Swan Lake Kirov Ballet different cadenza

[HBrock25]

I thought I would post this in case anyone else is going to be playing with the Kirov (Mariinsky Theatre) Ballet while they are touring this season. The Swan Lake cadenza they use is completely different than the one we have all played before! I had done a lot of online searching for it and found no mention of an alternate cadenza until a colleague sent me this you tube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC-fsaHXiJI
I spoke to the conductor, via translator, after one of our performances and he told me Tchaikovsky wrote it and Petipa chose this version to choreograph over 100 years ago.
I just had a run of shows in Toronto at the Sony Centre.
Good luck to anyone else who may encounter it!

[Elizabeth Volpé Bligh]

Yes, I played Swan lake when the Kirov was in Canada a number of years ago and the conductor gave me copies of the various different cadenzas. There are also two completely different Black Swan cadenzas and variations.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

I remember Robert Barlow telling me about getting together with the Russian harpists, probably from the Bolshoi, in the 1980s, when he was harpist with the American Ballet Theater Orchestra, and how they showed him all kinds of cadenzas. Zabel wrote many, I think.

[Julia Seager-Scott]

According to the conductor I spoke to, Pavel Bubelnikov, there is a whole book of alternate cadenzas written by Tchaikovsky for various parts of the ballet in a book in Russia. The choreographers were expected to choose which ones they liked best. I would love to see that book!

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

It should be published. The one in that video is wonderful, and perhaps preferable to the standard one.

[Author]

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