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SWAN LAKE ACT IV.


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:excl::angry2::clapping: Over the years there seems to have been a number of different finale's to Swan Lake, which can involve all three of the main characters. The death of the Prince and Odette, or just one of them. And Von Rothbart, he has seemed to meet his end, in different ways. Can the members of the Forum post their findings, plus also possible details of the very original early production by Petipa.
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many productions of SWAN LAKE are now on video/dvd. you can certainly screen these for the information you seek, including ABT's present production..

roland john wiley's TCHAIKOVSKY'S BALLETS will have much to say in both its text and its appendices about the notes and data that exist concering Petipa's original, 1985 staging.

good luck with your research.

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There really are a lot of endings -- the last time I saw the Bolshoi's, I thought Odette was strangled by The Evil Genius (the monster formerly known as Rothbart) but I wouldn't take an oath on it. Maybe she just fell into the scarf and died. The Soviet versions I've seen had Siegfried and von Rothbart fight and von Rothbart losing (death by complications following a Wingdectomy).

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I remember a production - was it Bolshoi? In this production, Siegfried was killed in the duel with Von Rothbart. The Swans ganged up and offed Von Rothbart. Then Odette paid a tender final farewell to Siegfried's prostrate body and then bourreed offstage, doomed to swanhood forever. Princes come and go but Swans are eternal!

We had a discussion of this here in the "Swan Lake" forum:

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=19998

Gelsey Kirkland discussed in one of her books (probably "Dancing on my Grave") how when she did "Swan Lake" at ABT in the old David Blair production she hated the traditional ending. This is where Odette jumps first and then Siegfried follows her. She felt it should be a joint suicide kind of like Mayerling - they decide their fate together. So she and Ivan Nagy joined hands and jumped together!

Lots of choices!

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:wink: Thank you for the details about the books, I will have to try and get hold of a copy. Just hope I can see to read them, as my eyesight is rather poor now. You mention a version by David Blair, I think that must have been the one performed by the Royal Ballet as well, I can remember Von Rothbart losing his arm, pulled off by the prince, which resulted in certain Dancers over playing his death throws. As he was rendered (h) armless., sorry, but the memory of a certain performer :):) brings amusement.
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There are also some endings where Odette remains a swan forever despite Rothbart's (and sometimes the prince's) death; the Staatsoper Berlin 1998 production with Scherzer and Matz comes to mind.

And the it-was-only-a-dream ending. Nureyev took that route with his second version of Swan Lake, with Odette simply being a fragment of Siegfried's imagination. And in Christopher Wheeldon's radical Swan Lake for the Pennsylvania Ballet, one of the dancers imagined himself in the role of the prince.

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I remember a production - was it Bolshoi? In this production, Siegfried was killed in the duel with Von Rothbart. The Swans ganged up and offed Von Rothbart. Then Odette paid a tender final farewell to Siegfried's prostrate body and then bourreed offstage, doomed to swanhood forever. Princes come and go but Swans are eternal!

I think it's very unlikely any Bolshoi production done since the late 1940's would have a ending like THAT! Given I've read Soviet-era censors kind of frowned upon the original Petipa version with the deaths of both Siegfried and Odette, I believe the current Mariinsky and Bolshoi productions use more or less the Konstantin Sergeyev version originally shown in 1950, where they went back to the happy ending from the original 1877 production.

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I believe the current Mariinsky and Bolshoi productions use more or less the Konstantin Sergeyev version originally shown in 1950, where they went back to the happy ending from the original 1877 production.

What 1877 happy ending? In the '77 and '95, the ending is happy only because both lovers have endeditall and are reunited in spirit, hovering over the surface of the lake.

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I believe the current Mariinsky and Bolshoi productions use more or less the Konstantin Sergeyev version originally shown in 1950, where they went back to the happy ending from the original 1877 production.

What 1877 happy ending? In the '77 and '95, the ending is happy only because both lovers have endeditall and are reunited in spirit, hovering over the surface of the lake.

Right, which is why i never understood the "happiness' of the situation...One way or the other THEY ARE COMMITING PLAIN SUICIDE!!..HOW CAN SUICIDE EEEEEEEEEVER BE CONSIDERED HAPPY?! :dunno: ( Oh, Gold, i hope not to get into a religious discussion here... :mad: )

On the other side, the cuban finale-(the only element taken by Alonso from the soviet era)-is definitely the happy one. Rothbart gets killed, Odette is transformed into human form along with her maids, and then reunited with Siegfried in a final apotheosis.

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On the other side, the cuban finale-(the only element taken by Alonso from the soviet era)-is definitely the happy one. Rothbart gets killed, Odette is transformed into human form along with her maids, and then reunited with Siegfried in a final apotheosis.

I believe that in terms of ending the ballet, there's a big divergence between versions produced in the West (which has more or less a tragic ending) and the version produced in the former Soviet Union and China nowadays. I believe it came down to two reasons: 1) the objections of Soviet-era censors I mentioned above and 2) the Russians felt a "happy" ending better suited the music at the end, which ended in a C major signature.

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On the other side, the Cuban finale-(the only element taken by Alonso from the soviet era)-is definitely the happy one. Rothbart gets killed, Odette is transformed into human form along with her maids, and then reunited with Siegfried in a final apotheosis.

I believe that in terms of ending the ballet, there's a big divergence between versions produced in the West (which has more or less a tragic ending) and the version produced in the former Soviet Union and China nowadays. I believe it came down to two reasons: 1) the objections of Soviet-era censors I mentioned above and 2) the Russians felt a "happy" ending better suited the music at the end, which ended in a C major signature.

The story with the soviet censors always leaves me thinking, considering that those same censors didn't want the original happy ending that Prokofiev had in mind for his Romeo and Juliet!...Anyways, it's also interesting to note that the tragic ending has to be really well done in order to be credible. Not everybody realizes or understand this "happy" character of the reunited soul, along with that happy C key. ( I personally think somehow one has to have some kind of belief system or certain degree of knowledge of the after life theories in order to "get" this). When The Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami did it, they used the suicidal events, and then, the dead couple made a final appearance in the top of an awful pro that i guess was trying to resemble some clouds of something...(they didn't have the required equipment to do it the way ABT does, which is less confusing). Anyways, the poor Cubans looked like a happy couple in a top of a wedding cake. No good.

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The story with the soviet censors always leaves me thinking, considering that those same censors didn't want the original happy ending that Prokofiev had in mind for his Romeo and Juliet!

I think in that case the Soviet-era censor was right--the original Shakespeare play had a tragic ending, so why change the ending in the ballet version of the same story? That would have confused the audience to no end.

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Well, it's major mode, but it's in B. That's part of the longer symphonic development of the score. The Introduction before Act I is B minor. Beast of a key!

By the way, what I find interesting about the Introduction to Swan Lake was that the music was NOT repeated elsewhere in the score. This isn't like an overture to an opera, where you essentially hear the themes you'll hear elsewhere in the opera.

By the way, I need to start playing any keyboard again--I'm losing my sense of key signatures in music. :)

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In that respect, the thematically-freestanding Introduction, the score shows the influence of Wagner's "future music", which often employs that device in his operas.

What I do interesting about the Introduction music on Swan Lake was that it has the same key signature and even the same tempo as the main theme of the ballet we hear for the first time at the end of Act I Scene 1 (Petipa/Ivanov act listing), which kind of "previews" the main theme in a way like you described.

I sometimes wondered why there are several different endings to Act III. Do you think that because the ballet was so heavily reworked from the 1877 original in the 1895 Petipa/Ivanov version that it allowed librettists and choreographers freer reign on how to end the ballet in more recent versions?

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I sometimes wondered why there are several different endings to Act III.
This is quite a fascinating question. I don't recall whether this has been addressed seriously here before. This Act does seem to lend itself to bursts of "interpretation" and "self-expression" on the part of choreographers and artistic directors, even in otherwise conventional productions.

So, what do all of you think. why DO people seem to feel so free to create alternate endings for Odette and Siegfried (and Rothbart, not to forget him)?

Edited to add: Based on subsequent posts, I reallize I should have clarified. I was assuming taht Sacto1654's Act III was either a type for "IV" or comibning acts, as it turns out was the case.

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I sometimes wondered why there are several different endings to Act III.

What do you mean by that...?, Aren't more all less all Act III's endings the same, i mean, everybody being laughed at by Rothbart and daughter, followed by their quick escape and the always overly dramatic fainting Queen...?

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I sometimes wondered why there are several different endings to Act III.

What do you mean by that...?, Aren't more all less all Act III's endings the same, i mean, everybody being laughed at by Rothbart and daughter, followed by their quick escape and the always overly dramatic fainting Queen...?

That's if you use the original Act listing order from 1877. :) The 1895 Petipa/Ivanov version--which is the basis for many modern productions of Swan Lake--lists it as Act I (two scenes), Act II and Act III. I tend to follow the Petipa/Ivanov act listing.

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I sometimes wondered why there are several different endings to Act III.

What do you mean by that...?, Aren't more all less all Act III's endings the same, i mean, everybody being laughed at by Rothbart and daughter, followed by their quick escape and the always overly dramatic fainting Queen...?

That's if you use the original Act listing order from 1877. :) The 1895 Petipa/Ivanov version--which is the basis for many modern productions of Swan Lake--lists it as Act I (two scenes), Act II and Act III. I tend to follow the Petipa/Ivanov act listing.

I knew about this order, but i've never seen a production in which Act I and the following Lakeside are done without intermission...Which company does it nowadays...?

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Uh, I'm pretty sure ABT only "pauses" between the two scenes in Act 1: Court, and then Lake: The lights dim, the Lake 'overture' theme starts, drop comes down, Siegfried & Benno have their scene, then drop goes up, travelers come across, some smoke appears, and Siegfried enters upstage rt. (and hopefully still warmed up from his earlier exertions). I think a similar "pause" occurs between ABT's Ballroom & Lake scenes. (At least I remember a lot of noise behind the drops etc. as the sets were changed).

However, I still prefer to think of SL as 4 acts: Court, Lake, Court, Lake rather than two scenes in Act one, but then a separation of scene into Acts 2 & 3. If you are going to keep them together in Act 1, why split them into Act 2 & 3? Simpler to just call them 4 acts, but then you scare away audiences who consequently expect a 4hrs long performance.

Re: the question which started this latest version of this thread...I too remember an SL where Prince and Rothbart die, and Odette is left to bouree off with her swans. I didn't like it then or now. Personally, I prefer the traditional jump in the lake (yes, S & O jumping together would be nice, though I haven't seen it in MANY years).

BTW: Had to smile at one Siegfried's gesture as he dropped Rothbart's torn-off wing onto R's writhing body--it was a cross between "so there" or "take that", and "eewww, nasty". It's on one of the clips from the VIII Mariinsky Festival.

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Simpler to just call them 4 acts, but then you scare away audiences who consequently expect a 4hrs long performance.

...and particularly if the fouettes and sautees on pointe are "finito" already...That's why Alonso does intermezzo between I and II, but unifies III and IV, (well, in reality, III and a short Epilogue). It's like saying..."Please, don't go...it will be over already in two minutes"

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I knew about this order, but i've never seen a production in which Act I and the following Lakeside are done without intermission...Which company does it nowadays...?

The current version done by the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet--and in fact by most Russian ballet troupes that use the 1950 Konstantin Sergeyev production as the "reference" version--has Act I in two scenes, with a shorter intermission between the two scenes (which is the Petipa/Ivanov listing). If you've seen the 2007 DVD release of the 2006 Mariinsky performance, note that at the end of the Scene 1 when a small number of dancers come out to take their bows it's done with the secondary curtain down. You can read the changes compared to the original 1877 Reisinger production from this web page:

http://www.balletmet.org/Notes/SwanHist.html

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