"Swan Lake" is about a prince named Siegfried. He falls in love with the Swan princess, Odette. She is a swan by day, but a young woman at night. She is under a magic spell that can only be broken by a man who will make a promise to love her for all time. Siegfried makes the promise. He is tricked though by the magician who cast the spell. The ballet ends with the deaths of Siegfried and Odette.
The ballet was first performed on 4 March 1877 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. Critics looked upon it as a failure for many reasons. In 1895 some changes were made to the ballet. It was then performed at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. This time the critics thought "Swan Lake" a great success. Most performances today are based on this 1895 version.
Act 1: "1. Scène"The curtain rises on Prince Siegfried's birthday party. He is 21. On the next evening a grand ball will be held. He is to select a bride from six visiting princesses. Wolfgang, his tutor, introduces a band of peasants to the merrymakers. "2. Valse. 3. Scène." The Queen Mother enters. She thinks Siegfried is frivolous. The Queen Mother leaves. Benno encourages the Prince to continue the fun. "4. Pas de trois."Dances for the peasants. "5. Pas de deux."Dances for the merrymakers. "6. Pas d'action."Wolfgang is drunk and collapses. "7. Sujet."The sun sets. Siegfried suggests a final dance. "8. Danse des coupes."The merrymakers dance a "polonaise" holding their goblets. "9. Finale."A flock of swans flies overhead. Benno suggests a hunt. The Prince agrees. They set off.
Act 2: "10. Scène."A lake shimmering in the moonlight is seen. Siegfried and his friends watch a flock of swans glide across the lake's surface. "11. Scène."The hunters take aim. The birds are transformed into maidens. Their leader asks Siegfried why he troubles them. She says that she is the Princess Odette. She and her companions have all been changed into swans by her wicked stepmother. They are watched by her stepmother's companion Von Rothbart in the guise of an owl. Only a marriage vow can break the spell that keeps her a swan by day and a maiden by night. "12. Scène."Siegfried says he loves Odette. She promises to attend tomorrow's ball. She warns him that her stepmother is very dangerous. "13. Danse des cygnes." "14 Scène." Dawn breaks. Odette and her friends return to the lake as swans.
Act 3: Guests arrive in Siegfried's castle for the selection of the Prince's bride. "16. Danse du corps de ballet and des nains."All dance, including a group of dwarves. "17. Scène."La sortie des invités et la Valse. The six princesses arrive. "18. Scène." Siegfried does not choose a bride from among the six princesses. Von Rothbart enters with his daughter Odile. She is disguised as Odette. "19. Pas de six." The princesses dance. "20. Danse hongroise." "21. Danse espagnole." "22. Danse napolitaine." "23. Danse Mazurka." "24. Scène."Siegfried chooses Odile as his bride, believing she is Odette. Von Rothbart flees the hall as an owl. Siegfried rushes into the night to find Odette.
Act 4: "25. Entr'acte. 26. Scène."Odette's friends await her return to the lake. "27. Danse des petits cygnes. 28. Scène." Odette collapses into her companions' arms. She tells them what has happened. A storm rises. Siegfried reaches Odette. "29. Scène finale."He begs her to forgive him. She dies of grief in his arms. He throws her crown upon the waters. The waves overwhelm him. The swans are seen gliding away across the lake.
In 1871 Tchaikovsky was passing the summer in the Ukraine with his sister Alexandra Davydova. It was in her home at Kamenka that he wrote a short ballet about swans for her children to perform. The story of the ballet was based on "The Lake of Swans", a German fairy tale. Tchaikovsky used a musical theme from this children's ballet in the mature "Swan Lake". Little else is known of this ballet for children.
In 1875 Vladimir Begitchev asked Tchaikovsky to write a ballet about swans. Begitchev was the official in charge of the repertory of the Imperial Theatres. Tchaikovsky accepted his invitation to write the ballet. He told Rimsky-Korsakov, "I accepted the work, partly because I want the money, but also because I have long had the wish to try my hand at this kind of music." In August he had completed sketches for two acts. He finished the ballet on 10 April 1876.
It is uncertain who wrote the libretto of the ballet. Both Begitchev and the dancer Vasily Geltzer were credited in the programme. They likely based it upon discussions with the artists who met at Begitchev's salon. They also used tales from Johann Musäus's "Volksmärchen der Deutschen" (178286), a collection of German fairy and folk tales.
Tchaikovsky had no experience writing ballet music for the professional theatre when he accepted Begitchev's invitation. In 1875 he began work on "Swan Lake". It was his first ballet. He studied the ballet music of other writers. He liked the music and ballets of Leo Delibes. Tchaikovsky thought Delibes's music was pretty and tuneful. Tchaikovsky however would base "Swan Lake" on a symphonic scale. Writing the music for "Swan Lake" was a way for Tchaikovsky to avoid the reality of being a homosexual in czarist Russia. Russia was a repressive state. Homosexuals were sent to prison, exiled, or banished. Symphonies did not ease the stress in the way ballet music did; he had to put too much of his inner life into symphonies. He was hired to write "Swan Lake" in May 1875. He completed the music in April 1876. The official responsible for the music at the Bolshoi Theatre thought Tchaikovsky's music impossible to understand. A "leitmotif" in Tchaikovsky's little ballet music for his nieces and nephews came to be called the "Song of the Swans". Tchaikovsky used this "leitmotif" in "Swan Lake".
John Warrack points out that Tchaikovsky put the drama in the story into music: "By making B the key of the tragedy, he initiates a musical "plot" with the dark forces of Rothbart tending to drag the tonality down into flatter keys. The main action, on the other hand, lies on the key area of A." Tchaikovsky balanced all the musical components of the work. "The divertissements are in his lightest, most appealing musical manner", Warrack writes, "The dances that further the plot have rather greater musical substance, while the scenes of narrative and action are in what was found his "symphonic" manner." Critics said Tchaikovsky's music was "too noisy, too 'Wagnerian' and too symphonic".
Rehearsals for "Swan Lake" began before Tchaikovsky finished the score, and took place over 11 months. Everyone involved in the production had never heard such a complex score for a ballet. They described the music as "undanceable". Even the conductor threw his hands up in despair over the music.
The choreographer Julius Reisinger was incompetent, and the sets lacked a cohesiveness because they were designed by three different men. In addition, the Bolshoi Theatre was suffering at the time from problems including the lack of a ballet master who could develop a production based on the score. The role of Odette was not given to a first rate dancer but instead to a second rate talent. The reason may have been political.
"Swan Lake" was first performed on 4 March 1877 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Julius Reisinger designed the dances. Pauline Karpakova danced Odette. She put some numbers she liked from other ballets into "Swan Lake". The ballet was a failure. In 1883 the Bolshoi dropped the ballet from its repertory. At that time, the sets were falling apart. It was not until 1901 that Alexander Gorsky staged a new production of "Swan Lake" for the Bolshoi.