The Australian Ballet Artistic Director shares his thoughts on the genius of Tchaikovsky.
Throughout my life there has always been Tchaikovsky. The first full-length ballet I ever saw was The Sleeping Beauty. It was Rudolph Nureyev’s production for English National Ballet who toured it to Perth when I was a child. I remember feeling completely gobsmacked – I’d never seen anything so beautiful and it was an incredibly opulent production, dripping with feathers and jewels and heavy, beautiful costumes. It was an overwhelming experience and I was completely immersed in it.
It is impossible now to think of ballet without thinking about Tchaikovsky, and I believe the reason why these works are so popular today is because of those scores. This incredible music draws people to the works, and it’s because there is such a huge amount to draw on that all three ballets have inspired so many to reenvision them. I think that partly this is because of the relationship between Tchaikovsky and the great ballet choreographer Marius Petipa. It was often a very prescriptive collaboration, and yet within that Tchaikovsky was able to write this extraordinary music that has so much intellect and creativity despite these very...
Comments
Log in to join the conversation.