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Notes on Swan Lake for Bellas Artes 2025

ACT I 

 

No. 2 Waltz – Hard to believe that Nájera takes every single repeat in this waltz! Uffff…. Musically, it seems way too long and rather tedious. I have never done a production that takes all these repeats and I really wish we could make some cuts, but it is probably not possible.

 

No. 6 Pas d’action (immediately following the Pas de Trois): This music is literally twice as slow as it should be! This music usually goes at this tempo: ​​​​​​

 

 

 

 

 

But Nájera has staged it to this unfortunately quite dismal tempo:​​​

 

 

 

We are just too far apart in tempos here. What can be done? I really can’t conduct this section in this tempo. 

No. 7 Sujet: This is too slow. Usual tempo is this:

 

 

 

Nájera’s tempo is this:

ACT II:

 

VARIACIÓN PRINCIPE CISNE BLANCO:  This number comes between the Big Swans and Odette’s Variation.

 

I have actually never heard this music used before in my life! Unfortunately, this number (and its music) seems like a strange and unnecessary addition, a bit out of place for the mood of the White Act:

Act II Finale: Nájera uses the complete uncut music here, but usually we make a cut which helps keep things moving along in what is an already long ballet. The reason we cut a lot of this music is that we have already heard it - twice - and it feels really unnecessary and “too much”. 

 

Here is what we usually do:

And here is what Nájera does:

ACT III

 

Unfortunately, there is a very real musical problem with the way Nájera has rearranged the numbers surrounding the national dances here in Act III, in that the fundamental laws of musical harmony are ignored.  In a couple of places, the transitions from the end of one number to the beginning of another sound really bad to the ear. 

 

In Western classical harmony, there are ways to get from one key (tonality) to another, using the innate, natural functions (magnetism, if you will) of harmonies. You may have heard musicians sometimes use the terms Tonic and Dominant to describe them. Dominant harmonies have a magnetic function that leads us to a Tonic key (imagine a chord that leads us a home key). Basically, some harmonies lead to some tonalities, but others don’t. Tchaikovsky (and later, at the Imperial Mariinsky, Ricardo Drigo) set the order of these numbers so that one harmony would naturally lead into the next. When Nájera switched the numbers around, now it harmonically doesn’t work.  Imagine you are reading Anna Karenina and all of a sudden, someone has inserted a page from War and Peace. 

 

This is his order of Act III:

 

  • No. 15 Overture (C Major)

  • No. 19 Pas de Six excerpt (F Major) - not good music but harmonically okay.

  • No. 17 Fanfares before the Brides’ Waltz, which Nájera cuts.  (The fanfares start in E-flat Major - which is very far from F Major! - and at the end the music leads to A-flat major). The Brides’ Waltz is in A-flat Major - that’s why the harmony goes to A-Flat. BUT WE DON’T GO THERE AND INSTEAD WE GO TO…

  • No. 20 Hungarian Dance (begins in E Major). This is unfortunately very bad. You can't go from a harmony that wants to go into A-flat major and instead go into E Major. It sounds terrible. The out-of-order No. 17 Fanfares before the Hungarian are the problem. 

  • No. 20a Russian Dance (begins in d-minor, ends in a-minor). This is OK. Unfortunately, the violin cadenza is too long - we usually use a small cut. Also the tempo of the first part of the Russian Dance on the Nájera video is much too slow but I will come back to that question.

  • No. 21 Spanish Dance (Begins f-sharp minor, Ends F-Sharp Major). This is unusual for me because we usually play the Spanish FIRST, but this is fine, and anyway is Tchaikovsky’s original order. This works.

  • No. 22 Neapolitan Dance: (f-sharp-minor - D-Major). This is fine.

  • No. 18 Scene. This one is a problem: This music originally led to the Pas de Six (in F-Major), or, in the Petipa/Ivanov version, was slightly modulated to lead into the Spanish Dance (in f-sharp minor). However, Nájera uses this music to lead us into the Black Swan Pas de Deux, which is in A-Major! It does not work! 

  • Black Swan PDD (in A-Major) 

 

Basically, Nájera’s choice to put Nos. 17 and 18 in the wrong places are what creates the problems. But this ballet is already staged, so we mostly likely can’t change anything. I don’t know how to solve this, other than to cover my ears and try not to listen…

 

Regarding tempo issues: 

 

No. 20a Russian Dance:  Here, the Violin Cadenza is too long and too slow (We don’t usually include the Russian Dance in Swan Lake but I have done it a few times as a separate number on Gala Concerts). We usually make some small cuts to keep it from sounding too long and boring. I think because all she is doing is Bourree-ing around, that wouldn’t be a problem. 

Also the first Andante section is too slow. The Allegro part is fine. 

Here is how it is usually played: 

Here is Nájera’s Russian Dance:

 

 

 

 

 

No. 24 Act III Finale: This is really too slow. It is usually played like this, with good energy and lots of drama to finish the act (we also cut some music at the Mariinsky, to get to the end of the act with more energy):

But on Nájera’s video, two things happen: after the fast violin passage, the music suddenly slows down and loses all its energy: 

Then, the very end (with the swans running across the stage and the set change) is literally TWICE AS SLOW as it should be:

 

 

I understand that maybe Nájera asked to stretch the music so he could make that set/scene change, but it’s truly awful to take such a slow tempo and ruin the energy of the end of Act III. I would much prefer tp end Act III with tremendous energy that matches the tragedy and chaos on stage, and then sit in a dark and silent theatre with a closed curtain for 1 minute while they make that set change - and then raise the curtain and begin Act IV. I would be extremely disappointed if I had to play this Act III Finale so slowly. 

 

 

ACT IV

 

No. 29 Finale: The opening is OK, but the Allegro Agitato section is way too slow! This battle for Odette should be a really powerful and dramatic scene, but instead all we have are the dancers just… posing, with slow boring music, and no sense of a battle at all. And the section where the Swans are running around in a circle, the music is supposed to sound almost ike a hurricane, blowing them around the lake. Instead, it’s kind of... dead.

 

Here’s what I usually do (this is me conducting at Royal Ballet in 2022): 

 

Here is Nájera’s Finale:

16 Swan Lake, Op. 20_ No. 7, SujetArtist Name
00:00 / 00:36
15 Swan Lake, Op. 20_ No. 6, Pas d'action. Andantino quasi moderato – AllegroArtist Name
00:00 / 01:50
23 23_ Scene (Finale)_ ModerateArtist Name
00:00 / 01:31
34 Swan Lake, Op. 20_ No. 20a, Danse Russe. Moderato - Andante semplice - Allegro vivo - PArtist Name
00:00 / 04:40
37 Scene (Allegro)Artist Name
00:00 / 01:47
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