Search - Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, Valery Gergiev, St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre Orchest :: Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake

Gergiev conducts excerpts from the Mariinsky Theatre's Perfo

MrLopez2681 | USA | 06/01/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The score for "Swan Lake" as originally composed by Tchaikovsky is rarely utilized by ballet companies. As is well known, the original production of "Swan Lake" as staged by Julius Reisinger in 1877 for the Ballet of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre was not a success. It was not until Marius Petipa - the renowned Premier Maitre de ballet of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres - and his second balletmaster Lev Ivanov revived the work in 1895 that the ballet found success, and a lasting place in the classical ballet repertory. For this production the Imperial Ballet's kapellmeister Riccardo Drigo revised Tchaikovsky's score in accordance with the new Petipa/Ivanov staging, and it is this version of the score that nearly every ballet company in the world uses to one degree or another when performing "Swan Lake". It is Drigo's edition of the score that is offered here under the baton of Valery Gergiev, though only of excerpts.



I firmly believe that ballet music should be played exactly as it is in the theatre for a recorded performance on disc. Whether or not dancers are right in front of the conductor should make no difference. Typically when an orchestra records "Swan Lake" what we get is Tchaikovsky's original 1877 score conducted in a "symphonic" manner, which usually means rushed, mathematically maintained tempi when compared with what one hears in the theatre.



The Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra recorded the 1895 edition of "Swan Lake" before - Victor Fedotov conducted a superb performance of the score that was released by JVC classics in 1997 as "The Swan Lake". Unfortunately this recording went out-of-print, but was later re-released by Classical Records, a russian company, and is available through amazon.com.



I honestly do not understand why the Mariinsky Theatre would release a recording of "Swan Lake" without having their regular ballet conductor conduct the music. Gergiev's conducting is rather uneven with regards to the kind of tempi needed for a live performance. In some numbers he shamefully rushes through the music in a manner that does not allow the dancer to perform the choreography properly, while in other numbers his conducting is so excellent that one realizes that it is Gergiev's personal preferences that are dictating the manner in which he is conducting. The fact that he actually chose to record excerpts from the performance score of "Swan Lake" and then conduct the music, for the most part, in a manner fit for the concert hall is a real let down. One could argue that "performance speed" is not required in a recorded performance, but considering the extensive catalogue of recordings of "Swan Lake" conducted in a "symphonic" manner, Gergiev is just wasting everyone's time.



For example, Gergiev's conducts most of the 'Pas de trois' from act I marvelously - almost exactly as it would be for the stage, making sure to slow down the final bars of the variations exactly as dancers prefer. But then he races through the 'coda'. It is the same with the so-called 'Black Swan pas de deux' from the third tableau - Gergiev conducts the music for the variations and the 'coda' entirely to fast. No dancer would ever be able to perform at such tempi. Althoug this may be the correct "musical" approach, no dancer would ever performs to such tempi.



Gergiev's conducting of the 'Grand adage' from the second tableau (the famous pas de deux often referred to as the "White adagio" or "Love duet" of Prince Siegfried and Odette) is divine, exactly as it would be for the stage - in fact this track is, in my opinion, the only reason to obtain this disc. This is the only recording of "Swan Lake" ever produced to offer this number with Albert Zabel's extended harp arpeggios as prepared for the 1895 revival, which the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet still retains in their production (interestingly, Fedotov's 1997 recording does not include this version of harp passage in the 'Grand adage').



Why waste our time with another recording of "Swan Lake"? There are zillions of recordings of this ballet, and I would rather have the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra record some of Drigo's ballets (Drigo was certainly the only "house" composer to take ballet music to Delibesian heights) - such as "The Awakening of Flora" (recently reconstructed by the Mariinsky Ballet), or even his "La Perle" (created for the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II. The Vaganova School's gala titled "From Landet to Vaganova" utilizes pieces from this ballet), or his fabulous 1900 score for Petipa's "Harlequinade". Minkus is another composer who deserves more recordings. There are many ballets, long gone from the stage, which would be wonderful additions to the ballet music catalogue, including his original, complete 5 act score for "Don Quixote" (the Spassov and Todorov recordings only offer the truncated and edited Soviet editions), his 1872 "La Camargo", his magical score for Petipa's 1881 "Nuit et Jour" (created for the coronation of Tsar Alexander III), or even the original 4 act score for "La Bayadere" (recently the Mariinsky Ballet reconstructed Petipa's 1900 revival of this ballet, and fully restored Minkus's complete score). Even the shamefully neglected Cesare Pugni needs a recording of his work. I would love to have recordings of his music for "The Little Humpbacked Horse", or "The Naiad and the Fisherman" (another work recently revived by the Mariinsky Ballet as "Ondine"). The Mariinsky Theatre certainly has the complete orchestral scores of these composer's works in their archives, and they should put such a vast and precious cache of music to use, rather than wasting our time with yet another recording of "Swan Lake"."