Sylvie Guillem in Swan Lake.
Premiere: on January 27, 1895 in Saint-Petersbourg (Russia) at the Maryinsky Theater.
Dancers at the premiere: Pierina Legnani (Odette/Odile), Pavel Gerdt (the prince Siegfried).
In the repertoire of the Paris Opera Ballet since 1960 (premiered by Josette Amiel and Flemming Flindt).
About the plot: It is based on motives from J.K.A. Musäus' The stolen veil pulished in his collection of Volksmärchen der Deutschen.
About the ballet: there were several unsuccessful versions
of this ballet before the one of Petipa and Ivanov.
The first version,
on a choreography of Julius Reisinger, was premiered on March 4,
1877 at the
Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, with sets by H. Shangin, K. Valts and
H. Groppius, and costumes by H. Simone and Vormenko.
Pelageia Karpakova and S. Gillert danced the main roles.
It was not successful.
Another version
was staged in 1880 by the Belgian choreographer Joseph
Hansen, still for the Bolshoi company, but wasn't more
successful.
Petipa and Ivanov staged it in 1895 at the Maryinsky
Theatre in St-Petersburg, after staging other ballets
on Tchaikovsky's musics (The Sleeping Beauty
(1890), The Nutcracker (1892)): Tchaikovsky had died
just before... Petipa made the choreography for Acts I and III,
while Ivanov made the choreography for Acts II and IV ("white acts").
Unlike the previous ones, this production was very successful.
Since then, many versions have been staged, more or less
faithful to the original one, for example
those of Gorsky, Sergueyev, Bourmeister, Erik Bruhn, Yuri
Grigorovitch (premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet in 1969),
George Balanchine (premiered by the
New York City Ballet in 1951, with
Maria Tallchief and André Eglevsky), Rudolf Nureyev...
The role of Odette/Odile is considered as a great
challenge for a ballerina; among its greatest interprets,
one can mention Alicia Markova, Margot Fonteyn, Maia Plissetskaia,
Natalia Makarova, Noëlla Pontois, Nanon Thibon...
And among the great Siegfrieds were Erik Bruhn, Rudolf
Nureyev, Mikhail Baryschnikov, Michaël
Denard, Cyril Atanassoff...
Pierina Legnani, who was the first Odette/Odile and impressed
the audience by performing 32 consecutive fouettés...