Ballet: Schwanensee

Opernring 1

1010 Wien

 

It is the most famous ballet of all time: the tragic story of Prince Siegfried, who finds himself deep in the forest in the middle of the night, falls in love with the Swan Princess Odette and swears to be faithful to her forever, but is deceived by the wicked powers of the Magician Rotbart and Odette’s adversary Odile.

The St. Petersburg choreography which Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov first created in response to Tchaikovsky’s ground-breaking score in 1895 – a version which in 1954, three years after his legendary defection to the West, was used by the exceptional Soviet-born dancer Rudolf Nureyev as the basis for his »Swan Lake« in Vienna – is still regarded as the quintessence of the romantic ballet story. 89 curtain calls at the world premiere took the production into the Guinness Book of Records. With over 240 performances and two film versions – one in 1966 with Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, and one in 2014 with Olga Esina and Vladimir Shishov – this version has reached an audience of millions.

(Source: wiener-staatsoper.at)