Who is the director of Swan Lake?

Swan Lake is regarded as a classic in classical ballet, and it has almost become synonymous with ballet. Swan Lake was born more than one hundred years ago. However, the earliest Swan Lake more than 1 years ago ended in a disastrous failure, because the choreography by the ballet master named Unzer reisinger was really bad. So who made this "ugly duckling" become a "little swan" and brought this failed story back to life? Many people think it's Petipa, but rarely or never mention Lev Ivanov.

On February 17th, 1894, the second act of Swan Lake met the audience for the first time at the concert in memory of Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky held in the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. This was arranged by Ivanov. Later, when rearranging the whole drama of Swan Lake, Ivanov arranged the fourth act. Today, when we are enjoying Swan Lake, the most wonderful things are the second and fourth acts, and the second act is often not performed as a "passbook play" alone. Known as the soul of Swan Lake. Without Ivanov's second act, Swan Lake would probably remain at the level of "ugly duckling". The second act focuses on the wonderful duet and solo dance in the whole play, which fully expresses the pure love between the prince and Ogetta. Ivanov realized the "soul" of Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky's music with his outstanding musical talent, and at the same time blended it with the ballet movements. This ingenious combination makes us feel that the poet's general movements don't seem to be artificially made up, and the moving music doesn't seem to be composed, but seems to be "sung" by the couple on the stage. For more than a hundred years, people have loved and praised Swan Lake, mainly because of the touching effect of the poetic artistic conception created in the second act, but few people have mentioned the first and third acts of Pitipa, because these two acts arranged by Pitipa are mainly dance insertion, scene background and mime. Regrettably, however, the main creator of Swan Lake has long been regarded as Pitipa, and Ivanov, who really brought this work back to life, is behind him.

If Swan Lake is still named Ivanov, then Sleeping Beauty, another classic of classical ballet, is not even named Ivanov. In fact, Ivanov participated in the creation of Sleeping Beauty, and the most wonderful "dream" scene came from him alone.

In 1892, during the creation of Nutcracker, one of the "three masterpieces" of classical ballet, Pitipa suddenly fell ill, and Ivanov finally got the opportunity to create a ballet. Supposedly, The Nutcracker is the result of the cooperation between Ivanov and Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky. Unfortunately, the creator of The Nutcracker also added the name of Petipa.