Odette refuses to forgive him, so he snatches her crown in desperation. Siegfried falls for her but betrays her at a ball. Odette wears a magical crown which protects her from the witch. Her grandfather keeps her and companions safe at a lake by night, allowing them to fly about as swans by day. The argument was very different from the Swan Lake we now know: Odette, daughter of a good fairy, is being pursued by her “wicked witch stepmother”. Not only was the composer familiar with legends of swans, he had also shown interest in the theme years earlier with The Lake of the Swans, a miniature ballet for his sisters’ children. Although Vladimir Begichev (an Intendant of the Russian Imperial Theatres in Moscow) is said to have written the ballet’s first libretto with the assistance of Vasily Geltser (a dancer), it is very likely that Tchaikovsky also contributed. In 1875 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was engaged by the Bolshoi Theatre to write the music for Swan Lake. Photo: Holger Badekow / Hamburg Ballett © Contemporaries of Tchaikovsky have also noted the composer’s interest in the life of Bavarian “Swanâ€Â King Ludwig II, a link which is cleverly explored by John Neumeier in his 1976 ballet Illusions Like Swan Lake.Īlexandre Riabko (The King), Silvia Azzoni (Odette), Dario Franconi (Siegfried) and Artists of Hamburg Ballet in John Neumeier's Illusions Like Swan Lake. A number of these are consistently cited as influences on Swan Lake: Der geraubte Schleier ( The Stolen Veil) a tale about enchanted doves by German author Johann Karl August Musäus, Wagner’s Lohengrin (featuring a swan knight who symbolises purity), Andersen’s The Wild Swans and not least Pushkin’s Tzar Saltan (The Tale of Tsar Saltan), where a prince saves a wounded swan who reappears as a woman to marry him. Devastated the White Swan leaps of a cliff killing herself and, in death, finds freedom.īirdwomen, aquawomen and shapeshifting females in general have long featured in Eastern and Western tales. Her wish is nearly granted in the form of a prince, but before he can declare his love her lustful twin, the Black Swan, tricks and seduces him. She desires freedom but only true love can break the spell. Virginal girl, pure and sweet, trapped in the body of a swan. Pick your own dream Odette/Odile from our gallery of Swan QueensĪs fictional Artistic Director Thomas Leroy would say: The Paris Opera Ballet has been led by Aurélie Dupont since August 2016.Artists of The Royal Ballet in Anthony Dowell's Swan Lake. The average age of its dancers, at 25 years old, makes it one of the youngest companies today. The Company numbers 154 dancers, selected primarily from its School of Dance, currently directed by Élisabeth Platel. Its repertoire is vast: reference works of the Romantic era (Taglioni, Coralli, Perrot, rediscovered thanks to Lacotte) and great classical ballets by Petipa, remounted by Nureyev works by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes modern choreographers (Graham) neoclassical ballets (Ashton, Balanchine, Lifar, MacMillan, Petit, Robbins, Neumeier, Cranko) and contemporary classics (Bausch, Béjart, Carlson, Cunningham, Ek, Forsythe, Keersmaeker, Kylián) not forgetting numerous commissions from guest choreographers (Lock, McGregor, Pite, Preljocaj, Waltz). The Paris Opera Ballet has continued to evolve over the centuries and remains a home of living art to this day. #Swan lake paris opera ballet professional#The Sun King, eager to transform the courtly style into a truly theatrical entertainment, founded the Royal Academy of Dance in 1661, then the Academy of Opera in 1669, which in 1672 became the Royal Academy of Music (the original name of the Paris Opera), comprising the first troupe of professional dancers in Europe. The principles of choreographic technique, imported to the French court from Italy by Catherine de Medici in the 16th century, were modeled and refined first in the court ballets, then during the reign of Louis XIV. The Paris Opera Ballet-the cradle of classical dance-has for more than three centuries maintained a tradition of excellence, built on the preservation of its repertoire and openness to innovation.
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