Pas de quatre "La Roseraie" from the ballet "The Awakening of Flora"
Burlaka's choreography is after Иван Хлюстин, in the West known as Ivan Clustine, a famous dancer, ballet master and pedagogue-repetiteur to Anna Pavlova.
Pavlova danced her first principal part, of Goddess Flora, in «Le Réveil de Flore». This occurred on September 10, 1900. Finally, on the same day young Agrippina Vaganova danced her first solo part, of Goddess Hebe.
It was known that the ballet "The Awakening of Flora" was first shown in July 1894 in Peterhof, and that it was included in the wedding celebrations of Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna and Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich. And nothing more.
The premiere was a success, and then the ballet was transferred to the Mariinsky stage. Subsequently, this one-act performance was added to the program of ballet evenings, but in 1919, Flora disappeared from the repertoire.
"The Awakening of Flora" is a typical Anacreontic ballet, composed by the tandem of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, who were at the height of their creative powers.
Each of the goddesses is given clear figurative characteristics. The picture begins with the measured dance of Aurora (the goddess of the morning dawn). She "begins the day" by awakening the other goddesses: the virgin Diana (the goddess of the Moon), the goddess of the Earth Hebe, full of vital forces, and, finally, the beautiful goddess of flowers Flora.
The most interesting thing is that among more than 20 titles, the ballet "Awakening of Flora" is recorded most accurately: the documents for this performance have been preserved in full. Everything is indicated: the props, the stage plan, the placement of scenery and props, the number of participants, the names of the performers by characters, there is a musical line. All this is written extremely carefully and represents the most complete version of the recording.
I think the arrangement of the performance was made by N. G. Legat, who took the position of second choreographer (he was tipped to replace Petipa). As choreographer of the Mariinsky Theater, Legat edited Petipa's ballets, adding new numbers to them. This guess can be confirmed by documents found in Switzerland related to Ivan Khlyustin's production of "The Awakening of Flora" in Anna Pavlova's troupe. The surviving notes in the score were probably made by Khlyustin, as was the note itself, which says "Leave the number as Legat" (referring to Yu. B.'s pas de quatre).
Legat probably made this "extract" of variations based on Petipa's authentic variations, and the coda based on the coda of the performance, but without the corps de ballet. Therefore, the coda of the concert pas de quatre has a shortened form in comparison with the coda of the Mariinsky Theatre performance, made according to the transcription of S. G. Vikharev (who was based on the premiere Peterhof-Mariinsky performance).
I strengthened the technical side of the variations: for example, instead of one pirouette, the ballerina does two, but I left Flora’s original 16 fouettés, especially since the choreographic accompaniment to Flora’s dance “trick” is the rapid rotations of the three goddesses.
In this work, the unity of the original score by R. E. Drigo, the original costume sketches by E. P. Ponomarev and the dance style were also important to me. However, it cannot be claimed that this is the authenticity of a fragment of a performance of a certain time: the Peterhof premiere, the transfer to the Mariinsky stage, or a performance that existed until 1918. Again, this is the image of a ballet born of the genius of Marius Petipa.
(00:00)01. Pas de Quatre - from the ballet Le Réveil de Flore (1894)
* №02 L’apparition et danse de Diane - Nocturne
(03:16)02. Variation for four - Valse from the ballet Le Roi Candaule (1891)
(04:27)03. Variation for the goddess Diana - from the ballet Le Réveil de Flore (1894)
* №08 -b. Variation for Zhepyr, the God of the West Wind for M. Legat.
(05:31)04. Variation for the goddess Aurora - *From ballet “The Pearl” (1896)
The Pearl was performed often throughout the early 1900s and was given its final performance in 1910, after which, it fell into obscurity. Only one variation from The Pearl was notated in the Stepanov notation method and this variation is part of the Sergeyev Collection.
*We believe only this number from Drigo's score that is used today is a pizzicato variation for Mlle. kschessinska “The Yellow Pearl Pas de Deux”
(07:30)05. Variation for the goddess Hébé “Gebe” - From the ballet La Vestale (1888)
* Variation for Mlle. Cornalba
(08:34)06. Variation for goddess Flora - from the ballet Le Réveil de Flore (1894)
* №08 -d. Variation de Flore (cadenza for harp for Albert Zabel)
(10:27)07. Coda - from the ballet Le Réveil de Flore (1894)
* №12 Galop générale (shorter)
[Slower version] ua-cam.com/video/0RgncQpES3k/v-deo.htmlsi=oRQkfRJMTiUZZcdz