The libretto is by Arthur Saint-Léon, based on the fairy taleThe Little Humpbacked Horse by Pyotr Yershov. However, the choreographer substantially deviated from Yershov's original tale. The ballet shows how Ivan the fool, with the aid of a magical horse, defeats an evil Khan and wins the hand of the Tsar- Maiden. Eventually Ivan replaces the ineffective and incompetent Tsar and becomes Tsar himself.
Choreography of Saint-Léon
The original choreography was created by Arthur Saint-Léon and was set to music by Cesare Pugni. The ballet was first presented by the Imperial Ballet on at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. Marfa Muravyova and Timofey Stukolkin were planned as principal performers. However, Stukolkin had broken his leg and was replaced with Nilolay Troitsky, who had no previous experience of dancing principal roles. The ballet became an important milestone in the development of Russian ballet. It was the first ballet based on a Russian story. Composer Pugni included Russian folk songs in the music for the ballet and choreographer Arthur Saint-Léon created specifically Russian folk dancing - overall 22 Russian folk dances were staged. However, the French choreographer was not very knowledgeable in Russian folk dancing and invented many of them himself, including the "Ural dance". The ballet was very colorful and became a huge success. Russian democratic critics such as Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin and Nikolay Nekrasov however strongly criticized the work. They viewed the ballet as a pathetic parody of Russian dances rather than a genuine collection of dances, and accused the choreographer of being mediocre, the audience of tastelessness, Tsar Alexander II of having a criminal attitude to his people, and all of them together of a lack of understanding of social development. On the other hand, the ballet enjoyed success with the audience. In its turn, it triggered the creation of a series of Russian-style ballets on the Imperial scene. Simultaneously, the Moscow Imperial troupe developed a different style, combining classical European choreography with real Russian folk dance. After two years,, the ballet was moved to the Moscow Imperial troupe. In 1876, Sokolov re-staged the choreography of Saint-Léon in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theatre, using genuine Russian dances. This re-staging separated the two ways the ballet was performed - the classical dance in Saint Petersburg and the dance incorporated into the performance in Moscow. This eventually developed into two schools of Russian Ballet, which survived well into the 1930s. Subsequently, the Moscow school ceased to exist when a large number of Saint Petersburg dancers were moved to Moscow in the 1930s. A hundred years later, in 1960, the Russian composerRodion Shchedrin created a new ballet on the same subject.
Revival by José Mendez for the Ballet of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre. First presented at the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre on December 26, 1893 in Moscow, Russia.
Re-staging by Alexander Gorsky of his 1901 revival for the Imperial Ballet, with musical additions and revisions to Pugni's score by Riccardo Drigo. First presented at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre on December 16, 1912. Principal Dancers - Tamara Karsavina and Nikolai Legat.
