Riccardo Drigo
Drigo is equally noted for his original full-length compositions for the ballet as well as his large catalog of supplemental music written ad hoc for insertion into already-existing works.
His father eventually agreed to allow Drigo to attend the prestigious Venice Conservatory, where he studied under Antonio Buzzolla, a student of Gaetano Donizetti.
His first major opportunity as a theatrical conductor occurred in 1867 when the Garibaldi Theatre's kapellmeister fell ill on the eve of the premiere of Costantino Dall'Argine's three act opera bouffe I Due Orsi (The Two Bears).
In 1878 during the opera season in Padua the director of the Saint Petersburg Imperial Theatres, Baron Karl Karlovich Kister, attended a performance of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore that Drigo conducted.
The 1880s saw significant reforms carried out by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, the new director of the Saint Petersburg Imperial Theatres appointed by Emperor Alexander III.
In 1886 the Saint Petersburg Imperial Ballet's longtime kapellmeister, Alexei Papkov, retired after thirty-four years of service, leaving the company without a principal conductor.
The director of the Saint Petersburg Imperial Theatres, Ivan Vsevolozhsky then abolished the position of staff ballet composer in an effort to diversify the music supplied for new works.
The Imperial Theatre's renowned Premier Maître de Ballet, the Frenchman Marius Petipa, revived Jules Perrot's 1841 romantic masterpiece La Esmeralda for the visiting Italian ballerina Virginia Zucchi in 1886.
A critic from the Saint Petersburg newspaper The New Time reviewed that ...the music of this ballet is outstanding in a symphonic sense, reveals an experienced composer, a man with taste, and an excellent orchestrator.
There are beautiful melodies in it, the rhythms are not overdone, and everything is listened to with pleasure from beginning to end.In 1888 Marius Petipa was preparing his next work, La Vestale, set in the ancient Roman Empire.
In fact (I) had been so delighted with it at the premiere that I could not stop applauding and even felt compelled to exclaim "Mais puisque, excellence, c'est un chef-d'œuvre!
"In the ensuing years, Drigo repeatedly received commissions from both Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov to compose supplemental variations, pas and incidental dances for insertion into older ballets.
By the time Drigo left Russia in 1919, nearly every ballet in the repertory of the Saint Petersburg Imperial Theatres contained many of the composer's own additional pieces.
It was at this time that Drigo developed a close friendship with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who was in the process of composing the score for Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty.
This was the one-act ballet La Flûte magique (The Magic Flute), which told the story of an enchanted instrument that compelled all within earshot to dance when it was played.
Due to the success of the student performance, La Flûte magique was transferred to the Mariinsky Theatre, where it was presented in an expanded staging on 23 April [O.S.
Drigo's score was highly praised by critics: Mr. Drigo astounds the listener with his ability to create a near limitless variety of beautiful dansante rhythms and melodies, all the while including rich, almost symphonic orchestration.Drigo's next score was written for Petipa's ballet Le Réveil de Flore (The Awakening of Flora), an anacreontic ballet in one-act that was produced especially for the celebrations held at Peterhof Palace in honor of the wedding of the Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna to the Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich.
The ballet soon became a favorite of the ballerinas of the era, among them Mathilde Kschessinska (who created the principal role of Flora), Tamara Karsavina and particularly Anna Pavlova, who included an abridged version of the work on her legendary world tours.
In late 1894 Drigo prepared an important revision of Tchaikovsky's score for Swan Lake, originally produced at the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow in 1877.
In his memoirs Drigo touched on his revision to the score: ...it was my lot, like a surgeon, to perform an operation on Swan Lake, and I feared that I might not grasp the individuality of the great Russian master.The revival premiered on 27 January [O.S.
Drigo's version of Tchaikovsky's score has remained the definitive performance edition of Swan Lake, and is still used to one degree or another by ballet companies throughout the world.
Drigo's next score for the ballet was the grand pièce d'occasion La Perle (sometimes known in Russian as Прелестная жемчужина — Pretty Pearl), produced especially for the gala held at the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow in honor of the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna.
Due to her delight in Drigo's score, the Empress commanded two additional court performances of Les Millions d'Arlequin on the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre, the first given on 26 February [O.S.
Drigo composed the music for the ballet-divertissement titled La Côte d'Azur (The French Riviera), set to a libretto by Prince Albert I.
He later recalled in his memoirs of the many cold evenings he spent with his close friend and colleague Alexander Glazunov waiting for hours in bread lines and subsequently carrying their rations home through the snow on a sled.
For his farewell gala at the former Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, the Ballet Master Fyodor Lopukhov mounted a new version of Drigo and Petipa's final collaboration, the ballet La Romance d'un Bouton de rose et d'un Papillon which Lopukhov staged under the title Le Conte du bouton (The Tale of the Rosebud).
Allowed to take only 60 kilograms with him, Drigo left all of his belongings in Russia with the exception of a collection of his manuscript scores, which he used as a pillow during his two-month journey to Padua via Odessa and Constantinople.
