Beyond the ballet: the birth of Swan Lake’s iconic score

A first-time flop 

Today, Swan Lake is one of the most beloved works in the classical and ballet repertoire, but you might be surprised to discover that this wasn’t always the case. In fact, when Swan Lake was premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet in 1877, the work was critically panned. The choreography was dismissed as uninspired, the music too challenging and the production lacklustre. Even the dancers slated Tchaikovsky’s orchestration, deeming it far too ‘symphonic’ and complex to dance to. Such was the dissatisfaction with the composer’s work that a few months into the production the original Odette, Anna Sobeshchanskaya, commissioned a new pas de deux (dance duet) set to music by Tchaikovsky’s contemporary, Ludwig Minkus. 

Of course, Tchaikovsky didn’t take kindly to Minkus’s musical affront, insisting that, as the ballet’s composer, he, and he alone, should be responsible for the score, for better or worse. This, in turn, led to …

The Pas de deux take-two 

Determined to compose his own duet that Anna, his Odette, couldn’t help but love, Tchaikovsky meticulously crafted a new pas de deux that mirrored Minkus’s compositional structure to a tee. This meant that Anna could seamlessly incorporate her already well-rehearsed choreography with this new movement, without any extra rehearsal time.

The result of Minkus’s musical faux pas? A Tchaikovsky pas de deux for the history books and undoubtedly one of Swan Lake’s most iconic scenes. This Black Swan duet happens at the most dramatic point of Act 3 and tells of the moment Prince Siegfried is led astray by the evil Odile into breaking his betrothal to Odette, ultimately, condemning her to death. In the ballet world, this movement is renowned for its jaw-dropping 32 foutetté (very quick turns en pointe) – a feat of impressive virtuosity and strength. 

Swan Lake: The Remix

Following the ballet’s disastrous debut in 1877, talks began about a potential revival. In 1880, choreographer Joseph Peter Hansen tried his hand at a re-imagining of the performance, introducing the iconic swan-like arm movements that are now synonymous with the ballet.

But it wasn’t until the mid-1890s, after Tchaikovsky’s death, that the Swan Lake we all recognise came into existence. Choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, long-time collaborators with the composer, had a hunch that the ballet wasn’t the ugly duckling it’d initially been made out to be. In an effort to turn the flop into a feather in Tchaikovsky’s cap, they joined forces with Riccardo Drigo, the Musical Director of St Petersburg’s Imperial Ballet, tore the original score apart and pieced it back together like a puzzle. Striking a balance between keeping the composer’s musical magic and addressing some of the original criticisms, they created the Swan Lake we know and love today.

The Swan lives on

The lasting influence of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake truly can’t be understated – it continues to prove initial critics wrong and cast its spell over audiences and musicians alike to this day. Of course, musicologists will tell us that this ballet, which was Tchaikovsky’s first, went on to pave the way for his future classics, The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty, as well as countless other works which have made their way into the classical canon.

More recently, Swan Lake’s most popular tunes have been sampled and repurposed in countless ways throughout popular culture. From a Barbie film adaptation to Beyoncé’s Lemonade, a Madness ska re-invention to a Miss Piggy showpiece (‘Swine Lake’), Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake continues to inspire and captivate.