''The Firebird'' (; ) is a
ballet
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...
and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...
. It was written for the 1910 Paris season of
Sergei Diaghilev's
Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Russian Revolution, Revolution ...
company; the original choreography was by
Michel Fokine, who collaborated with
Alexandre Benois and others on a scenario based on the Russian fairy tales of the
Firebird and the blessing and curse it possesses for its owner. It was first performed at the
Opéra de Paris on 25 June 1910 and was an immediate success, catapulting Stravinsky to international fame and leading to future Diaghilev–Stravinsky collaborations including ''
Petrushka'' (1911) and ''
The Rite of Spring
''The Rite of Spring'' () is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky ...
'' (1913).
''The Firebird'' mortal and supernatural elements are distinguished with a system of
leitmotif
A leitmotif or () is a "short, recurring musical phrase" associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical concepts of ''idée fixe'' or ''motto-theme''. The spelling ''leitmotif'' is a partial angliciz ...
s placed in the harmony dubbed "leit-harmony". Stravinsky intentionally used many specialist techniques in the orchestra, including ''
ponticello'', ''
col legno'', ''
flautando'', ''
glissando
In music, a glissando (; plural: ''glissandi'', abbreviated ''gliss.'') is a wikt:glide, glide from one pitch (music), pitch to another (). It is an Italianized Musical terminology, musical term derived from the French ''glisser'', "to glide". In ...
'', and
flutter-tonguing. Set in the evil immortal
Koschei's castle, the ballet follows
Prince Ivan, who battles Koschei with the help of the magical Firebird.
Stravinsky later created three concert suites based on the work: in 1911, ending with the "Infernal Dance"; in 1919, which remains the most popular today; and in 1945, featuring significant reorchestration and structural changes. Other choreographers have staged the work with Fokine's original choreography or created entirely new productions using the music, some with new settings or themes. Many recordings of the suites have been made; the first was released in 1928, using the 1911 suite. A film version of the popular
Sadler's Wells Ballet production, which revived Fokine's original choreography, was produced in 1959.
History
Background
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...
began studying composition with
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1902. He completed several works during his time as a student, including his first performed work,
Pastorale (1907), and his first published work, the
Symphony in E-flat (1907), which the composer categorized
Opus 1. In February 1909, a performance of his ''
Scherzo fantastique
''Scherzo fantastique'', op. 3, composed in 1908, is the second purely orchestral work by Igor Stravinsky (preceded by the Symphony in E-flat (Stravinsky), Symphony in E-flat op.1). Despite the composer's later description of the work as "a piece ...
'' and ''
Feu d'artifice'' in Saint Petersburg was attended by the
impresario
An impresario (from Italian ''impresa'', 'an enterprise or undertaking') is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, Play (theatre), plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film producer, film or ...
Sergei Diaghilev, who was intrigued by the vividness of Stravinsky's works.
Diaghilev founded the art magazine ''
Mir iskusstva'' in 1898, but after it ended publication in 1904, he turned towards Paris for artistic opportunities rather than his native Russia. In 1907, Diaghilev presented a five-concert series of Russian music at the
Paris Opera
The Paris Opera ( ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be kn ...
; the next year, he staged the Paris premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov's version of ''
Boris Godunov''. By 1909, Diaghilev had connected with
Michel Fokine,
Léon Bakst, and
Alexandre Benois, and gained enough money to start his independent ballet company, the
Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Russian Revolution, Revolution ...
. Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky to orchestrate music by
Chopin for the ballet ''
Les Sylphides'', and the composer was finished by March 1909.
Fokine was a renowned dancer, receiving first prize in his class upon graduation from the Imperial Theatre School in 1898; he subsequently entered the
Mariinsky Ballet as a soloist and was promoted to lead dancer of the company in 1904. Fokine was dissatisfied with the ballet tradition of glamorous appeals to the audience and interruptions from viewers; he felt that dramatic dance should be strictly displayed with no interruption of illusion, and that the music should be closely connected to the theme. His 1907 ballets ''The Dying Swan'' and ''Les Sylphides'' were very successful and established Fokine as a competitor to other prominent choreographers. In 1908, Benois, a member of Diaghilev's ''Mir iskusstva'' circle and friend of Fokine's, arranged for the dancer to prepare a repertoire for the Ballets Russes' 1909 season as the company's first lead choreographer; the season was very successful, and Diaghilev began organizing plans for the 1910 season soon after.
Conception
As the Ballets Russes faced financial issues, Diaghilev wanted a new ballet with distinctly Russian music and design, something that had recently become popular with French and other Western audiences (likely due to the glamorous charm of
The Five's music). Fokine unofficially led a committee of artists to devise the scenario of this new ballet, including himself, Benois, the composer
Nikolai Tcherepnin, and the painter
Aleksandr Golovin. Benois recalled that Pyotr Petrovich Potyomkin, a poet and ballet enthusiast in Diaghilev's circle, proposed the subject of the
Firebird to the artists, citing the 1844 poem "A Winter's Journey" by
Yakov Polonsky that includes the lines:
And in my dreams I see myself on a wolf's back
Riding along a forest path
To do battle with a sorcerer-tsar
In that land where a princess sits under lock and key,
Pining behind massive walls.
There gardens surround a palace all of glass;
There Firebirds sing by night
And peck at golden fruit.
The committee drew from several books of Russian fairy tales, in particular
Alexander Afanasyev's collection and Pyotr Pavlovich Yershov's ''
The Little Humpbacked Horse''. The immortal king Koschei) has different spellings owing to
romanization
In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...
conventions, including Kastchei, Kastcheï, Kashchei, and Koshchey. and the captive Princess were incorporated from a
Muscovite anthology of stories, which also helped determine the Firebird's role in the story. Fokine drew on the stark contrast between good and evil in Russian fairy tales while developing the ballet's characters. The choreographer blended fantasy and reality to create the scenario, a trope of
romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...
found in many of Fokine's folkish ballets. Originally, Tcherepnin was to compose the music, as he had previously worked on ''
Le Pavillon d'Armide'' with Fokine and Benois, but he withdrew from the project. In September1909, Diaghilev asked
Anatoly Lyadov to compose the ballet; Lyadov expressed interest in the production, but took too long to meet the 1910 season's deadline. After considering
Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov ( – 21 March 1936) was a Russian composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Russian Romantic period. He was director of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory between 1905 and 1928 and was instrumental i ...
and
Nikolay Sokolov, Diaghilev asked Stravinsky to compose the score upon encouragement from Tcherepnin and
Boris Asafyev.
Stravinsky began work in October or November1909, traveling to the Rimsky-Korsakov household with
Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov, the son of Stravinsky's teacher and dedicatee of ''The Firebird'' score. Because Stravinsky began work before Diaghilev officially commissioned him, the composer's sketches did not align with the scenario; the full story became known to him when he met with Fokine in December and received the ballet's planned structure. Fokine ensured the creation of the ballet was an equal effort between the producers and the composer, working closely with Stravinsky while developing the choreography. While the composer worked, Diaghilev organized private performances of the piano score for the press. The French critic Robert Brussel, a friend of Diaghilev's, wrote: "By the end of the first scene, I was conquered: by the last, I was lost in admiration. The manuscript on the music-rest, scored over with fine pencillings, revealed a masterpiece."
Development

Despite later lamenting the "descriptive music of a kind I did not want to write", Stravinsky finished ''The Firebird'' in about six months, and had it fully orchestrated by mid-May 1910. Stravinsky arrived in Paris around the beginning of June to attend the premiere of his first stage work; it was his first visit to Paris.
Rehearsals began in
Ekaterininsky Hall, and Stravinsky attended every rehearsal to help with the music, often explaining the complicated rhythms to the dancers.
Tamara Karsavina, who originated the titular Firebird role, later recalled, "Often he came early to the theatre before a rehearsal began in order to play for me over and over again some particularly difficult passage." Stravinsky also worked closely with
Gabriel Pierné, who conducted the premiere with the
Colonne Orchestra, to "explain the music...
ut the musiciansfound it no less bewildering than did the dancers". Two dress rehearsals were held to accommodate the dancers, many of whom missed their entrances due to the unexpected changes in the music, "which sounded quite different when played by the orchestra from what it had sounded like when played on a piano".
When the company arrived in Paris, the ballet was not finished, causing Fokine to extend rehearsals; he petitioned Diaghilev to postpone the premiere, but the impresario declined, fearing public disappointment. The Ballets Russes season began on 4 June 1910 with stagings of Schumann's ''
Carnaval'', Rimsky-Korsakov's ''
Scheherazade
Scheherazade () is a major character and the storyteller in the frame story, frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the ''One Thousand and One Nights''.
Name
According to modern scholarship, the name ''Scheherazade ...
'', and short productions from the previous season.
Fokine's style of dance made great use of interpretive movement; he used ideas of expressiveness, naturalism, vitality, and stylistic consistency. The choreographer employed many forms of dance in ''The Firebird''. The titular Firebird danced classically, Koschei and his subjects in a more violent and grotesque manner, and the Princesses in a looser, gentler way. The role of the Firebird differed from that of traditional ballerinas; female dancers often danced princesses, swans, and lovers, but the Firebird was a mysterious and abstract idea, represented as a magical force rather than a person. Her choreography featured exaggerated classical steps, with deep bending at the waist;
Fokine wanted her to be "powerful, hard to manage, and rebellious" rather than graceful. This new kind of role for a female character was revolutionary for the ballet scene.
Premiere and reception

Excitement for the premiere was great, particularly in Diaghilev's circle of ''
Mir iskusstva'' collaborators. The sculptor , who helped develop the scenario, wrote to Golovin on 16 June, "I'm staying till Sunday; I must see ''The Firebird''. I have seen your dazzling drawings and costumes. I like Stravinsky's music in the orchestra and the dances tremendously. I think the whole thing together with your sets will look spectacular.
Serov has also put off his departure because of this ballet". Diaghilev remarked of Stravinsky during rehearsals, "Mark him well, he is a man on the eve of celebrity".
''The Firebird'' premiered at the
Palais Garnier
The (, Garnier Palace), also known as (, Garnier Opera), is a historic 1,979-seatBeauvert 1996, p. 102. opera house at the Place de l'Opéra in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was built for the Paris Opera from 1861 to 1875 at the ...
on 25 June 1910, and was very well-received. The cast starred Karsavina as the Firebird, Fokine as Prince Ivan, as the youngest princess, and Alexis Bulgakov as Koschei. Karsavina later told an interviewer, "With every performance, success went ''
crescendo''". Critics praised the ballet for the unity of the decor, choreography, and music. "The old-gold vermiculation of the fantastic back-cloth seems to have been invented to a formula identical with that of the shimmering web of the orchestra", wrote
Henri Ghéon in ''
Nouvelle revue française
''La Nouvelle Revue Française'' (; "The New French Review") is a literary magazine based in France. In France, it is often referred to as the ''NRF''.
History and profile
The magazine was founded in 1909 by a group of intellectuals including And ...
''; he called the ballet "the most exquisite marvel of equilibrium" and added that Stravinsky was a "delicious musician". Fokine's choreography was seen as a triumph of his creative genius; the natural miming and many styles of dance displayed were popular with audiences.
Many critics praised Stravinsky's alignment with Russian nationalist music, one saying, "
travinsky isthe only one who has achieved more than mere attempts to promote Russia's true musical spirit and style".
Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi hailed the young composer as the legitimate heir to
The Mighty Handful. Russian audiences viewed the work less favorably, and the Russian premiere was not well-received; according to a reviewer in ''
Apollon'', "Many deserted the Hall of Nobles during the performance of this suite." A fellow Rimsky-Korsakov pupil,
Jāzeps Vītols, wrote that "Stravinsky, it seems, has forgotten the concept of pleasure in sound...
isdissonances unfortunately quickly become wearying, because there are no ideas hidden behind them".
Nikolai Myaskovsky reviewed the piano reduction of the full ballet in October 1911 and wrote, "What a wealth of invention, how much intelligence, temperament, talent, what a remarkable, what a rare piece of work this is".
Stravinsky recalled that after the premiere and subsequent performances, he met many figures in the Paris art scene, including
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...
,
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt (; born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including by Alexandre Dumas fils, ...
,
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau ( , ; ; 5 July 1889 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th-c ...
,
Maurice Ravel
Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...
,
André Gide, and
Princesse Edmond de Polignac.
Claude Debussy
Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...
was brought on stage after the premiere, and he invited Stravinsky to dinner, beginning a lifelong friendship between the two composers. According to Sergei Bertensson,
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and Conducting, conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a compos ...
said of the music: "Great God! What a work of genius this is! This is true Russia!" Debussy later said of Stravinsky's score, "What do you expect? One has to start somewhere."
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; ; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer and conductor best known for his Tone poems (Strauss), tone poems and List of operas by Richard Strauss, operas. Considered a leading composer of the late Roman ...
told the composer in private that he had made a "mistake" in beginning the piece ''
pianissimo
In music, the dynamics of a piece are the variation in loudness between note (music), notes or phrase (music), phrases. Dynamics are indicated by specific musical notation, often in some detail. However, dynamics markings require interpretation ...
'' instead of astonishing the public with a "sudden crash". Shortly after he summed up to the press his experience of hearing ''The Firebird'' for the first time by saying, "it's always interesting to hear one's imitators".
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''. , group=n ( – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who l ...
, who first heard the piano reduction at a gathering, told Stravinsky, "there was no music in
he ballet's introductionand if there was any, it was from ''
Sadko''".
In his 1962 autobiography, Stravinsky credited much of the production's success to Golovin's set and Diaghilev's collaborators; he wrote that Fokine's choreography "always seemed to me to be complicated and overburdened with plastic detail, so that the artists felt, and still feel now, great difficulty in co-ordinating their steps and gestures with the music". The ballet's success secured Stravinsky's position as Diaghilev's star composer, and there were immediate talks of a sequel, leading to the composition of ''
Petrushka'' and ''
The Rite of Spring
''The Rite of Spring'' () is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky ...
''.
Subsequent productions
After the success of the premiere, Diaghilev announced an expansion of performances until 7 July 1910, the last of which Stravinsky took his family to from their home in
Ustilug. Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov quickly traveled to Paris to see the expanded run, and he later praised the production in a letter to his mother. Following the initial run,
Alexander Siloti conducted the Russian premiere on 23 October, performing an early draft of the 1911 suite.The debut London season of the Ballets Russes took place in 1912 at the
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a theatre in Covent Garden, central London. The building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. The ROH is the main home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orch ...
. The third ballet on the program was ''The Firebird'', which was well-received.
Osbert Sitwell wrote: "Never until that evening had I heard Stravinsky's name; but as the ballet developed, it was impossible to mistake the genius of the composer, or of the artist who had designed the setting."
The Ballets Russes revived the production in 1926 with new settings and costumes by
Natalia Goncharova, using Fokine's original choreography. The revival was presented at the
Lyceum Theatre in London.
In 1916, the first productions of ''The Firebird'' and ''Petrushka'' on the
Iberian peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...
took place; the Ballets Russes returned in 1921 for short season in
Madrid
Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
. Several companies presented their own choreographies and designs of ''The Firebird'' from 1927 to 1933, including the
Berlin State Opera, the
Royal Swedish Ballet
The Royal Swedish Ballet is one of the oldest ballet companies in Europe. Based in Stockholm, Sweden, Gustav III of Sweden, King Gustav III founded the ballet in 1773 as a part of his national cultural project in response to the French and Italian ...
, the
Royal Danish Ballet, and the
Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb.
In 1935 and 1940,
Wassily de Basil's
Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo revived the Ballets Russes production with Fokine's choreography and Goncharova's designs.
Many later revivals modeled their choreography after Fokine's, including
Adolph Bolm's 1945 production at the
Ballet Theatre and
Serge Lifar's 1954
Paris Opera Ballet
The Paris Opera Ballet () is a French ballet company that is an integral part of the Paris Opera. It is the oldest national ballet company, and many European and international ballet companies can trace their origins to it. It is still regarded a ...
production. Serge Grigoriev and
Lubov Tchernicheva's 1954
Sadler's Wells Ballet staging with Fokine's choreography is considered one of the most important and authentic revivals; Grigoriev and Tchernicheva worked for Diaghilev during the initial run, and the lead dancer,
Margot Fonteyn
Dame Margaret Evelyn de Arias Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, DBE ( Hookham; 18 May 191921 February 1991), known by the stage name Margot Fonteyn (), was an English ballerina. She spent her entire career as a dancer with th ...
, was coached by Karsavina. The Sadler's Wells staging also used Goncharova's 1926 designs. A film version of the revival was made in 1959.
New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company's fir ...
's first big hit as a company after their founding in 1948 was its staging of ''The Firebird'' the following year, with
Maria Tallchief
Maria Tallchief, born Elizabeth Marie Tall Chief ( "Two-Standards"; Osage language, Osage family name: , Osage script: ; January 24, 1925 – April 11, 2013), was an Osage Tribe, Osage and American ballerina. She was America's first major p ...
as the Firebird, choreography by
George Balanchine
George Balanchine (;
Various sources:
*
*
*
* born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze;, Romanization of Georgian, : April 30, 1983) was a Georgian-American ballet choreographer, recognized as one of the most influential choreographers ...
, and scenery and costumes by
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; – 28 March 1985) was a Russian and French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with the School of Paris, École de Paris, as well as several major art movement, artistic styles and created ...
.
Balanchine placed a heavy emphasis on the dancing rather than Stravinsky's score, establishing Tallchief as one of the first celebrity American-born and -trained ballerinas. Balanchine revised it in 1970 with
Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins (born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz; October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television.
Among his nu ...
, the latter of whom choreographed Koschei and his subjects' dance. The young
Gelsey Kirkland danced the title role with a new costume inspired by Chagall's sets. New York City Ballet's production remains the most well-known and longest-lived revival in the United States.
Maurice Béjart
Maurice Béjart (; 1 January 1927 – 22 November 2007) was a French dancer, choreographer and Theatre director, opera director who ran the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland. He developed a popular expressionistic form of modern ballet, tac ...
's 1971 production differed from the traditional themes of the ballet; it featured a male Firebird, representative of the spirit of revolution, leading an all-male group of
partisans clad in blue tunics and
dungarees through political turmoil.
After the Firebird, dressed in a red leotard, dies in battle, he "rises from the ashes and lives again", as Béjart said in an interview for ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
''. In 1970,
John Neumeier devised a
science-fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, sp ...
production of the ballet set in a
futuristic world but retaining the original plot. In the initial
Oper Frankfurt production, Koschei is a large glass
robot
A robot is a machine—especially one Computer program, programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions Automation, automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the robot control, co ...
with
CCTV
Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signa ...
eyes; the Firebird, wearing a white
space suit, defeats him by destroying a specific
valve
A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or Slurry, slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically Pip ...
in his system. Neumeier was praised by the critic Oleg Kerensky for giving the ballet "new life" and creating a fascinating effect for the audience "which the original Fokine-Golovine
'sic''">sic.html" ;"title="'sic">'sic''production must have had in Paris sixty years ago". Many other choreographers have staged the work with Fokine's original choreography or created entirely new productions using the music. Stagings with new choreography include John Cranko's 1964 production with the Stuttgart Ballet, Glen Tetley's 1981 staging with the
Royal Danish Ballet,
John Taras's 1982
Caribbean
The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...
-set rendition with the
Dance Theatre of Harlem,
Christopher Wheeldon's 1999 production with the
Boston Ballet,
Krzysztof Pastor's 1999 version with the
West Australian Ballet, and
Alexei Ratmansky
Alexei Osipovich Ratmansky (, born August 27, 1968) is a Russian-Ukrainian-American choreographer and former ballet dancer. From 2004 to 2008 he was the director of the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet. He left Russia in 2008. In 2009 he was appointed the ar ...
's 2012 production with the
American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre (ABT) is a classical ballet company based in New York City. Founded in 1939 by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant. Through 2019, it had an annual eight-week season at the Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center) in the spr ...
.
Legacy
Critics praised the music of ''The Firebird'' emotional character.
Cyril W. Beaumont wrote that the work "is a supreme example of how music, although having no meaning in itself, can, particularly with a programme hint of its intention, evoke a mood appropriate to the ballet concerned."
Robert Craft considered the music "as literal as opera", referring to the "mimetic specificity" with which the music follows the story, a trait Stravinsky later disliked and apologized for. The composer wrote that ''The Firebird'' became a centerpiece in his career; his conducting debut was a ballet performance of ''The Firebird'' in 1915, and he said that he performed it "nearly a thousand times" more.
Fokine's revolutionary Firebird character was part of an effort to combine new ideas with classical ballet, showing his wide-ranging abilities as a choreographer. He later described his style as a diversion from the "conventional system of
gesticulation" and a move towards natural expression through movement. The wide resources and experienced artists that Fokine accessed allowed him to create massive productions like ''The Firebird''. Each character or group had their own unique choreography, creating complex scenes like the "Infernal Dance", where the Firebird enchants Koschei's subjects but they all dance differently. Dance critic Alastair Macaulay called this the "most complex choreography that had ever been attempted in ballet" at the time.
Music
Throughout the score, Stravinsky used
leitmotif
A leitmotif or () is a "short, recurring musical phrase" associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical concepts of ''idée fixe'' or ''motto-theme''. The spelling ''leitmotif'' is a partial angliciz ...
s (short, recurring musical phrases associated with a particular person, place, or thing) placed in the
harmony
In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...
, a system he later dubbed "leit-harmony". The idea of leit-harmony was likely introduced to the composer through Rimsky-Korsakov's operas ''
The Golden Cockerel'' (1907) and ''
Kashchey the Deathless'' (1902). In these works, mortal elements were associated with the
diatonic scale
In music theory a diatonic scale is a heptatonic scale, heptatonic (seven-note) scale that includes five whole steps (whole tones) and two half steps (semitones) in each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by eith ...
s while supernatural elements were associated with the
chromatic scale. For example, Stravinsky describes Koschei's leit-harmony as consisting of "Magic Thirds"; the harmony begins with a major or minor third, and the lower voice ascends a
tritone
In music theory, the tritone is defined as a interval (music), musical interval spanning three adjacent Major second, whole tones (six semitones). For instance, the interval from F up to the B above it (in short, F–B) is a tritone as it can be ...
while the higher voice descends a
half step. The title character's leit-harmony uses a chromatic descent of the first four notes of the introduction, then reversing those notes, giving the music an "iridescent sheen", as Eric Walter White described it.
Stravinsky wrote that ''The Firebird'' may be the first appearance of "metrical irregularity" in his music. The passage is marked , with barlines dividing measures into sets of one and two. White wrote that the composer's earlier works made use of consistent musical pulses, "which was to be disturbed as little as possible by ''
tempo rubato''". Stravinsky remarked that he composed ''The Firebird'' in "revolt against Rimsky", and that he "tried to surpass him with ''
ponticello'', ''
col legno'', ''
flautando'', ''
glissando
In music, a glissando (; plural: ''glissandi'', abbreviated ''gliss.'') is a wikt:glide, glide from one pitch (music), pitch to another (). It is an Italianized Musical terminology, musical term derived from the French ''glisser'', "to glide". In ...
'', and
fluttertongue effects".
A performance of the full ballet lasts about 45 minutes.
Instrumentation
The work is scored for a large orchestra with the following instrumentation:
*
Woodwinds
** 2
piccolos (2nd doubles 3rd flute)
** 2
flutes
The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...
** 3 oboes
**
English horn
The cor anglais (, or original ; plural: ''cors anglais''), or English horn (mainly North America), is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, making it essentially ...
** 3 clarinets in A (3rd doubles
clarinet in D)
**
bass clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common Soprano clarinet, soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays no ...
in B
** 3 bassoons (3rd doubles 2nd
contrabassoon)
** contrabassoon
*
Brass
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...
** 4
horns in F
** 3 trumpets in A
** 3 trombones
** tuba
** 3 onstage trumpets
** 2 onstage tenor
Wagner tubas
** 2 onstage bass Wagner tubas
* Percussion
**
bass drum
The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter usually greater than its depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. The head ...
**
cymbal
A cymbal is a common percussion instrument. Often used in pairs, cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys. The majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sou ...
s
**
triangle
A triangle is a polygon with three corners and three sides, one of the basic shapes in geometry. The corners, also called ''vertices'', are zero-dimensional points while the sides connecting them, also called ''edges'', are one-dimension ...
**
tambourine
The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, thoug ...
**
tamtam
The tamtam, sometimes spelled tam-tam, is a type of Gong#Chau gong (tam-tam), gong.
TamTam, Tam-Tam, tamtam, or tam-tam may also refer to:
* Tam-Tam (album), ''Tam-Tam'' (album), a 1983 album by Amanda Lear
* Tam Tam (Samurai Shodown), Tam Tam (' ...
**
glockenspiel
The glockenspiel ( ; or , : bells and : play) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a Musical keyboard, keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the v ...
**
xylophone
** piano
**
celesta
The celesta () or celeste (), also called a bell-piano, is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. It looks similar to an upright piano (four- or five-octave), albeit with smaller keys and a much smaller cabinet, or a large wooden music ...
**
timpani
Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...
*
Strings
** 3
harp
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or ...
s
** first violins
** second violins
** violas
** cellos
** double basses
Stravinsky described the orchestra as "wastefully large", but White opined that the orchestration allowed him to use a variety of effects, including horn and trombone glissandi borrowed from Rimsky-Korsakov's parts of ''
Mlada'' (1872).
Structure
Music and plot
''The Firebird'' opens with a slow introduction describing Koschei's enchanted garden, underlined by the low strings presenting the basis of the Firebird's leit-harmony.
In the garden are Koschei's enemies petrified into statues. Crescendo and decrescendo phrases in the strings and woodwinds indicate the entrance of the Firebird, being pursued by Prince Ivan. The Firebird's capture by Ivan is depicted with ''sforzando'' chords in the horns, and exotic melodies in the oboe, English horn, and viola play as she begs to be released. After the Firebird is freed, Ivan takes one of her feathers, and thirteen enchanted princesses (all captives of Koschei) enter the garden to play a catching game. Ivan introduces himself to the youngest princess, with whom he has fallen in love, and they perform a slow
khorovod. The melody for the khorovod is taken from a Russian folk song that Rimsky-Korsakov used in his Sinfonietta on Russian Themes (1879).
Offstage trumpets call the princesses back into the palace, but when Ivan pursues them, bells ring out and Koschei appears in front of the gates, signaled by roars in the timpani and bass drum.
Before Koschei can turn Ivan into stone, the prince summons the Firebird with the feather, and she enchants Koschei and his subjects and begins the famous "Infernal Dance". Another Rimsky-Korsakov reference, the melody is borrowed from Rimsky-Korsakov's parts of ''Mlada'', adding syncopation and startling strikes throughout the theme.
As the dance winds down with very loud brass glissandos, Koschei and his subjects fall asleep from exhaustion. The bassoon introduces the Firebird's tranquil lullaby. Ivan is instructed to destroy the egg that holds Koschei's soul. The music jostles around as Ivan tosses the egg from hand to hand.
When Ivan crushes the egg, Koschei dies and the scene is surrounded in "Profound Darkness" while his subjects and enemies are freed from their enchantments. The finale opens with a solo horn announcing the break of dawn, another theme borrowed from Rimsky-Korsakov. The theme grows in the orchestra, building into a triumphant celebration among the freed subjects ending in a brass fanfare.
Suites
Shortly after the completion of ''The Firebird'', Stravinsky wrote a piano solo reduction of the whole ballet. The composer later arranged three suites for concert performance, dated 1911, 1919, and 1945.
1911 suite
# Introduction – Koschei's Enchanted Garden – Dance of the Firebird
# Supplication of the Firebird
# The Princesses' Game with Golden Apples
# The Princesses' Khorovod
# Infernal Dance of all Koschei's Subjects
The first suite, titled "", was composed in 1911 and published by
P. Jurgenson the following year. The instrumentation is essentially the same as that of the ballet. The score was printed from the same plates; only the new endings for the movements were newly engraved. A performance of the 1911 suite lasts about 21 minutes.
1919 suite
# Introduction
# The Firebird and its Dance
# Variation of the Firebird
# The Princesses' Khorovod (Rondo)
# Infernal Dance of King Kashchei
# Lullaby
# Finale
This suite was composed in
Morges
Morges (; , Plurale tantum, plural, probably Ablative (Latin), ablative, else dative; ) is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Switzerland, Swiss Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud and the seat of the Morges District, distri ...
, Switzerland, for a smaller orchestra. Walsh alleged the suite was composed to re-copyright the work, as Stravinsky sold the new suite to his publisher J. & W. Chester, despite the original ballet still being in copyright. The score contained many errors; Stravinsky wrote in 1952 that "the parts of the 1919 version were in such poor condition and so full of mistakes". Regardless, the 1919 suite remains the most popular today.
A performance of the 1919 suite lasts about 26 minutes.
1945 suite
# Introduction – Prelude and Dance of the Firebird – Variations (Firebird)
# Pantomime I
# Pas de deux: Firebird and Ivan Tsarevich
# Pantomime II
# Scherzo: Dance of the Princesses
# Pantomime III
# Rondo (Khorovod)
# Infernal Dance
# Lullaby (Firebird)
# Final Hymn
In 1945, shortly before he acquired American citizenship, Stravinsky was contacted by
Leeds Music with a proposal to revise the orchestration of his first three ballets to recopyright them in the United States. The composer agreed and fashioned a new suite based on the 1919 version, adding to it and reorchestrating several minutes of the pantomimes from the original score. The only instrumentation change was the addition of a snare drum. A performance of the 1945 suite lasts about 28 minutes.
Recordings
Stravinsky received several commissions to transcribe his works for
player piano
A player piano is a self-playing piano with a pneumatic or electromechanical mechanism that operates the piano action using perforated paper or metallic rolls. Modern versions use MIDI. The player piano gained popularity as mass-produced home ...
s, some from the London
Aeolian Company and some from the Paris Pleyel Company. In 1928, the Aeolian Company published an "Audiographic" piano roll of ''The Firebird'', containing both the piano reduction and comments on the work by Stravinsky. The composer identified many of the leit-harmonies in the opening comments of the roll, providing an invaluable resource for information on the ballet.
The first orchestral recording of ''The Firebird'' was released by
in 1928 with Stravinsky conducting
L'Orchestre des Concerts Straram.
The
78 rpm record consisted of the 1911 suite with the Lullaby and Finale from the 1919 suite, as well as a recording of ''
The Rite of Spring
''The Rite of Spring'' () is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky ...
''.
In 1933, Stravinsky and the violinist
Samuel Dushkin recorded a reduction of the "Scherzo" and "Lullaby" for
His Master's Voice
His Master's Voice is an entertainment trademark featuring a dog named Nipper, curiously peering into the horn of a wind-up gramophone. Painted by Francis Barraud in 1898, the image has since become a global symbol used across consumer elect ...
. Stravinsky recorded the 1945 suite with the
Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York in 1946, and the complete ballet with the
Columbia Symphony Orchestra in 1961. A film version of the Sadler's Wells Ballet revival was made in 1959, with Margot Fonteyn in the lead role. A production by the
Dance Theater of Harlem with
Stephanie Dabney in the lead was filmed for television in 1982.
Notes and references
Notes
Citations
Sources
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Firebird, The
Ballets by Michel Fokine
Ballets by Igor Stravinsky
Ballets designed by Léon Bakst
1910 ballets
Ballets Russes productions
1910 compositions
Orchestral suites
Ballets designed by Marc Chagall
Ballets by George Balanchine
Ballets by Jerome Robbins
Ballets designed by Barbara Karinska
Compositions that use extended techniques
Music based on European myths and legends
New York City Ballet repertory
Stefan Zweig Collection
Works about legendary creatures
Russian ballet
Compositions using folk songs