50 Fun Facts About Swan Lake

What is Prince Siegfried celebrating with his tutor, friends and the peasants as Act 1 opens?

The 1877 libretto calls it his coming of age; the party ends with the sighting of a flock of swans.

In the story, Odette is a princess turned into a swan by whom?

The 1994 animated film The Swan Princess borrowed exactly the same plot.

Where and when did Swan Lake receive its world premiere?

The original choreographer was Julius Reisinger, and critics found his work "unimaginative and altogether unmemorable".

The 1895 Petipa–Ivanov revival on which most modern productions are based was first staged where?

Petipa staged acts 1 and 3 and Ivanov the lakeside acts 2 and 4 for the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg.

Which conductor and composer revised Tchaikovsky's score for the 1895 revival?

Tchaikovsky had died in November 1893, just as plans for the revival were coming together.

Which 1784 German tale, based on the swan-maiden myth, is often suggested as a source for the libretto?

The resemblance is limited, and the true authorship of the libretto remains uncertain.

Which swan-associated real monarch has been suggested as a prototype for Prince Siegfried?

Tchaikovsky's contemporaries noted his keen interest in the king's life; John Neumeier's production even ends with Ludwig's drowning.

How much was Tchaikovsky paid for the Swan Lake commission in May 1875?

Vladimir Begichev, director of the Moscow Imperial Theatres, commissioned it and gave him only a rudimentary outline of the dances.

Tchaikovsky reportedly first used the Swan Theme in an 1871 home ballet called what?

His brother Modest and niece Tatiana played Siegfried and Odette in it.

The Act 2 love duet in Swan Lake was fashioned from the final duet of which abandoned Tchaikovsky opera?

He also recycled material from The Voyevoda, dropped in 1868, for the fourth-scene entr'acte.

Which Delibes ballet made Tchaikovsky say he would not have written Swan Lake had he known its music?

He wrote to his protégé of its "charm, elegance, wealth of melody, rhythm and harmony", adding "I was ashamed".

Which ballerina danced Odette at the 1877 premiere, which was her benefit performance?

Critics found her, a secondary soloist, "not particularly convincing".

Anna Sobeshchanskaya was originally cast as Odette in 1877 but was replaced. Why?

She debuted seven weeks later and promptly had Petipa make her a new pas de deux, to Tchaikovsky's fury.

Critics of the 1877 premiere labelled Tchaikovsky's score "too noisy, too symphonic" and too what?

The German origins of the story were treated with suspicion, and the characters' surnames were called unpronounceable.

How many performances did the poorly received original production manage between 1877 and 1883?

That was more than several other ballets in the Bolshoi repertoire, despite the bad reviews.

Who choreographed Tchaikovsky's rediscovered 1877 pas de deux as the Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux in 1960?

The score turned up among orchestral parts for a Le Corsaire revival in the Bolshoi archives.

Ivanov's choreography for Act 2 was first seen at which event in February 1894?

The small audience and the critics alike praised it, paving the way for the full revival.

Which Italian ballerina danced Odette/Odile in the 1895 revival, staged as her benefit?

The ballet belonged solely to her until she left St Petersburg.

What feat, first performed publicly in 1893, was the Italian ballerina of the 1895 Swan Lake revival famous for?

The whipped turns remain the ballet's most famous test of stamina for the Black Swan.

For the 1895 revival, the villain became the magician Rothbart instead of whom?

Odette also changed from a fairy swan-maiden into a cursed mortal woman.

Rothbart is usually depicted as resembling which creature?

In the 1877 libretto a different villain stalked Odette in owl form.

What colour does Odile, Rothbart's daughter, usually wear?

She appears only in Act 3, and in the 1895 production she did not actually wear black.

How can Odette's spell be broken?

Siegfried's oath to Odile in Act 3, thinking she is Odette, dooms the real swan queen.

What are Siegfried and his friends carrying when they set off to hunt the swans?

He breaks his crossbow after Odette explains the spell, and sets about winning her trust.

What is the name of Prince Siegfried's friend who spots the flock of swans and suggests the hunt?

In an 1888 Prague staging the friends were renamed Jaroslav and Zdeňek, with Benno danced by a woman.

What does Siegfried's mother tell him he must do at the royal ball?

Some productions parade the candidate princesses before the trick with Odile is sprung.

How many dancers perform the Dance of the Little Swans with arms crossed and hands linked?

They move sideways doing sixteen pas de chat, imitating cygnets huddling together for protection.

What did Soviet-era productions at the Bolshoi and Mariinsky do to the ballet's tragic finale?

Yury Grigorovich's Bolshoi version has been staged with both endings, defeating Rothbart in 1969 and letting him win in 2001.

Since the 1895 revival, has the same ballerina usually danced both Odette and Odile?

Dancing both roles became standard practice after 1895; some evidence suggests the 1877 original called for two different dancers.

Which company was the first in Europe outside Russia to stage a complete Swan Lake, in 1922?

Until then only Russian and Czech companies had performed it, and only visiting Russians had brought it to Western Europe.

Who choreographed the Ballets Russes' 1911 London Swan Lake, in the manner of Petipa–Ivanov?

The scenery was by Golovin and Korovin, who had designed Gorsky's 1901 Bolshoi production.

Which British company gave the Royal Opera House premiere of Swan Lake in 1934?

The company that became the Royal Ballet returned to Covent Garden with it as the Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1946.

Erik Bruhn's 1967 version for the National Ballet of Canada controversially recast Rothbart as what?

The change added psychological weight to the Prince's difficult relationships with women, his domineering mother included.

Matthew Bourne's celebrated 1995 Swan Lake is best known for what change?

The plot focuses on a modern prince struggling with his sexuality and a distant mother.

Bourne's Swan Lake premiered on 9 November 1995 at which London theatre?

Adam Cooper danced the Swan and the Stranger, and the production won the 1996 Olivier for Best New Dance Production.

How many Tony Awards did Bourne's Swan Lake win after opening on Broadway in 1998?

Best Director of a Musical, Best Choreography and Best Costume Design, and it remains the longest-running ballet in the West End and on Broadway.

Graeme Murphy's 2002 Swan Lake was loosely based on the breakdown of which real marriage?

The Camilla figure merges the roles of Rothbart and Odile into a Baroness in a love triangle.

Who directed Black Swan (2010), in which a ballerina cracks under pressure?

He drew on Dostoevsky's The Double and an old idea about understudies haunted by a doppelgänger.

Natalie Portman won which prize for playing Nina Sayers in Black Swan?

The film had five Oscar nominations, but its score was ineligible because it used Tchaikovsky's music.

In Black Swan, which real company's production of Swan Lake is depicted?

Vincent Cassel plays its artistic director and Mila Kunis the rival who embodies the dark Black Swan.

The Swan Princess (1994) flopped mainly because it opened against which Disney film?

It grossed $9.8 million against a $21 million budget under former Disney director Richard Rich.

The Dying Swan, a solo created for Anna Pavlova, is danced to music by which composer?

Fokine choreographed it to Le Cygne from The Carnival of the Animals, and Pavlova performed it about 4,000 times.

What 2015 Moscow discovery shed new light on the 1877 production?

Until then, understanding of the original choreography rested mainly on contemporary reviews.

Which ballerina took over Odette/Odile when Legnani left St Petersburg?

The 1895 edition she inherited has served as the basis for most stagings ever since.

Which Tchaikovsky protégé received his letters describing the speed with which he composed Swan Lake?

He wanted it finished quickly so he could start on an opera; the score was complete by April 1876.

Who choreographed the original 1877 production of Swan Lake?

Critics called his work unimaginative, and he set aside some of Tchaikovsky's numbers as 'undanceable' until the composer protested.

Which company was the first in America to stage a complete Swan Lake, in 1940?

Willam Christensen enlisted the city's Russian émigré community, led by Prince Vasili Alexandrovich, to make the production authentic.

Which Tchaikovsky score did he most admire for its leitmotif technique, later used in Swan Lake?

Tying themes to characters and moods became his method again in The Sleeping Beauty.

Which Act 3 national dance in Swan Lake is a Hungarian czardas?

It is followed by a Spanish dance, a Neapolitan dance and a mazurka as the ball's entertainment.

Who was called upon to rewrite the Swan Lake libretto for the 1895 Petipa-Ivanov revival?

The composer's brother turned Odette from a fairy swan-maiden into a cursed mortal woman and made Rothbart the villain.