The 'black Swan' Pas De Deux/'tchaikovsky Pas De Deux'

[Solor]

Who was the first ballerina to dance the Act III (or Act II) "black swan pas" in a black tutu? What kind of costume did Legnani wear in 1895 for this scene - was she not known as the 'Magic Swan' then? Perhaps I missed it, but I did not read anywhere in Wiley's "Tchaikovksy's Ballets" a descrition of her costume, or that there was no such thing as a Black Swan in this production (or in the original of 1877).

I did read that it was Chabukiani who took the omitted allegro ending of the original pas de deux/andante and fashioned it into Siegfried's solo, but Wiley gives no date....when was this?

Regarding the "Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux", which I suppose was really the original 'Black Swan Pas de Deux', I have read here and there that Tchaikovsky merely reorchestrated the 2nd variation, and that he changed the melody only slightly in the entree and coda, while still reorchestrating it. I have also read that he did not do anything to the first variation - which by the way sounds very typical-Minkus-male-variation, stucture and all. In wiley's book he quotes Pavel Pchel'nikov who, after describing the whole 'Sobeshchaskaya-additional Petipa pas de deux to Minkus's music' situation, says, quote - "The music was written very quickly, and in addition pleased the benefit artiste so much that she requested Tchaikovsky write her an additional variation, which he did"

what variation is this? I thought perhaps that it could be the 2nd variation, though, like stated above, I have read many times that it was only 'orchestrated by Tchaikovsky'.

Pchel'nikov says, quote "In the benefit performance BOTH (I stress both) of these numbers enjoyed a noisy success with the public." I believe when he syas 'Both' he means both the additional variation AND the pas de deux, though I'm not sure.....?

Perhaps the more appropriate title for the "Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux" should be the "Minkus/Sobeshchanskaya/Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux"....... Does anyone know what ever happened to Minkus's original music before Tchaikovsky 'rewrote it'? Considering Tchaikovsky's reaction to the addition, after 'adapting' the music he probably ripped up the original manuscript and through it in the fire!

[rg]

i know of no official, published research on the question of black costuming for Odile.

it was my hunch, when i wrote my book BALLET 101 that the precedent may well have started with Fedorova's production of the ballroom act as a one-act ballet for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, as follows:

Swan lake - Chor: Alexandra Fedorova-Fokine after Marius Petipa; mus: Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky; scen & cos: Eugene Dunkel; under title The magic swan. First U.S. perf: New York, Metropolitan Opera House, Oct 13, 1941, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

to the best of my knowledge, Toumanova's tutu - as Fedorova's first Odile - was specially made for her by Karinska. my sense was that black was chosen so that this one-act excerpt of SWAN LAKE would be readily distinguishable to potential audiences from the so-called SWAN LAKE ACT II version then a something of a staple on the ballet touring circuit.

(it was likely b/c of these single act excerpts that the category 'full-length' grew into a ballet selling point and then into a general ballet term.)

there is a photo of toumanova and eglevsky as the frontice piece of grace robert's BORZOI BOOK OF BALLET in the so-called 'black swan pas de deux' from THE MAGIC SWAN; it's a black and white photo but i think it safe to say toumanova's tutu is black.

e. ponomarev sketch for odile in act 2 of the maryinsky's 1895 prod. shows a multi-colored skirt with a rainbow of ray-like colors falling from the waist to the hem and a similar spray of colors falling from the bodice's top to the waist. the very edges of the skirt and of the bodice are a dark color, either navy blue or black, but the overall effect is multi-color.

a note (w/o copyright date) to the ART OF THE PRIMA BALLERINA recording says the following: "Today, we usually see Odile dressed in a black version of Odette's costume; but this is a recent innovation. The original Odile was dressed in a brightly colored, festive costume, and she won the prince by her beauty and charm, rather than by virtue of any magic spell. Diaghilev's production featured this brightly colored attire, and Markova wore a yellow tutu topped with gold brocade and trimmed with pearls when she first danced it with the Vic-Wells." - this note, as is the case w/ all the others in the record's booklet, is unsigned.

in BALLET (magazine) vol. 3 no. 4, 1947, in a review of international ballet's SWAN LAKE - CWBeaumont writes of Odile: "Miss Gollner wears a dark green tutu decorated with pale green sequins which gives her a sinister snake-like appearance."

in vol. 5. no. 2 of the same magazine in the same year, the same author, in an articles about some observations on the role of Odile, notes: "...the present Odile wears black and gold, but i have seen skirts of other colors, such as orange, and mauve."

chabukiani danced the prince in 1930s vaganova's prod. of SWAN LAKE, but not precise is given in my ref. books.

my hunch is that the attached photocard, identified in handwriting on the back as having been bought in moscow in 1930, shows a soviet couple, no later than 1930, as Siegfreid and Odile. whatever color her tutu, it's obviously not black.

[Mel Johnson]

The basic color of the Ponomarev costume design always seemed like midnight blue to me. I don't know what the Mariinsky's lighting was like in 1895, but midnight blue is of those colors that's just one tint off black, but in the right light looks "blacker than black". It's the same color that the US Navy uses for its overcoats.

[rg]

interesting point about midnight blue, esp. as i sense, perhaps, an intended aurora borealis indication in the spary of colors that make up the main portion of the tutu's scheme - so midnight blue and the land of the midnight sun etc. might make sense. (btw, mel, can you tell me where you've seen e.p's design for odile reproduced? my one look at it in color is in demidov's russian book on swan lake? have you seen this reproduced in color elsewhere?)

meanwhile here's a definite black and white photo of v.zorina as balanchine's swan lake fantasie ballerina in I WAS AN ADVENTURESS - toeing, pardon the pun, what would seem to be a line of balanchine's own imagining, somewhere between odette and odile.

lew christensen is her loyal knight of a partner.

[Mel Johnson]

I believe that I saw the Ponomarev designs in one of Agnes de Mille's "coffee table" books on dance. I probably have it here - somewhere!

[Myrtha]

Who was the first ballerina to dance the Act III (or Act II) "black swan pas" in a black tutu? What kind of costume did Legnani wear in 1895 for this scene - was she not known as the 'Magic Swan' then? Perhaps I missed it, but I did not read anywhere in Wiley's "Tchaikovksy's Ballets" a descrition of her costume, or that there was no such thing as a Black Swan in this production (or in the original of 1877).

Here's some more clues to the "black swan" and the black tutu.

In a review of Kshesinskaya in Swan Lake in 1901, it states: "The ballerina was very effective in the second act, in her elegant black dress, which went so well on her, and danced the famous pas d’action with aplomb and great artistic finish.”

From Novosti i birzhevaya gazeta (6 Apr. 1901), p. 3. via Wiley, Roland John, The Life and Ballets of Lev Ivanov, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997, page 179

Maya Plisetskaya notes this: "The division into the “black” and “white” adagios came to the Bolshoi from the West. The foreign ballet troupes that began visiting at the end of the 1950s reinterpreted Odile, the daughter of the evil genius Rothbart, as the black swan. This division took root."

From I, Maya Plisekskaya by Maya Plisetskaya (translated by Antonina W. Bouis) Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2000, page 90

Cyril W. Beaumont wrote: "Odile, we are told, is the daughter of Rothbart the magician, but since he makes her assume the likeness of Odette, the expression 'daughter' is more a convenient figure of speech for what is clearly a familiar spirit. That such was the authors' intention is corroborated by the fact that Skalkovsky, describing a performance of Swan Lake at the Maryinsky Theatre in 1899, records that immediately after Siegfried asked Odile - believing her to be Odette - for her hand in marriage, the great hall went dark and Odile changed into an owl."

From The Ballet Called Swan Lake by Cyril W. Beaumont, Dance Horizons, New York, 1982, pages 70 & 71

I also saw a teeny photograph in a French book about Swan Lake which showed Legnani wearing a dark tutu, dark tights, and dark pointe shoes and which identified her as in the role of Odile in Swan Lake. So far I haven't found a larger version of this photograph.

Edited March 21, 2006 by Myrtha

[rg]

i too have seen this dark photo of legnani in dark tutu and dark tights but i have never been convinced the suggestion of odile is accurate. for one thing i think her head is somewhat bare, or more plain than the headpiece suggested in ponomarev's sketch, which definitely shows light, not dark colored, tights.

the kshessinska is a good clue tho, to the early use of black.

i have also seen cards of a. g. vasilieva in a dark tutu and dark tights, very much like that worn in the legnani photo, i have a hunch they document the same ballet. i've never seen this vasilieva connected to the role of odile, so i suspect it's some other ballet.

[Solor]

Should anyone find a photo of Legnani as Odile, or of Ponomarev's sketch, please share them!

[leonid17]

Should anyone find a photo of Legnani as Odile, or of Ponomarev's sketch, please share them!

Does any one know what colour costume Julie Sedova wore in act 3 when she danced the role in a 4 act version with Mordkin in Washington on November 3, 1911?

[Solor]

Heres a really interesting photo that somehow I seemed to never notice in Smakov's "The Great Russian Dancers" - Tamara Karsavina as Odile and Pierre Vladimirov as Siegfried, 1913, the "Black? Swan Pas de Deux" -

http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/4418/sw...vinaasodile.jpg

[rg]

i have emailed a correspondent who is very well about karsavina's career, esp. as captured in photos, so perhaps he can identify this series of the ballerina as odile. (if only one had reviews from the period to comb for information about the color of this odile tutu - it's obviously not black, maybe scarlet, or poppy, a color noted for the tutus of early soviet odiles.)

in any case, my dating guess is 1913 or later. (vladimirov seems not to have danced siegfired until then.)

here's another example from the same? photo session. [scan removed]

[carbro]

Since it is not a performance photo, is it possible that Vladimirov borrowed the costume for the shoot? Because the swan right above his heart seems pretty specific!

It's hard to make out what -- if anything specific -- the ornamentation on Karsavina's costume is.

I wonder why there are so few photos of TK in profile. It's out-of-this-world perfect!

[Helene]

I wonder why there are so few photos of TK in profile. It's out-of-this-world perfect!

Is it ever She's always so beautiful, but her beauty is rapturous in this photo.

[Solor]

Great photo RG, much better quality! I was wondering, how are able to put up the thumbnail of a pic like that?

[carbro]

Moderator's note: Solor, because rg is the moderator of the Ballet History forum, he has special photo privileges not available to the general membership.

This conserves bandwidth and helps minimize the expense of running the site.

[Mel Johnson]

I would just love to see what that curvy aigrette did during the fouettés!

[Mel Johnson]

Right, she could have removed it after the entrance. Perhaps a bit of Victoriana: What respectable lady would go out, even escorted by her father, without putting on her hat? She seems to be wearing a bit of a turban, too, which would be less trouble during double work. During the Soviet era, the aigrettes tended to have shrunk to a sort-of-horsehair tassel or even two, like horns.

[Solor]

Now wait a minute RG - I thought that the photo of Karsavina on the left was of her as Medora? I have always seen that photo credited as such ?

[Solor]

Moderator's note: Solor, because rg is the moderator of the Ballet History forum, he has special photo privileges not available to the general membership.

This conserves bandwidth and helps minimize the expense of running the site.

Oh ok - geez I must have tried 100 times to do that!

[rg]

point taken: i now see that while there are solo shots of karsavina in the odile tutu shown w/ vladimirov, my solo card is not one of them, thus, i've now deleted mine to prevent more confusion. (lesson to self: don't post photos late at night when fatigue etc. enter the mix.) i cannot contradict the medora ident. of the card, the tutu is certainly not the same as the one in odile & siegfried card, so my error.

p.s. [this from a karsavina scholar in london: the [solo] one is almost certainly a fairly late Corsair. The costumes are remarkably similar and you really have to look twice. Interestingly, Nesta McDonald, who did the huge 2-box set of Karsavina photos, confuses them but the other way round, and she was a great friend of [karsavina's].

i gather these boxed sets are now quite rare; clive barnes has one but it's in his country place so his offers to show it to me mean a trip out of the city, which has yet to happen.

[Solor]

i gather these boxed sets are now quite rare; clive barnes has one but it's in his country place so his offers to show it to me mean a trip out of the city, which has yet to happen.

that would be really neat to see RG! Indeed those costumes are similar.

[atm711]

there is a photo of toumanova and eglevsky as the frontice piece of grace robert's BORZOI BOOK OF BALLET in the so-called 'black swan pas de deux' from THE MAGIC SWAN; it's a black and white photo but i think it safe to say toumanova's tutu is black.

I did not see 'The Magic Swan' but I did see Toumanova (Ballet Theater 1945) in the Black Swan Pdd much as it is seen today...in a black tutu. It was one of those performances you never forget.

[carbro]

atm, I'd love to hear more. I just searched your blog ("Ruminations," through the Blogs link under the masthead banner) but Toumanova's Black (or Magic) Swan isn't (yet ) mentioned. Her strange and exotic beauty must have been quite an asset to her characterization!

[atm711]

Thanks, Carbro, I will get to work on that

I seem to recall having read somewhere that Anton Dolin staged this as a pas de deux (without the panoply of 'the magic swan') and that this performance by Toumanova was the first time it was performed strictly as a pas de deux. I was fortunate to start my ballet-going in 1944 and I was able to see much of Toumanova when she was a guest artist with Ballet Theatre in 1944 and 1945.

[leonid17]

Should anyone find a photo of Legnani as Odile, or of Ponomarev's sketch, please share them!

Does any one know what colour costume Julie Sedova wore in act 3 when she danced the role in a 4 act version with Mordkin in Washington on November 3, 1911?

Does any American contributor know anything about ther Mordkin production in Washington DC as

I have so far only found reference to this production on an English website. As I am interested in Mordkin, do American ballet scholars/enthusiasts consider Mordkin's work in the USA an important contribution to American ballet history?