The Queen, rejoicing, invites the courtiers to dance.Īfter the Mazurka, the King orders for the mirror to be taken to the Queen's room. The Queen, seeing her own reflection, is delighted, much to the joy of the King, who buys the mirror. Among other objects, there is a beautiful ‘magic’ mirror, which possesses the property of reflecting the most beautiful woman in the entire realm. The King orders the lace merchants to be led in, whom he has summoned, together with the lace-makers and workmen of their countries, and also the merchants of old Bohemian crystal and precious stones. Baskets and garlands are brought to the Queen. The King and Queen enter with courtly ladies and cavaliers the Queen is young and beautiful, the King old he tries to please the Queen. Gardeners, men and women, are decorating the garden, weaving baskets and preparing garlands for the Queen. Taken from Roland John Wiley's translation of the original libretto. Kschessinskaya took an active part in this intrigue, revenging herself because at the benefit of her late father, I had not greeted him with a speech. Already, during the rehearsals of this ballet, I was convinced that was something was being plotted against me and my ballet, the commission for which had been given to M. Petipa gives the following account in his memoirs of how he was convinced that the ballet's poor staging was all part of a conspiracy to get rid of him: Despite the failure of the original production, in all the scathing reviews for The Magic Mirror, including a very notorious one by Sergei Diaghilev, Petipa's choreography is never criticised. It did, however, find a home in Moscow, where it was staged in a revival by Alexander Gorsky and was performed thirty-six times between 19. Although it was given two abridged performances in 1904, the ballet never found a permanent place in the Imperial Ballet repertoire. The Magic Mirror was a complete disaster and was received with whistles, cat-calls and even shouts of "curtain" in subsequent performances after the première. The Magic Mirror was given the most appalling staging imaginable with horrific scenery designs and costumes that were unfinished and provoked unanimous laughter. Teliakovsky was determined to de-throne Petipa from his rank of ballet master and Petipa writes in his memoirs that Teliakovsky would stop at nothing to get rid of him and that he believed it was Teliakovsky's plan to sabotage what was to be his last ballet. Vladimir Teliakovsky, Petipa's bitterest enemy. Prince Serge Volkonsky commissioned Petipa to create the ballet in 1902, but soon afterwards, Volkonsky was forced to resign from his position as director after an incident with the Prima Ballerina, Mathilde Kschessinskaya and instead, The Magic Mirror was staged under the direction of Col. The Magic Mirror was the final ballet to be staged by Petipa and was probably his most controversial. The ballet was premièred on the 22 February 1903 at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. The libretto is based on the 1812 fairy tale Snow White by the Brothers Grimm and the 1833 poem The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights by Alexander Pushkin. The Magic Mirror ( French: Le Miroir Magique) is a ballet-féerie in four acts and seven scenes, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa with music by Arseny Koreshchenko. Alexander Pushkin's The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights
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