Tsar Kandavl or Le Roi Candaule

Important Ballets & *Revivals of Marius Petipa

*Paquita (1847, *1881)
*Le Corsaire (1858, 1863, 1868, 1885, 1899)
The Pharaoh's Daughter (1862, *1885, *1898)
Le Roi Candaule (1868, *1891, *1903)
Don Quixote (1869, *1871)
La Bayadère (1877, *1900)
*Giselle (1884, 1899, 1903)
*Coppélia (1884)
*La fille mal gardée (1885)
*La Esmeralda (1886, 1899)
The Talisman (1889)
The Sleeping Beauty (1890)
The Nutcracker (1892)
Cinderella (1893)
The Awakening of Flora (1894)
*Swan Lake (1895)
*The Little Humpbacked Horse (1895)
Raymonda (1898)
The Seasons (1900)
Harlequinade (1900)

Tsar Kandavl; AKA Le Roi Candaule (King Cadaules) is a Grand ballet in 4 Acts-6 Scenes, with choreography by Marius Petipa, and music by Cesare Pugni. Libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges, based on the history of King Candaules the Ruler of Lydia, as described by Herodotus in his Histories. From this work is derived the famous Diane and Actéon Pas de Deux (AKA the Diana and Acteon Pas de Deux).

First presented by the Imperial Ballet on October 17/29 (Julian/Gregorian calendar dates), 1868 at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, St. Petersburg, Russia. Principal Dancers - Henriette D'or (as Queen Nisia), Felix Kschessinsky as (King Candaules/Tsar Candavl), Lev Ivanov (as Gyges), and Klavdia Kantsyreva (as Claytia)

Contents

Revivals/Restagings

Notes

The Diane and Actéon Pas de Deux

Another of the celebrated passages of Le Roi Canadule was the divertissement known as the Pas de Diane, or Les Amours de Diane, from the Act IV-Scene 2 Grand divertissement.

It is a common misconception that the famous Diane and Actéon Pas de Deux—which was fashioned from this Pas de Diane—was originally created for Petipa's 1886 revival of Jules Perrot's La Esmeralda. In modern times the Diane and Actéon Pas de Deux has become a popular piece in the repertory of ballet companies as well as on the ballet competition circuit, and through this the misconception of its origins has spread from source to source.

For his revival of Le Roi Candaule in 1903, Petipa completely revised much of his choreography for many of the famous pas from the ballet. Among the pieces Petipa revised was the Pas de Diane. Not only did Petipa create new choreography for the piece, he also called upon the composer Riccardo Drigo to revise Cesare Pugni's original music.

In Petipa's version, the Pas de Diane was a Pas de caractère based on characters taken from Greek mythology. The original pas consisted of the characters Diana (or Artemis) the virgin goddess of the hunt, Endymion the mythological hunter, a Satyr, and eight nymphs. Petipa fashioned the Pas de Diane as a classical Pas de Trois - consisting of a short Entrée, a Grand Adagio for the three soloists and the eight nymphs (female members of the corps de ballet), a dance for the eight nymphs and the Satyr, variations for Diane and Endymion, and a Grand Coda.

In 1931 the great Russian pedagogue Agrippina Vaganova resurrected Petipa's 1903 version of the Pas de Diane, which she interpolated into her 1932 revival of Petipa's version of La Esmeralda for the Kirov Ballet (the former Imperial Ballet). For reasons not fully understood, in Vaganova's version the character of Endymion was changed to Actéon - a change that is rather incorrect with regards to the actual myth and Petipa's original scheme (in the myth Actéon looks upon Diane's virgin body while she is bathing with her nymphs. As punishment for this, Diane takes away his powers of speech. She punishes him further by adding the condition that should he attempt to speak, he shall be turned into a deer. Upon hearing the calls of his own hunting party, he does attempt speech, and is thus transformed. His dogs then attack and kill him).

Vaganova re-fashioned Petipa's choreography as a Pas de Deux, and increased the number of nymphs from eight to twelve. The dancers Galina Ulanova and Vakhtang Chabukiani were the first to perform Vaganova's new version of the piece, which was retitled as the Diane and Actéon Pas de Deux. Today Vaganova's Diane and Actéon Pas de Deux is a major repertory staple with ballet companies all over the world (outside of Russia the piece is most often performed simply as a Pas de Deux, without the corps de ballet), and is the only surviving piece from the ballet Tsar Kandavl/Le Roi Candaule in performance.

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