Inspiration

La mort du cygne / Ulyana Lopatkina

Description

The Dying Swan is a ballet dance choreographed to the music Le Cygne composed in 1866 by Camille Saint-Saëns.

Inspired by swans that she had seen in public parks, Anna Pavlova worked with choreographer Michel Fokine, who had read the poem The Dying Swan by Alfred Tennyson, to create the famous 1905 solo ballet dance which is now closely associated with this music.

According to tradition, the swan in Pavlova's dance is badly injured and dying.
However, Maya Plisetskaya re-interpreted the swan simply as elderly and stubbornly resisting the effects of aging; much like herself (she performed The Swan at a gala on her 70th birthday).

Ulyana Vyacheslavna Lopatkina (Ульяна Вячеславна Лопаткина, born October 23, 1973, Kerch, Ukraine) is principal dancer at the Kirov Ballet/Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. She studied at the Vaganova Academy in the class of Natalia Dudinskaya. Upon graduation Lopatkina joined the Kirov/Mariinsky Theatre Ballet in 1991 and was promoted to principal dancer in 1995. Lopatkina is married to Vladimir Kornev, architect and novel writer, and has one daughter (Masha, born 2002).