Tchaikovsky's Ballets

Tchaikovsky's Ballets PDF Author: Roland John Wiley
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 9780198162490
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
Tchaikovsky's Ballets combines analysis of the music of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Nutcracker with a description based on rare and not easily accessible documents of the first productions of these works in imperial Russia. Essential background concerning the ballet audience, the collaboration of composer and ballet-master, and Moscow in the 1860s leads into an account of the first production of Swan Lake in 1877. A discussion of the theatre reforms initiated by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, Director of the Imperial Theatres and Tchaikovsky's patron, prepares us for a study of the still-famous 1890 production of Sleeping Beauty, Tchaikovsky's first collaboration with the choreographer Marius Petipa. Professor Wiley then explains how Nutcracker, which followed two years after Sleeping Beauty, was seen by its producers and audiences in a much less favourable light in 1882 than it is now. The final chapter discusses the celebrated revival of Swan Lake in 1985 by Petipa and Leve Ivanov.

Tchaikovsky's Ballets

Tchaikovsky's Ballets PDF Author: Roland John Wiley
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 9780198162490
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 429

Get Book

Book Description
Tchaikovsky's Ballets combines analysis of the music of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Nutcracker with a description based on rare and not easily accessible documents of the first productions of these works in imperial Russia. Essential background concerning the ballet audience, the collaboration of composer and ballet-master, and Moscow in the 1860s leads into an account of the first production of Swan Lake in 1877. A discussion of the theatre reforms initiated by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, Director of the Imperial Theatres and Tchaikovsky's patron, prepares us for a study of the still-famous 1890 production of Sleeping Beauty, Tchaikovsky's first collaboration with the choreographer Marius Petipa. Professor Wiley then explains how Nutcracker, which followed two years after Sleeping Beauty, was seen by its producers and audiences in a much less favourable light in 1882 than it is now. The final chapter discusses the celebrated revival of Swan Lake in 1985 by Petipa and Leve Ivanov.

Tchaikovsky's Ballets

Tchaikovsky's Ballets PDF Author: Roland John Wiley
Publisher: Oxford [Oxfordshire] : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
This book combines a detailed and thorough analysis of the music of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Nutcracker with descriptions of the first productions of these works in Imperial Russia. A background chapter on the ballet audience, the collaboration of composer and balletmaster, and Moscow of the 1860's leads into an account of the first production of Swan Lake in 1877. A discussion of theater reforms initiated by the Director of the Imperial Theaters prepares the reader for a study of the still-famous 1890 St. Petersburg production of Sleeping Beauty. Wiley then explains how the Nutcracker, produced just two years after Sleeping Beauty, was seen in a much less favorable light than it is now. Separate chapters are devoted to the music of each ballet and translations of published libretti, choreographer's instructions to the composer, and the balletmaster's plans for Sleeping Beauty and the Nutcracker are reproduced in appendices.

Writings on Ballet and Music

Writings on Ballet and Music PDF Author: Fedor Lopukhov
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 9780299182748
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Although little-known in the West, Fedor Lopukhov was a leading figure in Russia's dance world for more than sixty years and an influence on many who became major figures in Western dance, such as George Balanchine. As a choreographer, he staged the first post-revolutionary productions of traditional ballets like Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty as well as avant-garde and experimental works, including Dance Symphony, Bolt, and a highly controversial version of The Nutcracker. This first publication in English of Lopukhov's theoretical writings will give readers a clear understanding of his seminal importance in dance history and illuminate his role in the development of dance as a nonnarrative, musically based form. These writings present the rationale behind Lopukhov's attempt to develop a "symphonic" ballet that would integrate the formal and expressive elements of dance and music. They also show his finely detailed knowledge of the classical heritage and his creative efforts to transmit major works to future generations. This edition explains not only the making of his own controversial Dance Symphony but also the issues he saw at stake in productions of Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, and other key works by Petipa and Fokine. Lopukhov's writings argue the details of choreographic devices with an unusual degree of precision, and his comments on composers and the musical repertoire used by his predecessors and contemporaries are equally revealing. Stephanie Jordan's introduction deftly situates these writings within the context of Lopukhov's life and career and in relation to the theories, aesthetics, and practices of dance in the twentieth century.

The Cambridge Companion to Ballet

The Cambridge Companion to Ballet PDF Author: Marion Kant
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521539869
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
A collection of essays by international writers on the evolution of ballet.

Pëtr Il’ich Tchaikovsky

Pëtr Il’ich Tchaikovsky PDF Author: Gerald R. Seaman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317303091
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 495

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Book Description
Pëtr Il’ich Tchaikovsky: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography of substantial, relevant published resources relating to the Russian composer. Generally regarded as one of the most remarkable composers of the second half of the nineteenth century, Tchaikovsky is unique in that he was the first outstanding Russian composer to receive a professional musical education, being one of the first students to graduate from the newly opened St. Petersburg Conservatory. Composer of six symphonies, concertos, orchestral works, eight major operas, three ballets, and many chamber, keyboard and vocal works, he also composed important sacred music, which is currently being reassessed by contemporary Russian musicologists who are able to examine materials previously restricted or inaccessible during the Soviet period. Like his colleagues in St. Petersburg, Tchaikovsky was deeply interested in Russian folk song, which plays an important part in his works. This volume evaluates the major studies written about the composer, incorporating new information that has appeared in literary publications, articles and reviews.

Marius Petipa

Marius Petipa PDF Author: Nadine Meisner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190659297
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 553

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Book Description
One of the most important ballet choreographers of all time, Marius Petipa (1818 - 1910) created works that are now mainstays of the ballet repertoire. Every day, in cities around the world, performances of Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty draw large audiences to theatres and inspire new generations of dancers, as does The Nutcracker during the winter holidays. These are his best-known works, but others - Don Quixote, La Bayadère - have also become popular, even canonical components of the classical repertoire, and together they have shaped the defining style of twentieth-century ballet. The first biography in English of this monumental figure of ballet history, Marius Petipa: The Emperor's Ballet Master covers the choreographer's life and work in full within the context of remarkable historical and political surroundings. Over the course of ten well-researched chapters, Nadine Meisner explores Marius Petipa's life and legacy: the artist's arrival in Russia from his native France, the socio-political tensions and revolution he experienced, his popularity on the Russian imperial stage, his collaborations with other choreographers and composers (most famously Tchaikovsky), and the conditions under which he worked, in close proximity to the imperial court. Meisner presents a thrilling and exhaustive narrative not only of Petipa's life but of the cultural development of ballet across the 19th and early 20th centuries. The book also extends beyond Petipa's narrative with insightful analyses of the evolution of ballet technique, theatre genres, and the rise of male dancers. Richly illustrated with archival photographs, this book unearths original material from Petipa's 63 years in Russia, much of it never published in English before. As Meisner demonstrates, the choreographer laid the foundations for Soviet ballet and for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, the expatriate company which exercised such an enormous influence on ballet in the West, including the Royal Ballet and Balanchine's New York City Ballet. After Petipa, Western ballet would never be the same.

The Life and Ballets of Lev Ivanov

The Life and Ballets of Lev Ivanov PDF Author: Roland John Wiley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019165759X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
The Life and Works of Lev Ivanov is the first book-length study in any language about this Russian artist - Marius Petipa's colleague and Tchaikovsky's collaborator - who is widely celebrated and yet virtually unknown. It follows Ivanov from his infancy in a St Petersburg foundling home through his training in the Imperial Theatre School and his celebrity marriage, to a career as a dancer, régisseur, and choreographer in the St Petersburg Imperial Ballet. Ivanov's artistic world is described, as is his legacy - some dozen works, including Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, and the famous dances from Prince Igor - which inspired Mikhail Fokine in the next generation. The book is richly documented, including the first complete publication of Ivanov's memoirs, and hundreds of citations, many published here for the first time, from state documents, reminiscences, and criticism.

The Ballets of Ludwig Minkus

The Ballets of Ludwig Minkus PDF Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443800805
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
The composer Ludwig Minkus represents one of music’s biggest mysteries. Who was he? Hardly anything is known about him, and yet he occupied an influential position in the theatres of the Imperial ballet in late nineteenth-century Russia. He has been recognised as a predecessor of Tchaikovsky, but as a musician is commonly held to have been so feeble as to be beneath contempt. Yet despite the scorn heaped on him, and his consequent obscurity, Minkus is far from being forgotten. Since the early 1960s his name has slowly begun to re-surface. Two works, Don Quixote (1869) and La Bayadère (1877), have been presented in their entirety for the first time to new audiences all over the world. The musical and dramatic power of both ballets has taken people by surprise. The stories have a very real human appeal, the choreography attracts the admiration of balletomanes, and the music, with its rhythm, verve, and beauty of melody, holds attention and engages the heart wherever it is heard. This introduction seeks to discover something more behind the blank façade of Minkus’s life and work. What do we actually know about him as a man and as an artist? Are we able to apprehend his oeuvre as a whole, and how much can we establish from the available material? What is the nature of the music he created for those few works that have survived the years, and that have come to the fore again recently to delight those who have ears to hear? This study includes iconography from the life and times of the composer, many musical examples from his works, and a comprehensive bibliography and discography.

Five Ballets from Paris and St. Petersburg

Five Ballets from Paris and St. Petersburg PDF Author: Doug Fullington
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190944501
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 889

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Book Description
This book offers something entirely new: detailed scene-by-scene descriptions of the action and dancing of Giselle, Paquita, Le Corsaire, La Bayadère, and Raymonda, bringing the reader far closer to what the audience saw when the curtain went up on these five classic story ballets than has heretofore been possible. Drawing on archival documents, the authors show that these ballets were like today's pop entertainment: funnier, more violent, more spectacular, and with female characters far stronger than one might expect. This rigorously researched book fills huge gaps in dance history and is bound to be of interest to practitioners, scholars, and devotees of ballet and the arts.

Dancing Women

Dancing Women PDF Author: Sally Banes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134833172
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Dancing Women: Female Bodies Onstage is a spectacular and timely contribution to dance history, recasting canonical dance since the early nineteenth century in terms of a feminist perspective. Setting the creation of specific dances in socio-political and cultural contexts, Sally Banes shows that choreographers have created representations of women that are shaped by - and that in part shape - society's continuing debates about sexuality and female identity. Broad in its scope and compelling in its argument Dancing Women: * provides a series of re-readings of the canon, from Romantic and Russian Imperial ballet to contemporary ballet and modern dance * investigates the gaps between plot and performance that create sexual and gendered meanings * examines how women's agency is created in dance through aspects of choreographic structure and style * analyzes a range of women's images - including brides, mistresses, mothers, sisters, witches, wraiths, enchanted princesses, peasants, revolutionaries, cowgirls, scientists, and athletes - as well as the creation of various women's communities on the dance stage * suggests approaches to issues of gender in postmodern dance Using an interpretive strategy different from that of other feminist dance historians, who have stressed either victimization or celebration of women, Banes finds a much more complex range of cultural representations of gender identities.