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Tchaikovsky& His Swan LakeThe original balletwas first performed atthe Bolshoi Theatrein Moscow, Russiaon February 20, 1877and remained in therepertoire until 1833.After the composer’sdeath the ballet was revised by Modest the composer’sbrother and the conductor Riccardo Drigo. Thechoreography was undertaken by Marius Petipa and LevIvanov. This revised version received its première at theMaryinski Theatre in St. Petersburg on 15 January 1895.The ballet’s premiere in St. Petersburg was actually verypoorly received, due to the dull costumes and scenery,the unusual choreography and a rather mediocreorchestra. It also departed from the original Russianformat of ballet where the story was always rather poor,with just enough plot to be a background for the virtuosodancing; Tchaikovsky’s ballet, on the other hand, had astrong emotive storyline that much of the audience couldnot follow. A later revival in the year after Tchaikovsky’sdeath was acclaimed as a masterpiece, having usedphenomenal talent in all aspects.The MusicAnother important collaborator in the devising processof Swan Lake was David Lloyd-Jones, the MusicalDirector for the first production and who worked withBourne in making alterations to the original score. Belowis an article written by David Lloyd-Jones which providesan insight into the creative process and the artisticdecisions made whilst in preparation and in rehearsal:“For all its enduringly hypnotic appeal the score ofSwan Lake represents something of an enigma. Unlikeits two successors, The Sleeping Beauty and TheNutcracker, which were written to precisely plannedscenarios by the choreographer Marius Pepita and firstperformed in sumptuous new productions in the imperialcapital of St Petersburg. Swan Lake was composedto a conventionally loose-limbed libretto for the lessprestigious Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. After occupyinga reasonably firm place in the repertory there from itspremière in February 1877 until January 1883, it was notstaged again anywhere until 1895, that is to say two yearsafter the composer’s early death. Less is known aboutits genesis, composition and performance than aboutany other major work by Tchaikovsky. The completeballet and the familiar Suite from it were only publishedposthumously.Tchaikovsky himself appears to have been largelyunaware of the magnitude of his achievement inconceiving this score which has come to represent thevery essence of balletic art. Writing to his favourite pupilSergei Taneyev in December 1877 after hearing Delibes’Sylvia for the first time in Vienna he says: “This is the firstballet in which the music constitutes not only the mainbut the sole interest. What charm, what elegance, whatmelodic, rhythmic and harmonic riches! It made mefeel ashamed. If I had known this music earlier I wouldof course never have composed Swan Lake.” And yetthe work, or rather his favourite act from it, never lostits ability to delight him. When Act Two was speciallystaged in his honour on the occasion of his triumphantvisit to Prague in 1888 he noted in his diary: “Hugesuccess – a moment of complete happiness”, addingcharacteristically “but only a moment”.Tchaikovsky came to the genre with which he is mostclosely associated more by chance than by design. Asearly as 1870, when the only works of lasting importancethat the thirty-year-old composer had written were theFirst Symphony and the Romeo and Juliet Overture, hetells two of his brothers that he is hard at work on a fouractballet called Cendrillon (Cinderella) which has to befinished by mid-December. It would seem that his partof the project foundered shortly after, for nothing moreis ever heard of it and no sketches survive. Howeverthe ballet was indeed staged that winter with music bya German composer. Yet if he was really consideringthe feasibility of finishing this vast undertaking in eightweeks, or even just contributing to it, quite a fewnumbers must have already existed. It seems highlyprobable that some of them were recycled, for exampleas the Three Pieces for Piano Op9 (Reverie, Polka desalon, Mazurka de salon) which date from the end ofOctober, and almost certainly some numbers were keptaside and took their final form in the score of SwanLake. The very Introduction, with it’s bitter-sweet aura ofelegiac yearning that is so typical of Tchaikovsky, couldwell be a miniature tone-poem depicting Cinderella asshe sits by the fire, wistfully thinking of the ball to whichher sisters have been invited. This is mere conjecture;MATTHEW BOURNE’S SWAN LAKE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS 18