that included a theme from The Voyevoda was the Entr'acte of the fourth act. By April 1876, the score was complete, and rehearsals began. Soon, Reisinger began setting aside certain numbers that he deemed "unsuitable for ballet." He even started choreographing dances to music by other composers, but Tchaikovsky protested, and his pieces were reinstated.

Petipa-Ivanov-Drigo Production of 1895

Between the late 1880s and early 1890s, Petipa and Vsevolozhsky considered reviving Swan Lake and were in talks with Tchaikovsky about it. However, the composer died on November 6, 1893, just as the plans were beginning to take shape. It is still uncertain whether Tchaikovsky was going to revise the music for this production. In any case, due to his death, Drigo was the one who revised the score, not without first receiving Modest’s approval. There are significant differences between Drigo’s score and Tchaikovsky’s. The revision that Drigo made of Tchaikovsky’s score for the Petipa-Ivanov production in 1895, and not Tchaikovsky’s original 1877 version, is the one that many ballet companies, though not all, use when staging this ballet today. In February 1894, two commemorative concerts in honor of Tchaikovsky were held, organized by Vsevolozhsky. The production included the second act of Swan Lake with choreography by Lev Ivanov, the second choreographer for the Imperial Ballet. Ivanov’s choreography was unanimously acclaimed as wonderful.

https://petipasociety.com/swan-lake/

Pierina Legnani in the1895 Petipa / Ivanov production: 

Anna Sobechshanskaya as Odette in Reisinger’s original 1877 production: 

Ricardo Drigo
Riccardo Eugenio Drigo (Padua, June 30, 1846 – Padua, October 1, 1930) was an Italian composer and conductor.

At the Conservatory of Padua, he studied with Hungarian Antonio Jorich and priest Antonio Bresciani, and in Venice with Antonio Buzzolla. After achieving some fame as a composer and conductor, he was called to St. Petersburg, where he remained from 1879 to 1920, actively contributing to the spread of Italian opera in Russia. There, he also conducted many premieres of Russian operas and ballets, composing some ballets himself and collaborating with the most famous choreographers and dancers of his time, such as Marius Petipa, Michel Fokine, Lev Ivanov, and others. When the Revolution broke out, he returned to Padua, almost entirely ruined, and continued composing 

Lev Ivanovich Ivanov (Moscow, February 18, 1834 – Saint Petersburg, December 11, 1901) was a Russian dancer and choreographer, known for creating, among other choreographies, those for The Nutcracker and the white acts of Swan Lake. 

Alphonse Victor Marius Petipa (Marseille, March 11, 1818 – Gurzuf, July 14, 1910) was a French choreographer, ballet master, and dancer who settled in Imperial Russia and became a renovator of the style. With him, the Romantic ballet era ended, giving way to the grand Russian ballet. Among his notable works are Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Raymonda, Don Quixote, Paquita, and La Bayadère 

Julius Reisinger, the original choreographer of Swan Lake 

Tchaikovsky Group