Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Introduction
2. Scena (No. 1)
3. Waltz
4. Scena (No. 3)
5. Pas de trois
6. Pas de Deux
7. Pas d'action
8. Subject
9. Goblet Dance
10. Act One Finale
11. Scena (No. 10)
12. Scena (No. 11)
13. Scena (No. 12)

Disc 2:

1. Dance of the Swans
2. Scena (No. 14)
3. Scena (No. 15)
4. Dances of the Corps de Ballet & Dwarves
5. Scena: Arrival of the Guests & Waltz
6. Scena (No. 18) / Pas de Six
7. Pas de Deux / Hungarian Dance
8. Russian Dance
9. Spanish Dance
10. Neapolitan Dance
11. Mazurka
12. Scena (No. 24)
13. Entr'acte to Act Four
14. Scena (No. 26)
15. Dances of the Little Swans
16. Final Scena

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #118191 in Music
• Released on: 1992-11-10
• Number of discs: 2

Customer Reviews

Dutoit has done it again!
It seems that no matter what work or composer Charles Dutoit conducts, the result always yields a solid performance by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. This Swan Lake, in particular, is an audiophile's delight: superb orchestral hall acoustics, and wonderful playing by the orchestra that is both thoughtful and soulful. You just might find a tear coming to your eye as the final notes bring down the curtain of this extraordinary performance of what is, arguably, the world's most famous ballet.

A little history of this "Swan Lake", and why this is the best recording if the complete score!
"Swan Lake" has an interesting history. The ballet made its premiere in 1877 for the Bolshoi in Moscow. This production was a failure. There were many factors that made it so, but the biggest blame can be put on the choreographer Jules Resinger, and the dancers of 1877 that found the Tchaikovsky score to be to symphonic for ballet theatre.

In 1889, Tchaikovsky was commissioned by Ivan Vseolozhsky, director of the Czar's Mariinksy Theatre in St. Petersburg to compose the ballet "The Sleeping Beauty", set for its premiere for the 1890 season of the Imperial Ballet. The choreographer was to be Marius Petipa, the architect of 19th century ballet, whose ballets dominate the ballet stages of the world to this day. He gave Tchaikovsky detailed instructions and the composer went to work. The ballet was a great success. "The Nutcracker" soon followed in 1892, and it was planned that Tchaikovsky's ballet "Swan Lake" be revised for the 1895 season. Unfortunatly, Tchaikovsky died before this could ever be.

The ballet was set to be staged anyway, and the choreographer Petipa and his assistant Lev Ivanov decided to jointly choreograph the ballet. This version of "Swan Lake" is the version that has been passed down, dancer to dancer, over the last 110 years.

It was Riccardo Drigo, the house ballet composer and chief conductor of the Imperial Mariinksy Theatre who was entrusted to revise the score of Tchaikovsky for this 1895 're-premiere'. It was his lot, with instructions from Petipa, to make changes to the score. It is this version, known as the performance score, that is the version that is used to this day in the theatre when the ballet is performed.

As a dancer, in my own educated opinion, there are only two acceptable recordings of "Swan Lake". The first is a recording by the ballet conductor Viktor Fedotov of the Mariinksy Theatre. His is the only recording of the performance score of 1895 as revised by Riccardo Drigo, the version used in ballet theatres all over the world today. The second, is this recording by Charles Dutioit with the Montreal Orchestra of the original complete score of 1877. Wether he was aware of it or not, his conducting is 'ballet dancer aware'. His conducting is the best I have ever heard from a symphonic conductor. One will notice in certain passeges that the music is allowed to 'breathe' in a way that only properly conducted ballet music can. He takes, for example, the ending of the first variation of the Pas de Six in Act III and slows the music down in its last few beats. A sure mark of good ballet conducting. Get this CD - It is the only recording of the entire score worth owning!

A vivid realization of all of the beauties in Tchai's score.
This is a performance best appreciated by people who are primarily fans of Tchaikovsky's symphonic output. Ballet aficionados and budding dancers are better served by one of the rival versions.

It is not that Dutoit's intepretation lacks any genuine feeling for dance --- indeed he and the Montreal orchestra offer dazzling accounts of the big dance numbers. However, compared to Previn's LSO version, for example, which, from the first bar to the last positively sways with the spirit of dance, Dutoit seems to have invisibly divided his intepretation into a chain-series of slow "interludes" and fast dance numbers. Using broad tempi to play up the atmospheric beauty of the former and brisk ones for the latter, many interesting musical contrasts are achieved. (Just listen to the lead-ups to the Goblet Dance.) You could say that while eminently danceable versions like Previn's and Ozawa's operate in one smooth gear throughout, you can hear Dutoit constantly changing gears!

Hence, Dutoit's Swan Lake really plays like one of Tchaikovsky's orchestral tone poems, more so than being a thoroughly balletic reading. Dramatically and musically it remains just as effective. However, I can imagine the frustrations felt by budding dancers trying to practice to this recording. It is possible to become schizo-ic, attempting to traverse Dutoit's wide range of tempi.

A beautifully atmospheric performance of Tchaikovsky's masterpiece nonetheless, and certainly the recording with the best sound. A Swan Lake for arm-chair listeners!