Swan Lake

Composer: TCHAIKOVSKY, Peter Ilyich
  • Tchaikovsky wrote his ballet Lebedinoe ozero (Swan Lake) in 1875–6. It was the composer’s first ballet.1
  • The ballet was based, in part, on the Undine legend, and it drew on material from Tchaikovsky’s earlier opera, Undine (1869).2
  • The ballet was first performed on March 4, 1887 at the Bol’shoy Theatre in Moscow. Julius Reisinger was the choreographer. Reisinger’s choreography was supplanted in 1895 by a St. Petersburg production choregraphed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov.3
  • Synopsis from San Francisco Ballet 
  • The ballet is labeled Tchaikovsky’s Op. 20, and the orchestral suite derived from the ballet is Op. 20a.4

Sources

  1. Roland John Wiley, “Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il′yich,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed May 19, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051766.
  2. Ibid.
  3. “Swan Lake (ballet), Op. 20 (Tchaikovsky, Pyotr),” IMSLP, accessed May 19, 2021, https://imslp.org/wiki/Swan_Lake_(ballet)%2C_Op.20_(Tchaikovsky%2C_Pyotr).
  4. Wiley, “Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il′yich,” Grove Music Online.

Cut IDs

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