The composer Ludwig Minkus represents one of music’s biggest mysteries. Who was he? Hardly anything is known about him, and yet he occupied an influential position in the theatres of the Imperial ballet in late nineteenth-century Russia. He has been recognised as a predecessor of Tchaikovsky, but as a musician is commonly held to have been so feeble as to be beneath contempt. Yet despite the scorn heaped on him, and his consequent obscurity, Minkus is far from being forgotten. Since the early 1960s his name has slowly begun to re-surface. Two works, Don Quixote (1869) and La Bayadère (1877), have been presented in their entirety for the first time to new audiences all over the world. The musical and dramatic power of both ballets has taken people by surprise. The stories have a very real human appeal, the choreography attracts the admiration of balletomanes, and the music, with its rhythm, verve, and beauty of melody, holds attention and engages the heart wherever it is heard. This introduction seeks to discover something more behind the blank façade of Minkus’s life and work. What do we actually know about him as a man and as an artist? Are we able to apprehend his oeuvre as a whole, and how much can we establish from the available material? What is the nature of the music he created for those few works that have survived the years, and that have come to the fore again recently to delight those who have ears to hear? This study includes iconography from the life and times of the composer, many musical examples from his works, and a comprehensive bibliography and discography.

This volume reproduces the piano score of the ballet La Source, a joint composition by Ludwig Minkus and Léo Delibes. After the success of Néméa (1864), the Paris Opéra ordered a new grand ballet from the famous choreographer Arthur Saint-Léon to a libretto based on a Persian legend by Charles Nuitter. Saint-Léon involved his musical collaborator in St Petersburg, Ludwig Minkus, in the project, securing for him a hand in the composition of the first and fourth scenes of the of this new work, La Source, a fantastic ballet in three acts. The composition of the other two scenes (the second and third) were entrusted to the young, unknown Léo Delibes, thirty at the time, who had drawn favourable attention to himself in the preparation of the ballet music for the première of Meyerbeer’s posthumous L’Africaine in 1865. The first performance of La Source was on 12 November 1866 at the Théatre Impérial de l’Opéra, with the principal dancers Guglielmina Salvioni (Naila), Eugénie Fiocre (Nouredda) and Louis Mérante (Djemil). The ballet as a whole was very successful, with 73 performances until 1876. Saint-Léon immediately began planning another work with Nuitter and Delibes—Coppélia—one which would crown the young French’s composer’s success with triumph. This was premiered on 25 May 1870, the last of Saint-Léon’s work, and the last great success of the French Romantic ballet at the Salle Le Peletier before the crisis of the Franco-Prussian War, and the end of the Second Empire. As regards the music of La Source, Delibes’s contribution to the score, his first essay at ballet music, was noted for its vigour and many delightful melodies. In Jouvin’s opinion, his music was “vivacious and especially lively,” and contrasted effectively with the plaintive melodies of Minkus. “The style of the two composers,” observed the critic of La France Musicale (18 November 1866), “is essentially different and easily recognizable at a first hearing. M. Minkus's music has a vague, indolent, and melancholic character, full of grace and languor. That of M. Delibes, fresher and more rhythmic, is much more complicated in orchestration, and sometimes a little more ordinary. I should add that this difference in style is perfectly justified by the: contrasting character of the two parts of the ballet.”

In 1868 the choreographer Marius Petipa planned his ballet Don Quixote for the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, and the Austrian composer Ludwig Minkus was invited to compose the music. The plot of Don Quixote was based on the adventures of Quiteria (known as Kitri in the ballet) and Basilio, which Petipa had developed from the second part of Miguel de Cervantes's novel (1605). The ballet was an enormous success, both in Moscow (14/26 December 1869) and in St Petersburg where it was represented at the Bolshoi Theatre on 9/21 November 1871 in an expanded version as Don Quichotte—with revised scenario and choreography that took cognizance of the more sophisticated expectations of the Imperial capital. Changes were made to the story, with a new fifth act in three scenes, for which Minkus wrote additional music. Don Quixote no longer regarded Kitri simply as his protégée, but now actually mistakes her for Dulcinea, and she appears as such in his Dream Scene. Provision was made for one ballerina to perform the double virtuoso role of Kitri and Dulcinea. The big classical scene for Don Quixote's dream was rewritten. Greater emphasis was now placed on this episode, where Kitri/Dulcinea was surrounded by a large corps de ballet and seventy-two children dressed as cupids. Alexandra Vergina was partnered by Basilio (Lev Ivanov), and supported by Pavel Gerdt in the last scene. The cast also included Timofei Stukolkine (Don Quixote), Nicholas Goltz (Gamache), and Alexei Bogdanov (Lorenzo). Don Quixote became established in the repertory, and its continued life on the Russian stage bears testimony to the appeal of its exuberance, “the life-asserting and life-loving nature of its dances” (Natalia Roslavleva). Generations of Russian ballet-masters and dancers preserved these dances in essence, and the ballet is still part of the Russian repertory, given today in all Russian and Siberian companies, in the Moscow version of Alexander Gorsky, in three acts and seven or eight scenes. Petipa’s version of Don Quixote, with its life-affirming music by Minkus, has during the 20th century spread throughout the world, not least because of the work of Rudolf Nureyev who made a film version of the Australian Ballet production in 1971 that became very famous. It co-starred Robert Helpmann and Lucette Aldous, and made world history in being the first ballet to be produced with full film technique, so providing wider scope for imaginative handling of the famous story. Don Quixote has become the standard ballet version of the Cervantes tale, and one of the most popular pieces of the international repertory. Much of its emotional fervour is captured in the celebrated virtuoso Grand Pas de Deux for the wedding of Kitri and Basilio in the last scene. This piece, with a spectrum of feeling enshrined in its rapturous melodies and irresistible rhythmic élan, has assumed a life of its own as a concert piece in countless renditions wherever ballet is performed. The piano score of the St Petersburg version was published as Don Quichotte (St Petersburg: Theodore Stellowsky, c. 1882). This version is reproduced here.

Aloysius Ludwig Minkus (1826–1917), famous for his ballets Don Quixote (1869) and La Bayadère (1877), was born in Bohemia, and grew up in the dance capital Vienna. He hoped to establish a reputation as a violinist and composer, and by 1853 had emigrated to St Petersburg where he became the conductor and solo violinist of the private orchestra of Prince Nikolai Yusupov. In 1861 he was appointed violin soloist and, a year later, conductor of the Moscow Bolshoi Orchestra. He began a happy collaboration with the great French choreographer Arthur Saint-Léon (1821–1870), who was a real friend and inspiration to Minkus, and more than anyone else, helped to launch his career as a theatrical composer, producing five works in association with him in St Petersburg and Paris. Minkus’s first ballet, the three-act Plamya lyubvi, ili Salamandra (The Flame of Love, or the Salamander, also called Fiammetta), was given its premiere on 13 February 1864 at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theater in St Petersburg (with Marfa Muravyeva in the leading role). The scenario and the choreography were by Saint-Léon, the most important dance master of the day in both Paris and Russia. Saint-Léon’s influence secured this work production in the French capital, and it was perhaps for this occasion that Minkus accompanied Saint-Léon to Paris to mount the work at the Académie Royale de Musique. Reduced to two acts, and re-christened Néméa, ou l’Amour vengé (with a scenario adapted by Henri Meilhac & Ludovic Halévy), the ballet was performed at the Paris Opéra on 11 July 1864, with considerable success (again with Marfa Muravyeva, and with Eugénie Fiocre as Cupid). It remained in the repertoire for seven years, attaining 53 performances by 1871. Théophile Gautier remarked on the atmospheric quality of Minkus’s music, its “haunting, dreamy quality.” Roqueplan singled out Saint-Léon's choreography for its “imagination and originality, his ability to handle masses.” Some of the Airs de Ballet were almost immediately published by Henri Hegel (1865), and are reproduced here. By now Minkus was becoming known internationally. So when five years later the Paris Opéra ordered a new grand ballet from Saint-Léon to a libretto by Charles Nuitter, Saint-Léon involved Minkus in the project, securing for him a hand in the composition of the first and fourth scenes of this new work, La Source. The other two scenes were entrusted to the young Léo Delibes, thirty at the time, who had drawn favourable attention to himself in the preparation of the ballet music for the première of Meyerbeer’s posthumous L’Africaine in 1865. The first performance of La Source on 12 November 1866 was great success for Delibes, whose bold and colourful composition was praised at the expense of Minkus’s subtler contribution. Saint-Léon immediately began planning another work with Nuitter and Delibes, and one which would crown the young French’s composer’s success with triumph, Coppélia. Saint-Léon nevertheless continued to work with Minkus, despite his busy engagements in Paris. The choreographer’s greatest ballet for Russia was his work with Cesare Pugni, Koniok-Gorbunok (The Little Humpbacked Horse) (1864), based on a Russian fairytale. He now tapped into the same folk material in a new work with Minkus, Zolotaya rybka (The Golden Fish), based on Alexander Pushkin’s Legend of the fisher and the little fish. On 20 November 1866, for the celebration of the Tsarevitch’s wedding, Saint-Léon oversaw the production of a one-act version of this new ballet, Le Poisson doré, at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theater in St Petersburg. The work was then developed as a three-act ballet for the same theater a year later (8 October 1867). Minkus’s music was very well received. As with La Source, it was carefully adapted in form and mood to the scenario, remarkable for its panache and beautiful writing for solo instruments (violin, flute, cello, cornet), and for reflecting the nature of the fairytale scenario in the appropriation of national folk styles (Polish, Kazak, Cossack). The score was considered worthy of full publication in piano reduction by the St Petersburg house of Stellowsky (c. 1870), and is reproduced here. The last collaboration between Minkus and Saint-Léon followed two years after that, a partial arrangement of La Source, given in St Petersburg as Liliya (Le Lys) in 1869.

La Bayadère was first produced at the Maryinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, on 4 February 1877. The scenario was by Sergei Khudekov and Marius Petipa, who also devised the choreography. The music was by the Austrian composer Ludwig Minkus (1827-1917), who spend most of his life working for the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg. His music for this ballet—long scorned, never published, and endlessly re-arranged— has slowly emerged, since its revival began in the West in the 1960s, as a viable and significant musical achievement in its own right. Apart from the strongly defined melodies, infectious rhythm, and affecting harmonies, there is a powerful unity of conception and a sustained attention to mood that establishes its own unique incidental atmosphere. In its evocation of far-off times, the score conjures up an exotic Indian setting, where two spheres are set in contrast—a bright external world of colour and pomp, of ambition, rivalry and death; and an internal realm of night and dreams, of ideals, transcendent love and life—all realized most completely in the famous Kingdom of the Shades in act 3. The generous self-offering love of the temple dancer Nikia is one of the great stories of the Romantic ballet. Here for the first time is the piano score of the entire ballet. The music derives from four sources: a clear manuscript from the days of the Soviet Union; a version of Act 4 as held in the Library of Covent Garden; a beautiful Russian copy of the Kingdom of the Shades; and a potpourri from the 1880s by Johann Resch—the only music ever published from the score.

This book offers something entirely new: detailed scene-by-scene descriptions of the action and dancing of Giselle, Paquita, Le Corsaire, La Bayadère, and Raymonda, bringing the reader far closer to what the audience saw when the curtain went up on these five classic story ballets than has heretofore been possible. Drawing on archival documents, the authors show that these ballets were like today's pop entertainment: funnier, more violent, more spectacular, and with female characters far stronger than one might expect. This rigorously researched book fills huge gaps in dance history and is bound to be of interest to practitioners, scholars, and devotees of ballet and the arts.

The composer Adolphe-Charles Adam (1803-1856) is particularly famous for the Christmas anthem ‘Minuit chrétiens’ (‘O Holy Night’). He was renowned as a composer for the lyric stage. With Boïeldieu, Hérold and Auber, Adam forms one of the quartet of masters that represent the second school of that profoundly French genre of opéra-comique, producing the charming Le Chalet (1834) and the adorable and enduringly popular Le Postillon de Lonjumeau (1836). However, Adam’s greatest originality and most substantial achievement lay in the field of ballet. Giselle (1841) is the quintessence of mystical Romanticism and one of the most enduring works of the dance repertoire. His series of ballets, principally for the Paris Opéra, but also for London, St Petersburg and Berlin, helped to establish this genre as a serious and integral musical form. His last work Le Corsaire (1856) attains sublime heights. This book concentrates on the dance aspect of Adam’s art, examining his 14 works in this genre in the context of the emergence and efflorescence of the Romantic ballet within the vibrant musical scene in Paris from 1830-1860.