
Tchaikovsky's Ballets
Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker
Roland John Wiley(Author)
Clarendon Press
Published on 14. March 1991
Book
Paperback/Softback
446 pages
978-0-19-816249-0 (ISBN)
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.
Reviews / Votes
'a masterpiece of exhaustive scholarship'Times Literary Supplement 'An authoritative, important, useful book on dance, based on primary source materials, meticulously researched, and intelligently presented ... Tchaikovsky's Ballets, by presenting a more complete picture than had heretofore been available, inevitably forces us to reassess our views.' New Criterion `a work of exceptional and illuminating scholarship'
Financial Times 'Wiley's study ... is by far the most detailed and illuminating account to date of Tchaikovsky's working relationships with the choreographers and designers of the Russian Imperial Ballet.'
Bayan Northcott, BBC Music, November 1994
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Oxford University Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
8 pp plates, music examples, 10 pp choreographic transcription
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 35 mm
Weight
710 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-816249-0 (9780198162490)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Author
Professor of MusicologyProfessor of Musicology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor