page_title: Ludwig Minkus
section_title: Retirement
hierarchical_section_title: Ludwig Minkus / Retirement
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Portrait de Ludwig Minkus
context_page_description: Ludwig Minkus, also known as Léon Fyodorovich Minkus, was a Jewish-Austrian composer of ballet music, a violin virtuoso and teacher.
  Minkus is noted for the music he composed while serving as the official Composer of Ballet Music to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres in Russia. During his long career, he wrote for the original works and numerous revivals staged by the renowned Ballet Masters Arthur Saint-Léon and Marius Petipa. Among the composer's most celebrated compositions was his score for La source, Don Quixote; and La Bayadère. Minkus also wrote supplemental material for insertion into already existing ballets. The most famous and enduring of these pieces is the Grand Pas classique from the ballet Paquita, which was added by Marius Petipa especially for a revival of the ballet staged for the benefit performance of the prima ballerina Ekaterina Vazem in 1881. For this revival Minkus also composed the Mazurka des enfants and an expanded edition of the ballet's Pas de trois, which would go on to become known as the Minkus pas de trois
context_section_description: By 1886 Minkus's contract with the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres was set to expire. In light of this, the director of the Imperial Theatres Ivan Vsevolozhsky felt that the time had come for Minkus's long held post of official ballet composer to be abolished in an effort to diversify the music supplied for the ballet. Minkus officially retired soon after, and on 21 November [O.S. 9 November] 1886 was given a farewell benefit performance. That same year the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatre's Kapellmeister Alexei Papkov also retired. In light of the departure of both Minkus and Papkov, Ivan Vsevolozhsky abolished the ballet orchestra, and employed the Italian Riccardo Drigo for the newly created position of Director of Music for the Imperial Ballet. Drigo would now serve in the dual capacity as chef d'orchestre for ballet performances and the conducting of Italian opera, as well as any musical tailoring or additional pieces needed by the Ballet Master.
  It is unlikely that Minkus ever worked again for the Imperial Theatres in an official capacity. Differing accounts survive from contemporary sources concerning Minkus's involvement in the final two productions in Russia to credit him as composer. These works were first presented between Minkus's retirement in 1886 and his final departure from Russia in 1891. The first was a revival by Marius Petipa of Saint-Léon's Fiametta, which had an original score supplied by Minkus. Petipa had revived this work especially for the visiting Italian ballerina Elena Cornalba, the first performance being given on 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1887. It is highly unlikely that Minkus participated in this revival due to the fact that Riccardo Drigo supplied nearly all of the supplemental music for Cornalba's appearances in already-existing ballets during her season with the Imperial Ballet. Petipa's Kalkabrino—a work that has been historically credited to Minkus—premiered on 25 February [O.S. 13 February] 1891 for the benefit performance of another visiting Italian, Carlotta Brianza, who in the previous year created the role of the Princess Aurora in the Petipa/Tchaikovsky The Sleeping Beauty. Although the score for Kalkabrino was credited exclusively to Minkus it is not certain if the composer took part in its creation, which Russian historians have stated was a score set to a pastiche of airs taken from the many works Minkus composed for the Imperial Ballet during his long career in St. Petersburg. It is likely that this score may have been composed some years before for a work which never premiered.
caption: Minkus, St. Petersburg, circa 1880
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