Download Swan Lake – Four Adaptations Lecture Notes – Wednesday January

Swan Lake – Four Adaptations
Lecture Notes – Wednesday January 12, 2011
Course Director: Bridget Cauthery
The Legend
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The legend of the Swan-Maiden goes back for centuries, appearing in differing forms in both
eastern and western literature.
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Women who turn into birds and vice versa were popular themes, and the swan was particularly
favoured due to its grace and long neck.
The Music
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Pyotr IllyichTchaikovsky’s score for Swan Lake was composed in 1875 for the Russian Imperial
Theatres in Moscow.
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It was the first ballet score composed by a symphonic composer.
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Like his earlier work The Nutcracker, Swan Lake was unsuccessful.
The Original Ballet
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The first performance was in Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre on 20 February 1877, and popular
legend says that it was a disaster.
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The press reviews from the time said that the music was baffling, the story confusing and the
lead dancer hopeless.
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Tchaikovsky's music was thought too complicated and too hard to dance to.
The Revised Version
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Most ballet companies today base their staging of Swan Lake on the later version created by
choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov.
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The new version premiered on January 15, 1895, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.
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For this revival, Tchaikovsky's original score was revised.
The Uses of Enchantment
by Bruno Bettelheim
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Fairy tales are a symbolic expression of ''what the battle to achieve self-realization is all about.''
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Siegfried struggles with the pressure to become “a man”
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Odette is a safe but flawed object of desire
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Von Rothbart initiates Siegfried into adult heterosexual relationships
Classic Swan Lake (1982)
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Performed by the Royal Ballet, UK
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Music: Peter Illych Tchaikovsky
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Original choreography: Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov
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Additional choreography: Sir Frederick Ashton and Rudolf Nureyev.
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Odette:
Natalia Makarova
Camp Swan Lake (2002)
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Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, USA
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Founded in 1974 for the purpose of presenting classical ballet in parody form.
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A company of professional male dancers performing “camp” versions of standards from the
ballet repertoire.
Re-visioned Swan Lake (1995)
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British choreographer Matthew Bourne created his own version of Swan Lake in 1995
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He rewrote the story and had the role of the swans taken by men.
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The production was a huge international success
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Bourne’s version has a homoerotic undercurrent.
Horror Swan Lake (2010)
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Black Swan, major motion picture starring Natalie Portman, directed by Aronofsky
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Tells the story of a ballerina driven by perfection and obsessed with her roles as the White and
Black Swan (Odette & Odile)
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Imagines/hallucinates her doppelganger
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Eventually transforms into and destroys herself and her alter ego