Movatterモバイル変換

The Dying Swan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ballet by Mikhail Fokine

The Dying Swan
Anna Pavlova in costume forThe Dying Swan,Buenos Aires, Argentina, c. 1928
Choreographer	Mikhail Fokine
Music	Camille Saint-Saëns, (Le cygne fromLe Carnaval des animaux)
Premiere	1907 St. Petersburg,Russia
Created for	Anna Pavlova
Genre	Romantic
Type	Classical ballet

The Dying Swan (originallyThe Swan) is asolo dance choreographed byMikhail Fokine toCamille Saint-Saëns'sLe Cygne fromLe Carnaval des animaux as apièce d'occasion for the ballerinaAnna Pavlova, who performed it about 4,000 times. The short ballet (four minutes) follows the last moments in the life of a swan, and was first presented inSt. Petersburg, Russia in1905. The ballet has since influenced modern interpretations of Odette, heroine ofTchaikovsky's balletSwan Lake, and has inspired non-traditional interpretations as well as various adaptations.

Some ballerinas, includingAshley Bouder ofNew York City Ballet andNina Ananiashvili, formerly ofAmerican Ballet Theatre andThe Bolshoi Ballet, have usedDying Swan arms inSwan Lake when making Odette's exit at the end of Act II (the first lakeside scene).^[1]

In response toimpact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on the performing arts,Carlos Acosta, artistic director of theBirmingham Royal Ballet, adapted Fokine's choreography with the ballerina raising her head at the end instead, and withCéline Gittens, principal dancer of the company, and the musicians performing in their respective homes.^[2]Misty Copeland, principal dancer with theAmerican Ballet Theatre, invited 31 other dancers to danceThe Swan to raise fund for the relief fund of the participating dancers' companies and other related funds.^[3]

Notes

References

Aloff, Mindy (2006).Dance Anecdotes: Stories from the World of Ballet, Broadway, the Ballroom, and Modern Dance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-505411-8.
Balanchine, George; Mason, Francis (1975).101 Stories of the Great Ballets. New York: Anchor Books.ISBN 978-0-385-03398-5.
Carter, Alexandra (2004).Rethinking Dance History: A Reader. London: Routledge.ISBN 978-0-415-28746-3.
Garafola, Lynn (2005).Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance. New York: Wesleyan University Press.ISBN 978-0-8195-6674-4.
Gerskovic, Robert (2005) [1998].Ballet 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving the Ballet. Pompton Plains, NJ: Limelight Editions.ISBN 978-0-87910-325-5.
McCauley, Martin (1997).Who's Who in Russia since 1900. London and New York: Routledge.ISBN 978-0-415-13897-0.
Youngblood, Denise Jeanne (1999).The Magic Mirror: Moviemaking in Russia, 1908–1918. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.ISBN 978-0-299-16230-6.
Lyubimov D. “The Swan” by С. Saint-Saëns in the choreographic interpretations by M. Fokine and A.Miroshnichenko.In: South-Russian Musical Anthology. 2025. No. 1. Pp. 141–152. DOI: 10.52469/20764766_2025_01_141. URL:https://musalm.ru/assets/almanac/2025-1/6-1.pdf

Further reading

"The Dying Swan".Oxford Dictionary of Dance. Oxford University Press. RetrievedAugust 10, 2012.
"Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo". glbtq, Inc. 2002. Archived fromthe original on July 1, 2012. RetrievedAugust 10, 2012.
"Judith Lanigan". Judith Lanigan. 2009. Archived fromthe original on October 10, 2013. RetrievedAugust 10, 2012.
"Sonja Henie Does the Swan Thing".SkateWeb's Historical Skating Pictures. SkateWeb. 1994–2009. Archived fromthe original on July 21, 2018. RetrievedAugust 10, 2012.
Smodyrev, Mikhail; Translated by Anna Korisch."Nina Ananiashvili's Biography and Repertory". Archived fromthe original on August 8, 2018. RetrievedAugust 10, 2012.