Swan Lake by the National Opera Maria Biesu - Raphaëlle D. Context with the war in Ukraine I went to see the ballet Swan Lake at the Palais des Congrès in Paris. However things didn’t go exactly as planned. Indeed, as the war between Russia and Ukraine just started, the Bolchoï Ballet of Moscow could not perform in France anymore and was replaced by the Moldavian National Opera Maria Besu. The impact of the war on the diffusion of Russian art is unfortunate but the Moldavian ballet did not disappoint. Moreover, we need to take into account the fact that the ballet’s score is by Tchaikovsky, a Russian composer. Therefore, Moldavian, Ukrainian, Belarus and Czech dancers performing to a Russian score is quite a beautiful symbol in such conflicting and hard times. History behind Swan Lake “Swan Lake” is described as a very “national” ballet. In fact, swans are very present in romantic Russian novels and the ballet’s choreography includes a lot of Slavic dances. It is also important to note that it is the first ballet with music written by a symphonic composer. Indeed, Tchaikovsky (who had never written a ballet score before) wrote the score between august 1875 and April 1876 and was very inspired by the leitmotiv technique (normally used by ballet composers) which consists of associating a song to a specific character or atmosphere. As surprising as it might sound, the first representations of the ballet in 1877 were catastrophic and the ballet underwent a lot of cuts and substitutions. It only gained success in 1895 thanks to Marius Petipa, an important figure in the history of Russian ballet.
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Since then, there have been many versions of the piece, coming back more and more to Tchaikovsky’s original ideas and not those of its first choreographs. It is now the most performed ballet in the world, more than a century after its creation, and it has inspired many different artworks, such as the movie “Black Swan” with Natalie Portman or the BTS song of the same name. Summary of the ballet “Swan Lake” is a beautiful fairytale about a prince named Siegfried and his beloved Odette. It starts one evening as the prince goes hunting and finds a group of beautiful girl-swans in the forest. Those swans are actually women that have been cursed by a sorcerer and turn into swans during the day. He falls in love with one of them, Odette, and swears that he will love her forever and break her curse. However, the dark magician finds out and decides to trick the prince by sending his daughter Odile, who has become Odette’s double, to the ball organized in the castle. The Prince first falls for the magician’s trick and chooses her to be his future wife before realizing his grave mistake. Once he does, he runs back to the lake to tell Odette he loves only her. He then defeats the evil sorcerer and breaks the curse, setting his beloved free. Presentation of the National Moldavian Opera The National Theatre of Opera and Ballet Maria Biesu was created in 1957. The Moldavian ballet is known for its authenticity as it keeps
