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SWAN LAKE ACT IV.


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In the late 60s, I believe, Royal Ballet started doing the courtyard/lakeside transition directly from a segue in the music, simply cutting from the swan theme in the former to the latter, with no pause at all and doing an onstage transformation, all with flies and lights. Made for a long sit, but bearable.

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I saw the National Ballet of China last night in a version of Swan Lake by Makarova, originally made for the Perm Ballet in 2005. Act !V is based on Ashton's choroegraphy but I think the ending is Makarova's own: the white swans disappear and von Rothbart and Siegfried are left on stage, pulling Odette from one to the other; then some black swans appear and... can't remember the exact sequence...

it was a very hot night... Siegfried and Odette are alone on stage and she collapses in his arms (dead? - don't know) - he carries her into the lake and they both disappear under the waves. Rothbart reappears on his rock, writhes a bit and then dies (I assume) - Odette and Siegfried are seen walking towards each other over a rocky landscape and are finally reunited (in death, I also assume). It doesn't work for me but some people seem to like it.

Also, this production plays the first two acts without a pause. Makarova has done too much tinkering for my taste: Siegfried's melancholy solo happens near the start of Act 3, the big Act 2 pas de deux happens after the cygnets' and the big swans' dances, etc. At the end of Act 2, where normally Siegfired holds Odette aloft whilst the swans run in a circle and offstage, Odette joins the swans and also runs off - then she comes back again for the big parting scene. I don't understand Makarova's motivation for some of her changes - they risk looking like change for the sake of change. Unless of course they come from some earlier production which she is trying to recreate.

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Very interesting, Jane. Thank you.

Your account does suggest that Makarova made changes for the sake of change. I am trying to imagine the Act II pas coming after Cygnets, and it's not working. Still, it's intriguing.

Makarova's full-length Bayadere for ABT and the Royal was such a success (of course, most Westerners had no basis of comparison at the time, but IMO it holds up just fine), it's curious that her subsequent stagings of Swan and Beauty have generally been considered unsuccessful (except her Swan Lake for ENB, which as I recall was received tepidly.) Beginner's luck?

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Makarova seems to following the original order as composed by Tchaikovsky in 1877, which goes:

I.Swans' Waltz

II. Odette's solo

III. Return of Opening Waltz

IV. Dance of the Little Swans

V. Love Duet (Pas d'action)

VI. General Dance

VII. Coda

the Petipa/Ivanov reordering, which omitted III. Return/Waltz, as we know went:

1. Swans' Waltz

2. Love Duet

3. Dance of the Little Swans

4. General Dance

5. Odette's Solo

6. Coda

[this taken from Wiley's TCHAIKOVSKY'S BALLETS.]

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Hey - I asked earlier but maybe will try this again -

Does anyone know the music which is used in John Cranko's 4th Act Swan Lake for the pas de deux (well pas de trois actually) between Odette, Seigfried and Rothbart; I am sure it is not from Swan Lake, but was billed as Tchaikovsky - must have been some arrangement of something else he composed. It is really beautiful music.

Thanks!

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if you can somehow reach the stuttgart ballet archivist you might get your question answered.

i don't know how many people are that familiar with Cranko's SWAN LAKE - it hasn't been seen in New York City, for example, in a long time. it's not on video, is it?

have you checked John Percival's book on Cranko?

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If you look on Google you'll find a Chinese site with a translation of a piece by Cranko himself about his Swan Lake which includes "..and the Drigo pas de deux in the fourth act, which always seemed too light for the situation, has been replaced by the magnificent elegy for strings". Does that sound like what you remember?

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If you look on Google you'll find a Chinese site with a translation of a piece by Cranko himself about his Swan Lake which includes "..and the Drigo pas de deux in the fourth act, which always seemed too light for the situation, has been replaced by the magnificent elegy for strings". Does that sound like what you remember?

I have checked through the index in the book on Cranko and can't find mention of the music. But is this the music you remember?

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if you can somehow reach the stuttgart ballet archivist you might get your question answered.

i don't know how many people are that familiar with Cranko's SWAN LAKE - it hasn't been seen in New York City, for example, in a long time. it's not on video, is it?

have you checked John Percival's book on Cranko?

Here is what Percival does write about the ballet. From Theatre in My Blood: a biography of John Cranko. page 164

John Percival first quotes John Cranko writing about the need for a tragic ending in Swan Lake.

Then Percival writes:

"By coincidence, Nureyev had a similar idea about the same time when preparing his production of
Swan Lake
for Vienna, and a while later Yuri Grigorovich tried to do something similar at the Bolshoi in Moscow, but was forbidden on ideological grounds. Obviously it was an idea whose time had arrived, but revolutionary and controversial when John thought of it. He invented, with the aid of Jurgen Rose as designer, a great flood conjured up by the wicked sorcerer, Rothbart, through which the hero Siegfried tries in vain to swim to save his beloved Odette, and the ballet ended with Odette once more transformed into a swan and Siegfried left dead as the waters subside."

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innopac,

I personally think during the Soviet era Russian authorities didn't want the idea of a tragic ending to Swan Lake for two reasons:

1) A tragic ending presumed the religious idea of Heaven, and that was definitely an ideological no-no under Communism! Small wonder why the 1895 Petipa/Ivanov ending was dropped after 1917.

2) The musical score ended on a C major signature, and for probably for aesthetic reasons it "looked" better if the ballet ended in an optimistic fashion.

That does explain why even the Bourmeister version introduced in the 1950's in the Soviet Union had the "happy" ending.

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Well, it's major mode, but it's in B. Beast of a key!

And the last note is a big open, unharmonized whole note with a fermata. It DOES sound like it should be a triumphant scene, but you are correct in that the Soviets presupposed the nonexistence of God, so no Resurrection would do for that sort of ending.

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If you look on Google you'll find a Chinese site with a translation of a piece by Cranko himself about his Swan Lake which includes "..and the Drigo pas de deux in the fourth act, which always seemed too light for the situation, has been replaced by the magnificent elegy for strings". Does that sound like what you remember?

I have checked through the index in the book on Cranko and can't find mention of the music. But is this the music you remember?

WOW! That is it! Thank you so much for providing me this link! I hope they have it on ITunes!

It is really beautiful music and the pas de deux (trois) is beautiful as well...

Thank you Jane!

Joseph

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By the way, the reason why I say the score at the end of Act IV has a C major signature is I listened to the famous Andre Previn-conducted orchestral recording from the 1970's and the last 2 minutes of the score is definitely in that signature. I'm going to check the 2007 Decca DVD and see if Gergiev conducted the Mariinsky Theatre orchestra in the same signature here, too. :)

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