19 replies to this topic

[MinkusPugni]

I love the ending of Sir Peter Wright's production of the Swedish Royal Ballet where after they drown, Benno fishes Siegfried's body from the lake. The final tableux is very bitter-sweet and incredibly moving.

[Mel Johnson]

Me, I keep waiting for them to decide to forget the whole thing, jump into a limo, and head for the baccarat tables in Monte Carlo.

[EricMontreal22]

I'm cofnused--that Crnako article makes it sound like him havign an unhappy ending was a first--but didn't they die in all the Russian versions pre revolution?  Does the Bolshoi have a sad or happy ending?  I don't mind the Sergyev/Kirov version except that happy ending--even as a kid I knew that Swan Lake was meant to be sad...  Shessh!

[rg]

in haste and in brief, the happy ending(s) to SWAN LAKE came into being in Soviet Russia.
certainly per-revolution, russian productions, employed the tragic ending w/ apotheosis as given in both the original and 1895 librettos.
Vaganova's 1930s production used a happy ending.
later, in the 1960s?, when Grigorovich proposed to re-instate the original ending in Soviet Russia, he was prevailed upon by the authorities not to do so.
i assume earlier Messere, post-Gorsky production for the Bolshoi also presented a happy ending.
too bad Demidov's monograph on SWAN LAKE has never been translated into english.

[EricMontreal22]

So does Girgorovich's current Bolshoi production use the happy ending?  I always wondered why Sawn Lake had to have a happy ending in the Soviet era but Bayadere, Giselle, etc, never did...