Swan Lake

In 1875 the directorate of the Imperial Theatres approached Tchaikovsky with an unusual proposal: a ballet. Until then no composer of standing had written for the genre in Russia, Adam and Delibes excepted, and few expected him to accept. The scenario by Begichev and Geltser drew on folk tales of enchanted girls turned into swans. Four years earlier Tchaikovsky had written a short domestic piece of the same name to amuse his nephews, thought to be the source of the ballet's leitmotif; material from his destroyed opera Undina also went into the score.