Swan lake

SYNOPSIS
Prince Siegfried is reading a legend about a sorcerer who is able to use his tremendously strong magic to turn beautiful girls, princesses, into swans and keep them on a secluded lake in a forest.
ACT ONE
Young people, courtiers, Prince’s friends, Wolfgang, his tutor, gather and begin dancing in the royal garden, while the court jester entertains the noblemen, and the ladies are having fun with their companions. The Queen tells Prince Siegfried that the time has come for him to choose a fiancée and that during the tomorrow’s Grand Ball, he will be able to choose his future bride from one of the girls present at the Ball. The Prince is disinterested, since he has never been in love. The dance lasts long into the night, but the Prince cannot hide his mixed feelings regarding the end of his bachelor life and freedom, which he enjoyed while being protected by his mother - the Queen. His coming of age and pending marriage represent the end of that period. At the same time, he fantasises about true and ideal love, but he has never met a girl who could fulfil his fantasies. While being disinterested in interaction with his friends, he notices a group of swans flying by far away. He decides to follow them.
ACT TWO
While following the swans, Siegfried finds himself deep in a dark forest. The swans perform astonishing dances on the lake shore, and his attention is drawn to one particular swan for its astounding beauty. During the night, the swans transform into girls and dance on the lake. Beautiful Odette, the queen of swans, shows herself in front of the Prince. She has been transformed into a swan by an evil sorcerer, together with many other girls. Because of the sorcerer’s spell, they can transform back into their human form only for a short time during the night. The spell can be broken only by true love, which would set the swan-girls free of the evil magic. The Prince becomes enchanted by Odette and promises his eternal love to her. Their courting has been witnessed by the evil sorcerer who was in hiding. When the morning comes, the girls turn into swans again. Prince Siegfried, determined in his newfound love, promises to save Odette from the evil spell and love her forever.
ACT THREE

At the Grand Ball at the court, Prince Siegfried has to choose a bride. Prominent guests from all over the world attend the ball, but Siegfried is nowhere to be found. The jester entertains the guests and they start dancing and show dances from their countries. The Prince arrives, but he is obviously distracted. He thinks about his findings from the lake and his Odette. Numerous beautiful girls never capture his attention and he does not want any of the girls his mother presented to him for his bride.  Suddenly a stranger arrives to the ball. It is the evil sorcerer from the lake under the guise of Count Rotbart. His daughter Odile, who resembles Odette very much, is with him. Her father gave her the task to enchant and to seduce Prince Siegfried. The Prince believes that it is his Odette and he enthusiastically repeats his vow and promises eternal love, thus breaking his promises to Odette. Odile is now his bride to be. Rotbart is triumphant because his deception of the Prince is successful, and the Prince turned out to be disloyal. However, the Prince recognises that he has been tricked, so he goes on his own to the dark forest towards the enchanted lake.
ACT FOUR
Under the guise of darkness at the lake shore, Odette tells her friends, the swans, the sad story of betrayal and broken vows. Her hope for freedom has been lost forever. At that moment, Siegfried arrives. He has never broken his vows, because he saw Odette at the ball, not Odile. In his heart, it is she whom he swore to love. Deception of the evil sorcerer was not successful and he arrives to the lake throwing thunders and lightning on Siegfried, trying to kill him. The Prince’s pure love toward Odette cannot be broken and he fights for her bravely and wins against the sorcerer. The sorcerer’s magic is dispelled and Odette, accompanied by her friends, forever leaves the lake to live happily with Prince Siegfried. 

150 YEARS
As one of the best-known and most frequently performed ballets in 19th century, to the music of P. I. Tchaikovsky, Opus 20, had its world premiere in the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1877. Choreography was designed by Julius Reisinger, after the libretto written by Vladimir Petrovich Begichev, Director of the Moscow Imperial Theatre. Inspiration for the new ballet was found in The Stolen Vail, written by German writer Johann Karl August Musäus in 18th century. Swan Lake is the first of three ballets composed by Tchaikovsky. He also wrote music for The Sleeping Beauty (1889), The Nutcracker (1892) and several suites for one-act ballets. Marius Petipa, together with Lev Ivanov, created anthology version of the ballet in 1895, which has been preserved to this day in its directing and choreography segments.
METAMORPHOSIS OF THE SWAN 

1877 – Moscow, Russian Imperial Ballet Theatre. World premiere of Swan Lake, to the music of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Choreography: Julius Wenzel Reisinger. Libretto: Vladimir Begichev, a dramaturge and an intendant of Moscow theatres’ repertoire, and Vasily Geltser, a dancer. The premiere was a failure.
1880 – Moscow. New version of Swan Lake. Choreography: Joseph Hansen.
1888 – Prague, National Theatre. First staging of Swan Lake outside of Russia. Choreography: Augustin Berger. Performance of only the second act with the composer in attendance. 
1892 – St. Petersburg, Russian Imperial Ballet. Premiere of P. I. Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker. Choreography: Lev Ivanov, according to the idea by M. Petipa. 
1893 – St. Petersburg. New, full-length, version of Swan Lake. Choreographers: Lev Ivanov and Marius Petipa. Petipa proposes a completely new concept for the second act to Ivanov and has Ivanov design the act. 
1894 – St. Petersburg, Marynski Theatre. A year after Tchaikovsky’s death, during the evening dedicated to commemoration of the composer, there was a performance of the second act of the Swan Lake. The role of Odette was interpreted by Pierina Legnani. It was a tremendous success for the choreographer and the ballerina. 
1895 – St. Petersburg, Marynski Theatre. First performance of integral version of Swan Lake, choreographed and directed by Lev Ivanov and Marius Petipa. This version would become basis for all later versions, including the contemporary interpretations of the famous ballet choreography. 
1901 – Moscow, Bolshoi Theatre. New version of Swan Lake, choreographed by Alexandar Gorsky. Significant improvement regarding implementation of symbols and regarding introduction of classic ballet academism. 
1911 – London, Sergei Diaghilev’s ballet company Les Ballets Russes performs Swan Lake, choreographed by Mihail Fokin, after Ivanov and Petipa. Main roles were interpreted by Matilda Kshesinskaya and Vatslav Nijinsky. 
New York, Metropolitan Opera. Mikhail Mordkin’s troupe performed the first American premiere of Swan Lake.  
1912 – Monte Carlo. Premiere of Swan Lake in interpretation of Sergei Diaghilev’s Les Ballets Russes.
Rene Blum’s troupe – Ballet Russes de Monte-Carlo – resumes performing this ballet regularly, however always in shorter version.
1920 – Moscow, Bolshoi Theatre. Alexander Gorsky staged a new version of Swan Lake, in cooperation with Nemirovich-Danchenko and added to it a novelty - character of the Fool. This version lasted for a long time on Moscow’s stages.
1921 – Moscow, Bolshoi Theatre. New version by Asaf Messerer, which had a great influence on later productions.    
1925 – Belgrade, National Theatre. The National Theatre presents the full-length production of Swan Lake, choreographed by Aleksandar Fortunat.
1933 – Leningrad, Kirov Theatre (Marynski). After 38 years, a version by Petipa-Ivanov was replaced with a new one by Agrippina Vaganova and Vladimir Dmitriev. The original scheme and the second act by L. Ivanov remained the same, but a character of Beno was omitted.
1934 - London, Vic-Wells Ballet. First production of the full-length version of Swan Lake in Great Britain. Choreography by Nicholas Sergeyev, after the version by Petipa-Ivanov.
1936 – Paris, Opera House. Serge Lifar presented to the Paris audience his fragmental version of Swan Lake.
1945 – Leningrad, Kirov Theatre. Premiere of the production choreographed by Fedor Lopukhov, after the version by Petipa-Ivanov.
1951 – New York, New York City Ballet. Production of the second act, choreography: George Balanchine.
1953 – Moscow, Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre. Vladimir Bourmeister designed a new version that is still on the repertoire of this theatre.
1960 – Bourmeister staged the same version for the Paris Opera Ballet. This was the first French company to produce this ballet after the original score.
1963 – Stuttgart, Wurttemberg Ballet. John Cranko’s dramatization highlighted the role of Prince.  A great number of modern choreographers accepted his approach to dramatization.
1964 – Vienna, State Opera Ballet.  In his version, Rudolph Nureyev also highlighted the role of Prince.
1966 - Toronto, National Ballet of Canada. In his version, Erik Bruhn highlighted the negative character of Count Rotbart.
1969 - Moscow, Bolshoi Theater. Yuri Grigorovich presents a new version of Swan Lake. The second and the fourth acts were taken from the version by Petipa-Ivanov. Dances of the third act were danced on the toes.  
1976 – Hamburg.  John Neumeier stages Swan Lake in the style of contemporary dance expression for the Hamburg Ballet Theatre.
1987 – Stockholm, Cullberg Ballet. Mats Ek changes the libretto and modernizes the dance technique, thus making a radical turn from traditional interpretation.
1996 – London. Mathew Bourne reforms the performance regarding directing and conceptual form based on the original score. The second and the fourth acts were set for male dancers only. French choreographer Roland Petit, in the National Ballet of Marseille poeticized male swans’ dance, thus reorganizing the original score.
Although approaching its 150th anniversary Swan Lake, as a ballet paradigm, remains original and fresh enough to bear the epithet of the most famous ballet performance; at the same time, it made the art of ballet much more appealing. Despite the fact that it had left royal theatres, Swan Lake kept its “elitism” regarding its academic “purity” and virtuosity of performers, dancers and musicians alike, and remains everlasting inspiration both for the artists and the audience.

Miloš Dujaković