The Saint Petersburg Ballet Theatre is offering a unique performance of one of the most prestigious classical ballets.
Love, power, and jealousy clash in this cursed work by Tchaikovsky.
After its ban, choreographer Petipa restored its prestige.
The extraordinary artists of this company, led by the renowned prima ballerina Irina Kolesnikova, promise an extraordinary performance.
Staging, costumes, sets, orchestra, and technical and artistic performances make this show one of the most spectacular in the repertoire of the Saint Petersburg Ballet Theatre.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer of the Romantic era (1840-1893). Eclectic, his work is more western-inspired and also incorporates national folk melodies. A brilliant orchestrator with a great sense of melody, Tchaikovsky particularly distinguished himself with his symphonies, suites, ballets, and concertos. He was also the one who elevated ballet, adding a symphonic dimension to a genre previously considered inferior.
After the failure of a marriage of pure convenience, Tchaikovsky had an idealized epistolary relationship with his patron Nadezhda von Meck, who notably wrote to him: “Pyotr Ilyich, have you ever loved? It seems to me not. You love music too much to love a woman.” Their purely platonic relationship lasted over fourteen years.
Thus, the score of Swan Lake is a revealing composition of the aspirations and temperament of a Tchaikovsky pursued by the feeling of an inexorable fate: his homosexuality. Like Siegfried, female loves were forbidden to him. The prince cannot have a physical relationship with the white swan, a symbol of purity. This would be against human laws. The creation of Swan Lake and subsequent performances were a cruel humiliation for the composer, who lived them as a new curse. The ballet, composed in 1876, was withdrawn from the stage and fell into oblivion. It was not until Petipa revived the choreography in 1895 that Swan Lake regained its rightful place.
Marius Petipa, born in Marseille in 1818 and died in Crimea in 1910, was a French dancer, ballet master, and choreographer who spent his entire life in Russia from the age of 29 until his death. A good dancer, he is better recognized for his choreographic talents. He created around sixty ballets, several of which became milestones in dance history and entered the classical repertoire of great institutions: Sleeping Beauty (1890), The Nutcracker (1892), or Swan Lake (1895) with Tchaikovsky, Le Corsaire (1858) and Faust (1867) with Cesare Pugni, and especially Don Quixote (1869) and La Bayadère (1877) with Ludwig Minkus.
SWAN LAKE
Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Choreography by Marius Petipa
Friday, November 13, 2009
Nice – Acropolis
TICKET PRICES (numbered seating)
Golden Circle: 60 €
Category 1: 45 €
Category 2: 35 €
TICKET OUTLETS
usual sales locations
Billetel: 0 892 683 622 (0.34€/min) Fnac, Carrefour, Géant / www.fnac.com
Ticketnet: 0892 390 100 (0.34€/min), Auchan, Virgin, Leclerc, Galfa Voyages, Cultura, Palais Nikaïa / www.ticketnet.fr
