P. I. Tchaikovsky Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov Swan Lake ACT III Black Swan pas de deux Odile………………………………………Ekaterina Kondaurova Siegfried………………………………….Timur Askerov Mariinsky Ballet 2013 St. Petersburg, Russia In this pas de deux, the black swan or Odile, Odette\’s pure opposite tries to entangle the prince to swear his love to her. She tries to convince him, that she herself is Odette. In truth she is actually Rothbart\’s (or Evil Genius as they like to call him in the Bolshoi) daughter, enchanted to look like Odette. The only difference is actually (beside her personality) her tutu, which is as you see black, unlike Odette\’s, which is white. In other aspects she is completely different from Odette. Unlike Odette, who embodies kindness, a kind of heavenly beauty and just a hint saddness and offcourse pureness, Odile is a living contrast to her. She is the living lust, passion and yearning, which lives in us all. She embodies the kind of darker part of not just the human psyche and soul, but is also the darker side of Odette, that never existed. There is even a moment, in the pas de deux itself, when Siegfried for a second considers, if this is really Odette. And in most productions it is actually seen, that Odette is trying to warn through the windows, but he doesn\’t see her, because Odile is already there. Even in the coda and her variations we see, that she tries to entice not just the prince, but also the court, the court, the audience, the whole world. And good ballerinas are able to do jut that. They command the audience which their sheer presence on the stage, to look at them and only them. And this is certainly a job, which Kondaurova in my humble opinion certainly succeded in. Now, if you are interested, here is a brief history on the entire pas de deux: On 26 April 1877 the prima ballerina of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre Anna Sobeshchanskaya made her début as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, and from the start she was completely dissatisfied with the production of the ballet, but most of all with Reisinger\’s choreography and Tchaikovsky\’s music. Sobeshchanskaya travelled to St. Petersburg to have Marius Petipa—Premier Maître de Ballet of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres—choreograph a new pas de deux to replace the Pas de six that functioned as the third act\’s Grand Pas. For a ballerina to request a supplemental pas or variation was standard practice in 19th century ballet, and often these \”custom-made\” dances quite literally became the legal property of the ballerina they were composed for. Petipa choreographed Sobeshchanskaya\’s pas de deux to music composed by Ludwig Minkus, who held the post of Ballet composer to the St Petersburg Imperial Theatres. The piece was a standard pas de deux classique that consisted of a short entrée, the grand adage, a variation for the dancer, a variation for the ballerina, and a coda. Word of this change soon found its way to Tchaikovsky, who became very angry, stating that, whether the ballet is good or bad, he alone shall be held responsible for its music. He then agreed to compose a new pas de deux for the ballerina, but soon a problem arose: Sobeshchanskaya had no reservations about performing a pas to Tchaikovsky\’s new music, but she wanted to retain Petipa\’s choreography, and she had no wish to travel to St. Petersburg again to have the Ballet Master arrange a new pas for her. In light of this, Tchaikovsky agreed to compose a pas that would correspond to Minkus\’ music to such a degree that the ballerina would not even be required to rehearse. Sobeshchanskaya was so pleased with Tchaikovsky\’s new version of the Minkus music that she requested he compose for her an additional variation, which he did. Until 1953 this pas de deux was thought to be lost, until an accidentally discovered repétiteur was found in the archives of the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre among the orchestral parts used for Alexander Gorsky\’s revival of Le Corsaire (Gorsky had included the piece in his version of Le Corsaire staged in 1912). In 1960 George Balanchine choreographed a pas de deux to this music for the Ballerina Violette Verdy, and the Danseur Conrad Ludlow under the title Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux, as it is still known and performed today. All copyrights go to their respective owners (c)