Cesare Pugni (Russian: Цезарь Пуни) (31 May 1802–26 January [O.S. 14 January] 1870) was an Italian composer of ballet music, a pianist and a violinist. In his early career he composed operas, symphonies, and various other forms of orchestral music. Pugni is most noted for the ballets he composed while serving as Composer of the Ballet Music to Her Majesty's Theatre in London (1843–1850), and as Ballet Composer of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres and to the Court of His Imperial Majesty in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire (1850–1870). Pugni was among the first composers of ballet music to employ the technique of leitmotif, which he utilized for his score for the ballet Elerz e Zulmida in 1826.
Cesare Pugni is the most prolific composer of the genre of ballet music that has ever lived — by the end of his life he had composed close to 100 known original scores for the ballet and adapted or supplemented many other works by other composers. He composed a myriad of incidental dances such as divertissements and variations, many of which were added to countless other works. A great deal of Cesare Pugni's complete scores and incidental dances, etc. were published in piano reduction, and sold very well, while other dances were sold as "traditional" by publishers such as T. Boosey or Jullien after the copyright expired with no credit given to the composer.
Of Pugni's original scores for the ballet, he is perhaps best known today for Ondine, ou La Naïade, (also known as La Naïade et le pêcheur) (1843); La Esmeralda (1844); Éoline, ou La Dryade (1845), Catarina, ou La Fille du Bandit (1846); The Pharaoh's Daughter (1862); The Little Humpbacked Horse (1864); and Le Roi Candaule (1868). Of his incidental dances, etc., he is most noted for the Pas de Six from La Vivandière (also known as Markitenka) (1844); the Pas de Quatre (1845); La Carnival de Venise pas de deux (also known as Satanella pas de deux) (1859); the Diane and Actéon Pas de Deux (1868); and his additional music for the ballet Le Corsaire (1863 and 1868).
Pugni's works were written for the most influential ballet masters of the 19th century, among them Arthur Saint-Léon, Paul Taglioni, Marius Petipa and Jules Perrot (who staged almost every one of his works to Pugni's music). Most of the ballerinas of the Romantic era (including Marie Taglioni, Fanny Cerrito, Lucile Grahn, Fanny Elssler and Carlotta Grisi) danced in ballets set to his music.
Cesare Pugni was born in Genoa.
His early family life is rather obscure, but it appears that his father Filippo Pugni, was a clock and watchmaker with, for a time, a successful shop in the Via Rebecchino in the neighborhood of the Palazzo del Duomo, near Milan cathedral. According to family tradition the surname of Pugni — being the Italian word for fists — was acquired when a noble ancestor had lost his family's fortune and social rank and restored his family through hard work "by his own fists".
Pugni began his musical studies at a very young age. At some point the Pugni family became acquainted with the noted composer Peter Winter, whose reaction to the seven-year-old Pugni's first symphony prompted him to take the boy under his tutelage.
It was Winter who arranged for the young Pugni to be admitted into Milan's Royal Imperial Conservatory of Music (known today as the Milan Conservatory). At that time Milan was the capital of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, then part of the Austrian Empire. Since the Milan Conservatory was in the territory of the Kingdom known as Lombardy, only residents of Lombardy were allowed to be admitted as pupils. Thanks to Winter's recommendation the thirteen year-old Pugni was accepted into the institute in 1814 as a non-Lombard at the expense of the state.
During his instruction at the conservatory the young Pugni studied under many noted pedagogues of music. Among Pugni's instructors was Bonifazio Asioli (1769–1832), under whom he studied composition and counterpoint; Alessandro Rolla, the instructor of Niccolò Paganini, who taught him the violin; and Carlo Soliva, under whom he studied musical theory. While still a young student, Pugni was given the opportunity to compose several pieces for ballets and operas given at La Scala and its auxiliary theatre La Canobbiana, as well as performing his own compositions for violin to acclaim.
At the request of his family, Pugni was allowed to leave the conservatory in 1822, the "official" reason being continuing illness. In reality the management of La Scala greatly desired for Pugni to be in their employ, and since the Milan Conservatory would not allow a non-paying student to leave the institute without finishing his education, Pugni was "officially" said to be ill in order to allow him to be free to work for the theatre. Pugni then took up residence with Asioli at his home in Correggio, where he completed his musical studies under his tutelage.
Not long after leaving Milan's Royal Imperial Conservatory of Music, Pugni began playing the violin in the orchestra of La Scala and La Canobbiana.
The first documented full-length ballet for which Pugni created the music was the Balletmaster Gaetano Gioja's Il castello di Kenilworth, based on Walter Scott's novel Kenilworth and first presented at La Scala in 1823. Ballet music at that time was often a musical pastiche, and the printed libretto for this work credits the score as being assembled from themes derived from "various well-known composers".
Pugni was among the first composers of the early-romantic period to create original scores for the ballet, i.e. scores not assembled from the airs of many composers and/or works. One such score was written by Pugni for Louis Henry's 1826 ballet Elerz e Zulmida, a score also noted for being among the first compositions for the ballet to utilize the technique of leitmotif. The success of Elerz e Zulmida brought about three more commissions from Henry, and soon Pugni was sought out by some of the most distinguished choreographers then working in Italy, among them Salvatore Taglioni (uncle of Marie Taglioni), and Giovanni Galzerani.
Pugni's growing popularity as a capable composer of light, melodious music for dancing was attested by the publication of a number of piano reductions of excerpts from his works, among them, the popular Scottish Dance from his 1837 ballet L'assedio di Calais (The Siege of Calais), which, like every one of his works published during his life, sold very well.
Though he demonstrated considerable talent for composing ballet music, Pugni's real ambition at this time was to become a composer of opera. There had been occasions where he had been commissioned to compose an aria "to order" for various performances at La Scala, and such assignments encouraged him to pursue this ambition further. In 1831, his opera Il disertore svizzero, ovvero La nostalgia premiered at La Canobbiana in Milan, with his teacher Alessandro Rolla conducting. The work was praised for its variety and originality, and was revered by the composer's fellow musicians.
It was during this time that Pugni began to compose a substantial number of masses, symphonies, and various other orchestral pieces. One Sinfonia (the Sinfonia per una o due orchestre) was scored for two orchestras, both of which would play the same piece but with one orchestra a few bars behind the other. Pugni was at first reluctant to compose such a piece, but his student at the time, the visiting Mikhail Glinka, encouraged him. The first performance of the Sinfonia per una o due orchestre was a great success. This piece so impressed Giacomo Meyerbeer that he was known to hold up a manuscript of the work in order to show his friends a supreme example of virtuosity in composition.
Such successes appropriately lead to Pugni's appointment as Maestro al Cembalo at La Scala. In addition to fulfilling these duties, Pugni also taught the violin and counterpoint when time allowed. With regard to style and structure, Pugni's symphonies and concert music have been likened to the works typical of composers of the classical period such as Muzio Clementi or Joseph Haydn.
Pugni scored two more operas for the Teatro Canobbiana in 1833 and 1834, both of which were listened to with considerable respect. Pugni also continued composing various orchestral pieces, together earning him great prestige and notoriety.
Despite Pugni's initial success in the field of music, only two years after his appointment as Maestro al Cembalo, all of his prospects collapsed, and he was dismissed from La Scala for what appears to have been the misappropriation of funds, a likely by-product instigated by his notorious passion for gambling and liquor which had caused him to amount considerable debt. In early 1834, Pugni left Milan in an effort to flee from his creditors.
With his wife and children, Pugni made his way to Paris, where they lived in poverty while the composer searched desperately for employment. By the end of 1834 Pugni found work as chief copyist for the famous Théâtre Italien. Through his association with the theatre he was reunited with an old friend, the Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini, who at that time was engaged at the theatre to mount his opera I Puritani while simultaneously preparing a special version of the work for the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. For the Naples production the principal soprano role was to be revised for the vocal talents of the Prima Donna Maria Malibran, and since the production of I Puritani in Paris was putting Bellini under considerable pressure, he called upon Pugni to copy the parts of the score that would be presented in Naples without change. Pugni did this, but also made a second copy of the complete score and subsequently sold the manuscript to the Teatro di San Carlo at a high price. Soon Bellini was told that the theatre had purchased an official copy of score, and would no longer require his services. Bellini was crushed, for he had not only paid Pugni the five francs for the copying but had also given him money when needed in order to feed his family, and was often known to not only give Pugni his own unwanted clothes but begged his lady friends to send their unwanted dresses over to Signora Pugni. Bellini wrote in his journal, "It will be a lesson to me. Were it not for his six innocent children, I should like to ruin him." Bellini would later recall in an unfinished letter written in 1835 how Pugni's " ... infamous conduct shattered my faith in human nature."
In 1836, Pugni received a commission from Louis Henry, choreographer of several of his first ballet scores, to compose music for the ballet Liacone. This work was to be produced in Naples for the Ballet of the Teatro di San Carlo. At that time Henry was engaged at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique, staging the ballet sections of Gioacchino Rossini's opera William Tell, for which Henry utilized music from Pugni's ballet L'Assedio di Calais. Pugni then traveled to Naples to assist with the music for the opera's dance-sections. Soon after this, Henry died of cholera.
In 1837 Pugni returned to Paris where he began working for the Casino Paganini until its closure in 1840. He then began serving as a "musical ghost writer" of sorts for the legendary Paris Opéra. Pugni was charged with the editing, correcting, and orchestrating of nearly all of the music for the ballets presented on the stage of the theatre. Often composers of the era left orchestrations to the copyist or principal conductor of an Opera House, and with his extraordinary facility at sight reading and scoring, Pugni was often given the task of arranging the compositions of others. A tradition passed down among his descendants claims that during this time Pugni either composed or orchestrated all or part of Adolphe Adam's score for Giselle, though no evidence is known to exist in support of this, and it is likely derived from the fact that Pugni composed supplemental pas and provided orchestration for the St. Petersburg production some years later. Pugni served in this function at the Paris Opéra from 1836 until 1843, and even supplied anonymous supplemental pas and variations for visiting ballerinas when needed.
It was during this time that Pugni became acquainted with Benjamin Lumley—director of Her Majesty's Theatre in London. Through Lumley Pugni became acquainted with Jules Perrot—the renowned choreographer and Ballet Master of Her Majesty's Theatre—who during his engagements as a guest artist to the Paris Opéra encountered Pugni's extraordinary facility with composition and orchestration. In 1843 Lumley offered Pugni the post of Composer of the Ballet Music to Her Majesty's Theatre.
In the fall of 1843, Pugni left for London, and soon enjoyed a period of great renewed success. These were very prolific years for the composer: between the theatre's 1843 and 1850 seasons, Pugni produced an impressive series of scores for three of the greatest choreographers at that time: Jules Perrot, Arthur Saint-Léon and Paul Taglioni. Not long after arriving in London Pugni married his second wife, Marion (or Mary-Ann) Linton.
Throughout the heyday of the Romantic ballet at Her Majesty's Theatre during the 1840s, Cesare Pugni wrote the music for nearly every one of Jules Perrot's ballets. In 1843, Perrot produced Ondine, ou La Naïade—a tale of a jealous Naiad in love with an Italian fisherman—for the great ballerina Fanny Cerrito. In 1844, Perrot produced his most celebrated and enduring work, La Esmeralda for the ballerina Carlotta Grisi.
In 1845 alone, Pugni produced six new scores, including the celebrated divertissement Pas de Quatre, and the fantastical Éoline, ou La Dryade, created for the Danish ballerina Lucille Grahn. Pugni's score for Éoline contained a considerable number of celebrated pieces composed for solo harp written to embellish the dancing of Grahn.
In 1846, Perrot produced the oriental extravaganza Lalla Rookh—based on Thomas Moore's poem of the same name—for which Pugni composed a score full of pseudo-Arabian themes. That same year Perrot and Pugni collaborated on Catarina, ou La Fille du Bandit for the ballerina Grahn. Like La Esmeralda, Catarina would become one of the most celebrated works of the 19th century.
During his time in London Pugni composed a substantial number of supplemental pas, variations, divertissements, and incidental dances which were often performed as "diversions" during an evening's entertainment at the theatre. Often the great ballerinas of the Romantic ballet would perform various Tarantellas, polkas, mazurkas, etc. during the intermissions of operas, and Pugni's accompaniment for such dances were often published in piano reduction.
During the late 1840s, Pugni and Perrot travelled to various theatres throughout Europe in order to stage their collaborations. In 1845, they staged La Esmeralda at La Scala and the Court Opera Ballet in Berlin, where the title role was danced by the great Fanny Elssler. In 1847, Pugni and Perrot mounted Catarina and Lalla Rookh at La Scala. In 1848, Perrot was invited at the behest of Fanny Elssler to stage La Esmeralda for the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia.
In the short span of their collaboration, Pugni wrote many celebrated scores for Paul Taglioni during his engagements as guest choreographer at Her Majesty's Theatre. In 1847 alone, Pugni wrote four ballets for Taglioni, including Coralia, ou Le Chavalier Inconstant and Théa, ou La Fée de fleur. More works followed, including Les Plaisirs de l'Hiver in 1849, and the popular Les Métamorphoses (also known as Satanella) in 1850.
Pugni also left a profound impression on Arthur Saint-Léon, one of the most celebrated choreographers of the era. During the 1840s, Saint-Léon was engaged as Ballet Master at the Paris Opéra, and Pugni traveled there often to compose music for the choreographer's works. Pugni and Saint-Léon created many successful works while in Paris, among them, La Fille de Marbre (a revival of Perrot's Alma) in 1847, a revival of La Vivandière in 1848, a revival of La Violon du Diable in 1849, and Stella in 1850, for which Pugni composed many popular airs in the Neapolitan style.
In 1849 Jules Perrot and Cesare Pugni travelled to St. Petersburg to stage La Esmeralda for the ballerina Fanny Elssler, who was engaged as guest ballerina by the Imperial Ballet. While in the Imperial capital Perrot was offered the position of Premier Maître de Ballet to begin in the 1850-1851 season, which he accepted. In this position, Perrot recommended to the Court Minister that Pugni accompany him to Russia so that he might serve as the official composer of ballet music to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. Until that time in St. Petersburg, the composition of new ballet music typically fell into the hands of the orchestra's head conductor, who was in this case Konstantin Liadov. A new position was thus created, Ballet Composer of the St. Petersurg Imperial Theatres, for Pugni.
In the winter of 1850, Pugni severed all ties to London and Paris. He arrived in St. Petersburg with English wife Marion Linton and their seven children. By 1860, Pugni was maintaining two households — the first with his English wife, and the second with the Serf woman Daria Petrovna, with whom he fathered eight more children before the end of his life.
In the winter of 1861, Anton Rubinstein hired Pugni to teach composition and counterpoint at the newly established Saint Petersburg Conservatory of Music, a position he held with great acclaim and respect until his death.
During his time as Premier Maître de Ballet to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, Jules Perrot staged many of the works he had originally mounted for Her Majesty's Theatre in London. Unlike the ballet companies of London or Paris, the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres presented evening-length ballet presentations separate from those of opera. As Pugni was the author of nearly all of the music for Perrot's works, the composer expanded many of his scores for the Ballet Master's productions. Among such expanded revivals were La Naïade et le pêcheur (The Naiad and the Fisherman), a revival of Ondine, ou La Naïade in 1851; and Éoline, ou la Dryade in 1858. Many of Pugni's scores featured instrumental cadenzas for the renowned soloists in the Imperial Theatre's orchestra, many of whom were members of the nobility and even of the Imperial family. Aside from their revivals of already-existing works, Pugni and Perrot created several Grand Ballets to acclaim, among them, La Guerre des femmes (The War of the Women) in 1852; Gazelda in 1853; and the grandiose Armida in 1855.
In 1855 Pugni wrote L'Étoile de Grenade (The Star of Grenada), his first ballet for the choreographer Marius Petipa, who had been serving as Jules Perrot's assistant and Premier danseur to the Imperial Theatres since his arrival in Russia in 1847. Petipa was fast becoming a celebrated choreographer in his own right, as he turned to composition more and more.
In 1858 Perrot left Russia, and Pugni found himself in need by both Petipa and Arthur Saint-Léon, who succeeded Perrot as Premier Maître de Ballet to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. The two choreographers, both highly gifted in their art and differing dramatically in their respective approaches to the creation of the Grand ballet, were engaged in a healthy and productive rivalry on the Imperial stage. In spite of the differences between Saint-Léon and Petipa's styles Cesare Pugni composed the music for nearly every one of their works during the 1860s.
Pugni began to become increasingly unreliable as he aged, becoming severely depressed, drinking, gambling and leaving his family to fend for themselves for days at a time. As a result, Petipa found it increasingly difficult to extract music from him, and the quality of his work underwent a marked decline. In his memoirs, Petipa quoted a letter written him by Pugni in 1860: I tearfully ask you to send some money; I am without a sou. The letter also included freshly composed sections for Petipa's upcoming ballet Le Dahlia bleu (The Blue Dahlia). The premiere was approaching, and Petipa had been receiving music from the composer in a piecemeal fashion. It became clear to Petipa that Pugni had put off scoring the more difficult sections and left them to be done last. By the mid 1860s, such situations became commonplace.
In 1862, Pugni composed the music for Petipa's The Pharaoh's Daughter, produced in only 6 weeks for the Italian Prima ballerina Carolina Rosati. The production was so successful that it won for Petipa the position of Deuxieme Maître de Ballet. In 1864, Pugni composed the music for Saint-Léon's The Little Humpbacked Horse, which itself was as successful as The Pharaoh's Daughter. Although he did receive laurels for his score for Petipa's The Pharaoh's Daughter, Pugni's score for The Little Humpbacked Horse caused a sensation with the St. Petersburg balletomanes, as it was considered to be an homage to the traditional music of Russia. The march titled The Peoples of Russia from the last act of this ballet became a favorite of Tsar Alexander II (many of Pugni's marches and entr'actes were thus performed at Imperial balls and diplomatic functions).
In spite of such occasions of inspiration, Pugni nevertheless became increasingly unreliable. Enrico Cecchetti recounted in his memoirs of how Petipa was fond of recounting anecdotes of Pugni in his old age; one such anecdote told of Pugni's many excuses for not delivering music on time: he once told Petipa that his cat had scratched his hand, making him unable to hold his pen. On another occasion, Pugni came to rehearsal without the day's required music, informing Petipa that he had no candles by which to write. When Petipa arranged to have a large box of candles delivered to Pugni's home, the composer told him at the following day's rehearsal that he did not write the required music because he was forced to sell the candles in order to eat. Petipa was even forced to hire someone to watch over the composer to ensure that any required music would be prepared on time. In spite of these incidents, Pugni managed to compose eight new scores between 1865 and 1868 for the Imperial Ballet, though these were mostly short one-act ballets and divertissements.
Saint-Léon was also having difficulty with the unreliable Pugni, and he began to turn to the composer Ludwig Minkus for ballet music. In 1865 Saint-Léon wrote to his friend Charles Nuitter:
| “ | Pugni has nearly died. He was found in the woods 16 versts from the city (St. Petersburg) owing 300 roubles to tradesmen. The Court Minister paid the sum, and a collection from the dancers of the company, who produced 200 roubles, is serving to feed him, his wife, and his eight children, five of whom are very young. He owes 5,800 roubles in all, while for the past twenty years he has been receiving 1,200 francs a month (for Royalties for scores performed in Paris) plus a benefit! | ” |
In 1868, Pugni composed the music for Petipa's colossal grand ballet Le Roi Candaule (King Candaules), which recounted Herodotus's tale of King Candaules of Lydia. This was to be Pugni's last full-length score, though no less celebrated, as it caused a sensation among the balletomanes of the day and proved to be among Petipa's most enduring works.
Unbeknownst to many, Petipa originally made plans to have Pugni compose music for his ballet Don Quixote, to be mounted at the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre in 1869. But Pugni's irresponsibility quickly forced Petipa to reconsider, and instead he turned to Ludwig Minkus (Don Quixote would prove to be one of both Petipa and Minkus' most celebrated and enduring works). In the end, the score for Don Quixote only included one variation composed by Pugni: a waltz composed for the character Kitri in the ballet's final Grand pas de deux.
In late 1869 Pugni pulled himself together to score the music for Petipa's one act ballet Les Deux étoiles (The Two Stars). This score was widely considered to be among his greatest works for the ballet, but it was also to be his last—he died on 26 January [O.S. 14 January] 1870.
Cesare Pugni was buried in the Vyborgskaya Roman Catholic Cemetery of St. Petersburg (the cemetery was completely destroyed in 1939). Pugni died in utter poverty, and at his death his large family was completely destitute.
In honor of the composer, and for a benefit performance for his family, a gala was prepared with excerpts from many of Pugni's works by Petipa in May 1870. Later that year, Petipa mounted a revival of Catarina, premiering on 13 November [O.S. 1 November] 1870, again as a benefit performance for the composer's family. Petipa then presented Pugni's final work, Les Deux étoiles, on 11 February [O.S. 30 January] 1869 for the benefit performance of the Imperial Ballet's Premier danseur Pavel Gerdt. The ballet premiered to great success and was performed by the St. Petersburg ballet on occasion until just before the Russian Revolution of 1917. Petipa also staged the work under the title Les Deux petites étoiles (The Two Little Stars) for the Ballet of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre in 1878. The ballet was re-staged for the company in a new version by the Balletmaster Ivan Clustine in 1897, a production which was retained in the Bolshoi's repertory until 1925.
Many of Cesare Pugni's children went on to become noted artists in their own right. Pugni's sons Albert and Victor played in the orchestra of the St. Petersurg Imperial Theatres throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the former being a noted cellist, and the latter a flautist. Pugni's son Nikolai danced in the corps de ballet of the Imperial Theatres from 1882 until his death in 1896.
There were many noted artists among Pugni's grandchildren and great-grandchildren as well. Three of his granddaughters—Fanny, Constance, and Léontina—performed as danseuses with the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. Léontina also toured Scandinavia with Anna Pavlova's company from 1908-1909 under the name Pouni. Pugni's grandson Ivan Puni (aka Jean Pougny) became a noted avant-garde artist. Pugni's great-grandson, the violinist Michel Astroff, was secretary to Sergei Prokofiev while the composer resided in Paris, and later he worked for various music publishers in France.
Pugni's most distinguished descendant was Alexander Shiryaev (1867–1941)—the son of Pugni's son Victor and a danseuse of the Imperial Ballet's corps de ballet, Natalia Shiryaeva. Alexander Shiryaev went on to become a celebrated danseur, character dancer and Ballet Master of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres and the early Soviet ballet, and his written accounts of the Russian ballet during the late 19th and early 20th centuries are among the most valuable and celebrated of their kind. After the death of Lev Ivanov in 1901, Shiryaev served as assistant to Marius Petipa, and even staged the first Soviet production of The Nutcracker with Fyodor Lopukhov at the Mariinsky Theatre. Shiryaev was among the first persons to ever film ballet dancers—many of these early films were compiled for the documentary Belated premiere (as yet unreleased to DVD or video), and have been used to reconstruct lost dances (among the most celebrated of these reconstructions was Marius Petipa's choreography for the solo Petit Corsaire from the ballet Le Corsaire, set to music by Shiryaev's grandfather Pugni).
Pugni's music began being published as early as 1822 with his Sinfonia in D minor. Many of Pugni's symphonies and concert pieces were published by the Milan based publisher F. Lucca, often for full orchestra. Likely due to the sheer tunefulness of his music, Pugni's early ballet scores were almost all published in piano reduction by both F. Lucca and Gio Ricordi, another music publisher based in Milan.
Many ballets and incidental numbers Pugni wrote for Her Majesty's Theatre in London was published in Piano reduction by the London based music publishers Ch. Ollivier, Chappell & Co., and particularly T. Boosey and Jullien. As Pugni's ballets were staged by various companies throughout Europe—in such cities as Milan, Berlin, and Vienna for example—many other music publishers began distributing his scores, often with supplemental numbers by other composers.
As the copyright of Pugni's music expired, the music publisher Jullien & Co. began publishing a number of his dances from various ballets without giving the composer credit. Often the music would credit the composer as "Composed by Jullien" or as "traditional", typically under such titles as The original mazurka or The Original Galop, for example. Several waltzes, polkas, and various national dances from Pugni's ballets were often published with detailed instructions on how to perform the said dances, and occasionally lithographs from whichever ballet the number was extracted was included as artwork for the frontispiece. As time went on many of these pieces were sold to music publishers all over Europe and the United States.
As Pugni's career took him to Russia, his ballets continued being published in piano reduction. Many St. Petersburg based publishers such as Basil Denotkine, Ch. Stellowsky and Bessell brought out not only Pugni's original full-length ballets but his additional dances for various works and his adaptations of the scores of other composers.
An extensive archive of Cesare Pugni's music is to be found in the archives of the Paris Conservatoire, which is today incorporated in the Department of Music of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The Milan Conservatory holds a substantial collection of Pugni's early compositions. Some manuscripts of the ballets of Perrot are held in the British Library, as well as the Paris Conservatoire.
Many of these ballets, along with most others Pugni composed in London and St. Petersburg were published first in piano reduction. The Bibliothèque nationale de France holds many complete scores of the ballets Pugni composed for Arthur Saint-Léon, including the original orchestral parts for The Little Humpbacked Horse.
The greatest archive of Pugni's original scores is held in archives of the St. Petersburg Central Music Library, which contains nearly every ballet Pugni wrote while in Russia (including revisions to other works created for other theatres abroad). Another archive of Pugni's work is to be found in the Harvard University Library Theatre Collection, which holds the famous Sergeyev Collection.
Saint-Léon's 1863 masterwork The Little Humpbacked Horse—for which Pugni wrote the score—left the active repertory of the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet (the former Imperial Ballet) long ago, and today the work is only presented in a severely emasculated edition by the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet (school of the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet). The school has not performed the work since 1989. Today only a few Russian companies include the work in their active repertory—such as the Mussorgsky Ballet, the Novosibirsk Ballet and the Ballet of the Maly Theatre. These production are derived primarily from Alexander Gorsky's 1912 revival of the ballet for the Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow.
Outside of Russia, only the Universal Ballet Academy of Washington D.C., and the all-male troupe Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo perform excerpts from The Little Humpbacked Horse—the pas de trois called The Ocean and the Pearls and the Danse des fresques animés (Danse of the animated Frescoes).
Although credited to Pugni the music for the Ocean and the Pearls pas de trois is actually by Riccardo Drigo, and is taken from his score for Marius Petipa's 1896 La Perle. The piece was added by Alexander Gorsky to his early 20th century revivals of The Little Humpbacked Horse.
Full-length productions of the Perrot/Pugni La Esmeralda are only included in the repertories of Russian companies. The Mussorgsky Ballet of St. Petersburg regularly perform this work in a production which was staged in 1981 by Nicolai Boyarchikov—director of the Mussorgsky Ballet; and Tatiana Vecheslova—former Prima Ballerina of the Kirov Ballet. For this production Pugni's score—in an edition prepared by Riccardo Drigo dating from 1886 and 1899—was restored with the aid of a répétiteur used by the Imperial Ballet until before the Russian Revolution. In 1994 the company filmed their production of La Esmeralda. In 2005 the film was released onto DVD, with the 3-hour production edited to a little over 55 minutes.
Many companies throughout the world include various excerpts from La Esmeralda: the so-called La Esmeralda Pas de six (the music for this piece actually being by Riccardo Drigo); and the La Esmeralda Pas de Deux.
The La Esmeralda Pas de deux is a popular piece performed by companies all over the world. It includes the famous Tambourine Variation, which is often performed by many Ballerinas in dance competitions. The La Esmeralda Pas de Deux is performed primarily in a version by the choreographer Ben Stevenson, staged in 1982 for the dancers Janie Parker and William Pizzuto's performance at the International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi. Musically the piece is often credited to Pugni and/or Riccardo Drigo.
The piece has its origins in Marius Petipa's 1899 revival of La Esmeralda, staged for the Ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya. For her performance Riccardo Drigo arranged a new Pas d'action. Typical of such pieces from 19th century ballet, the music is a pastiche. The entrée and adage are Drigo's own compositions. The variation danced by Kschessinskaya—today often referred to as the tambourine variation—is taken from the composer Romualdo Marenco's score for Luigi Manzotti's 1876 ballet Sieba. The coda—being the only part of the piece to be by Pugni—is taken from the Marche du Pharaon from his score for Petipa's 1862 ballet The Pharaoh's Daughter. When the danseur of the Kirov Ballet Vakhtang Chabukiani performed in the La Esmeralda Pas de deux in the 1930s, he added music from Pugni's original score as a variation for himself. Today the variation is retained in the piece and remains popular with danseurs.
In 2000, the choreographer Pierre Lacotte mounted a revival of the 1862 Pugni/Petipa ballet The Pharaoh's Daughter for the Bolshoi Ballet. Since the Mariinsky Theatre refused Lacotte access to Pugni's original score, he was perforce required to piece together the music from various sources.
In 2006 Lacotte mounted a new version of the Pugni/Perrot ballet Ondine (also known as La Naïade et le pêcheur) for the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet. For this new version, Lacotte utilized an orchestration of a violin répétiteur from the turn of the 20th century that was used for the Imperial Ballet's production. Although uncredited, the score contained a few numbers added by other composers throughout the late 19th century. Lacotte also made use of numbers taken from Pugni's original edition of the score dating from 1843.
Both works were choreographed by Lacotte "in the style of the epoch", with The Pharaoh's Daughter containing four dances from Petipa's own staging, a few of which were reconstructed from the Stepanov Choreographic Notation from the Sergeyev Collection.
In the west (primarily in North America ) the average balletomane will likely only ever encounter Pugni's Pas de Quatre (revived by Anton Dolin in 1941), originally staged by Perrot in 1845 at Her Majesty's Theatre. It is the most performed work of all of Pugni's output, though the music is usually presented in a reorchestration by Leighton Lucas. The original orchestral parts of Pas de Quatre are today housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Modern productions of the ballet Le Corsaire contain a substantial amount of additional music, which was added by Pugni to the score for Marius Petipa's many revivals of the work. Petipa's productions of Le Corsaire as performed in St. Petersburg credited the score to both Adolphe Adam and Pugni, in light of this significant additional material. The Bolshoi Ballet's 2007 production restores much of Pugni's additional music.
On 11 May 2007 the Balletto di Teatro dell'Opera di Roma of Rome, Italy presented a revival of Jules Perrot and Cesare Pugni's 1846 ballet Catarina, ou La Fille du Bandit. The production was staged in two acts by the choreographer Fredy Franzutti with the ballerina Gaia Straccamore in the title role.
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