Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, rescued from a failed premiere by Petipa and Ivanov's revival, returns to the Royal Ballet's Main Stage in the staging most companies still perform.
The Royal Ballet dances Swan Lake at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden from Saturday 27 March to Monday 31 May 2027. It uses the staging by Petipa and Ivanov.
Swan Lake opened in Moscow in 1877 and was judged a disappointment. Tchaikovsky never saw it succeed, and he died in 1893 still believing it a failure.
Petipa and Ivanov’s revival in St Petersburg two years later produced the staging almost every company still performs from. One ballerina dances Odette and Odile, the white swan and the black, and the 32 fouettés are the most famous technical challenge in the repertoire.
Under the tutus it is a bleak piece: a prince who chooses wrongly, a woman who cannot be released, and an ending most companies still argue about.
Odette-Odile is the role by which a ballerina’s standing at this house is generally settled. Several dancers take the role across the run.
The run takes the company from the end of winter into the opening weeks of the London Season. Tosca and La Gioconda share the Main Stage across the spring.