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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(3/19/01 6:16:07 pm)
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Swan Lake
A visitor to my site has asked the following question. Anyone have any good responses?
He writes:
"Here is my question. Do you know, off the top of your
head, of any Teutonic/Germanic/Scandinavian original for the plot of Tchaikovsky's *Swan Lake*? We are forever told that it is based on a classic fairy or folk tale, blah, blah, blah--but where is the source? The more frequently encountered swan maiden is a shape-shifter, like the Selkies; she is captured by seizing her coat or cape of feathers. That apparel once recovered, she flies away again, love and marriage notwithstanding. And there are, of
course, accursed and enchanted princesses/princes aplenty, including those who are compelled to take a non-human shape by day or night until the enchantment is broken. But what is the source of Tchaikovsky's version, where the princess is cursed with a swan's shape; where the enemy is an enchanter (rather than the expected stepmother!); where the prince is tested by the appearance of a false double? Even putting aside the redemptive conclusion wherein the protagonists must die to lift the curse as a bit of late-19th-c. fiddlefaddle, I am a bit at a loss to account for the *Lac des Cygnes* story as we more or less have it.
Any thoughts?"
| Kate
Unregistered User
(3/21/01 11:06:01 am)
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Swan Lake
I just noticed no one had responded to this, and though I don't know the definitive answer, I have some thoughts. Please overturn them, anyone, if you have more information--these are pretty off-the-cuff. I'm sort of lurking on the board here, and taking on a neglected question out of worry for its asker(not you, Heidi, but your poor visitor!). I hate anyone to feel neglected--even though I've been neglecting the board.
In any case, it is my understanding that although the ballet "Swan Lake" is constantly said to be based on a "French translation of a German folk tale" no scholar has really pinned down this German tale to a single tale. That is, there is not just one folk tale (German or other) that the ballet's story patently retells. I have come across, most frequently, references to a "southern German tale about a hunter who encounters a woman in the woods, shoots her and she turns into a swan, etc. etc. and her imposter shows up at the wedding" but I know of NO German tale that replicates this plot in this pattern--though there are many tales that involve women turning into birds as well as false brides, and yes, hunters. As an aspiring ballet dancer when a kid, of course the Odette/Odile characters were incredibly mythic to me, so I read up on the tale widely then; if you can't tell, this is all from my childhood memory. Forgive me if I'm wrong. Someone else would probably do a better job than I could (Midori, with your encyclopedic knowledge!) listing various swan-themed tales . . . they exist in so many cultures. The Swan Lake ballet seems, to me, to incorporate images and motifs from a variety of these tales--tales that involve a woman turning into a swan as well as those involving a man turning into a swan (so Greek mythology of Leda as well as Germany's Six Swans. Thousand and One Nights also has a woman-swan).
| Midori
Unregistered User
(3/21/01 5:26:22 pm)
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English Swans
I tend to think that the ballet is gleaned from motifs that are interesting plot-wise and have great potential for the dance. There is a lot of sexual tension in the swan-woman image, that has the right amount of overt sexuality (the woman transformed into an animal) and cultural mythology around the swans (they pair bond for life) and so it makes an interesting sort of tragic death--with a lover who is potentially both sexual and chaste. There is a beautiful English version of this in a ballad where the hunter/lover shoots his true love ("Young Johnny was a fowling, a fowling alone, and he shot his true love in the ruse of a swan"--We learn , "with her apron wrapped around her head he mistook her for a swan..." (nevermind what in the hell was she doing out in the woods with her apron up around her head, which by itself has an odd sexual inuendo to it. He goes to trial and is aquitted of her murder, the ambiguity of the song suggesting that she really was transformed into a swan and that he shot her out of fear of her sexual nature/prowress). Could the Odette/Odile embody in two characters the ambiguious sexual nature? The chaste swan female and the sexually (and magically charged) female?
There is one book which might have a few leads here--"In Search of the Swan Maiden: A Narrative of Gender..." by Barbara Fass Leavy. It's sort of a feminist comparative study of the swan maiden narratives...it may shed some light (though I can't be sure--I liked it for the odd ancient Hindu narratives she discussed....)
What we really need Kate (hint, hint, or Karen) possessed of those killer deconstruction/foucauldian instincts to give the narrative a closer reading---I think its an invention of the time, pulling out the most emotionally evocative images of older tales and reweaving a new romantic anxiety (pleasure and punishment together) along with some intensely romantic music and stunning visual moments.
Heidi, I've probably given a totally useless reply to your poster! Aargh, if only my father were alive! He was a principle dancer for the Paris Ballet Opera House before the Vichy occupation exiled him...he grew up a "petit rat" in the Opera House and knew the answer to all of this stuff as though it were second skin.
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tlchang
Registered User
(3/21/01 6:30:44 pm)
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Re: Musical swans
This is probably not going where you want - but Midori's reference to the English swan-shooting ballad brought a couple of other ones to mind. (Peter, Paul and Mary recorded a version of that ballad called "Polly Von" - nice, tragic tale).
A couple of other woman-transformed-into-a-swan ballads have been recorded by Loreena McKennitt ("The Bonny Swans" on her Mask and Mirror CD) and Ceoltoiri ("The Cruel Sister" on their 'Women of Ireland' CD) where the youngest sister is pushed into the river by her eldest sister, presumably out of jealousy - and as she floats downstream she is transformed into a swan and a harper fishes her out and makes a harp out of her body - which later plays of it's own accord and accuses her sister of her murder. Oh, I just looked at the lyrics of "The Cruel Sister" and it skips the swan step... OK - so I'm WAY off topic by now.
The swan was also a symbol of death in some cultures, and the song of the dying swan is said to be one of joy at the prospect of entering the afterlife.
For what it's worth....?
Tara
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tlchang
Registered User
(3/21/01 7:32:59 pm)
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Swan Lake origins
I did a little more looking in my shelves and found my picture-book version of "Swan Lake", told by Dame Margot Fonteyn and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (most of my fairy tale collection comes with pictures! Not a big surprise. Many of them were bought for the illustrator rather than the author, so I'm always surprised/pleased when I like the story too!)
Margot Fonteyn has apparently danced this ballet hundreds of times and has alot to say about it in the end notes.
"Swan Lake is regarded as one of the great classical ballets. It represents our concern with the eternal conflicts between reality and illustion, truth and deception, good and evil.
The plot is based on a theme recurrent in the legends of many lands, that of a woman who is transformed into a bird. "THE STOLEN VEIL" a German version, is thought to have been the inspiration for V.P. Begichev and V.F. Geltser's original production of Swan Lake at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1877....."
In the rest she goes on and discusses issues of dance, choreography, production and interpretation. It is interesting, but not pertinent to the story origins. It is a nice, if abbreviated version of this story - I quite like the illustrative interpretation as well.
Let me know if this helps at all!
Tara
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(3/21/01 8:57:39 pm)
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Re: Swan Lake origins
Thanks all. My ballet books do not discuss the origin of the tale either, but just give the usual allusions to German and French folklore. It is rather interesting when I think about it. Your book, Tara, tells more than mine did. And I want a copy of it if Hyman illustrated it. I haven't seen that one, probably because I have never thought to look for it. I have many of Hyman's fairy tale books though. She has a new illustrated book with a collection of tale of strong heroines.
Midori, I wish your father was here to share some of his stories. Ballet was large in my past and I ate up the books and tales for many years. And in all of that reading, I don't recall ever reading strong details of "Swan Lake's" story origins.
Heidi
| Midori
Unregistered User
(3/22/01 6:02:25 am)
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Broken Veil
Heidi,
I did a little digging into the "Broken Veil". It was written by German folklorist (who looks to be a sort of German version of Perrault), Johann Karl August Musaus. (there should be an umlatt over the "a") and appeared in a collection called "Volksmarchen der Deutschen." There is a translation of his tales (though I wasn't able to lay hands on it at the library to see if The Broken Veil is actually included) called "Stories by Musau and Fouque: Studies in German Literature, Linguistics and Culture, Vol 61" with translations by Thomas Carlyle.
there are some web sites on Musaus--though all in German
| Midori
Unregistered User
(3/22/01 6:05:11 am)
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dates!
I forgot to mention that JKA Musaus's dates are mid 18th century (very much a Perrault contemporary)
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Terri
Registered User
(3/22/01 8:08:36 am)
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swan ballad
Midori: Where can I find the text for the ballad you mentioned above, about the hunter who shoots his true love in the woods? I owe Charlie Vess a ballad retelling for his Ballads series, and that sounds like an intriguing one. I started a version of King Orfeo for him, but it went absolutely nowhere. I was boring even myself.
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tlchang
Registered User
(3/22/01 8:10:03 am)
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Re: Swan Lake origins
Heidi,
This version of Swan Lake (ill. by Hyman) was published in 1989. I try to own pretty much everything she's ever illustrated. :-) (She's one of the big influences on me becoming an illustrator).
Her latest, on strong female heroines, was written/compiled by her daughter. Thought that was a neat project for them to be able to work on together.
Tara
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Terri
Registered User
(3/22/01 8:41:53 am)
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mother-daughter tales
Jane Yolen also has a new book out which she created in collaboration with her daughter, Heidi Stemple: "Mirror, Mirror: Forty Folktales for Mothers and Daughters to Share"
Tara, I agree with you that the new TS Hyman book is gorgeous ("The Serpent Slayer and Other Tales for Strong Women"). She's one of my very favorite modern illustrators, although my absolute favorite is the Viennese artist Lizbeth Zwerger. Speaking of books with tales about strong heroines, have you seen Jane Yolen's "Not One Damsel in Distress"?
| Midori
Unregistered User
(3/22/01 10:18:04 am)
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Polly Vaughn
Terri,
Oh yes, its a great song! I learned it from listening to a version from Frankie Armstrong about thirty years ago. At the time I fell in love with its strange history, and even stranger drama. It felt like one of those huge long mythical dramas that has been condensed and intensified as a human drama (still evoking the mystery of the mythical past). There is a love affair, a strange murder in the woods, with even stranger the young woman perhaps in the "ruse of a swan" perhaps not, there is a trial, and a pleading by all the town's young women in favor of the hunter and a funeral with six pretty maids as pall bearers and a great last verse about Polly.."take all of those pretty maids all in a row, and her beauty would shine forth like a fountain of snow."
Let me hunt it down for you...I know I collected some notes and things on it and stuffed it in one of my messy files.
| Gail
Unregistered User
(3/22/01 12:30:30 pm)
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Polly VAughn
Is this the same tale as the one published as a picture book of the same name with illustrations by Barry Moser? I don't have the book with me -- just remember the power of the illustrations. Gail
| Midori
Unregistered User
(3/22/01 4:25:59 pm)
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Moser
Gail,
Yes! It is the same idea--though Moser transposed the British swan-maiden tale into an Americna hill tale, where Johnny mistakes Polly for a deer. Also he is convicted for the murder of Polly Vaughn and hanged--and I am scrambling to remember but I am almost certain he isn't convicted in the British ballad.
| Karen
Unregistered User
(3/24/01 3:23:40 pm)
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Swan drowning
I found a reference in the Carole.G. Silver book which says that Swan Lake is based on a Russian fairy bride tale and a footnote which points me to Ivor Guest's The Romantic Ballet in England- haven't had a chance to check that reference yet, so I'm not sure if it narrows down your emailer's search, Heidi. GIven the extensive literary and visual treatment of the theme during the period, it's probable that Tchaikovsky had more than one source in mind.
Midori, I agree strongly with the interpretation you give above- especially since the Victorians adopted the swan maiden/seal maiden/mermaid theme so enthusiastically- another discourse which allowed them to talk about sex incessantly? That Burne-Jones painting of the mermaid drowning the man (The Depths of the Sea) is especially nice- it's so seductive. There were a lot of voyeuristic tales about drowning floating around in the fin de siecle. There's one where a man watches a shipwreck from a cliff and derives quite a thrill from it- I can't remember who wrote it- Maussapant? I'll have to check (Sorry for the ramble!) It all has that (s)mother odour about it- complete masculine surrender!
A slightly off topic swan maiden sighting- What I find really interesting is that Swann's lover in the first volume of Proust's In Search of Lost Time (Swann's Way) is called Odette de Crecy- and he, rather than she, is "drowned in love"- she's a very shallow and really quite a callous character- a courtesan- so Proust restores the swan maiden to her "pagan" power and yet undercuts/ devalues that power at the same time- I think that's a rather nice encapsulation of the period's ambivalent attitude to the swan maiden- a bizzare blend of attraction and repulsion- she is the abject. THey can indulge the fantasy as long as she is described in the diminutive- as a "Little mermaid"- and yet the threat still remains- she still has the power and the motivation to kill, even if we know she will not. There is still that little narrative becalming to enjoy while it lasts.
Karen.
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tlchang
Registered User
(3/24/01 6:49:05 pm)
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Re: swan ballad
Terri,
I have the words to the Polly Vaughn version that Peter, Paul and Mary recorded if you are interested.
Tara
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La
Reine Noire
Registered User
(3/26/01 6:05:10 am)
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Swan Lake
How ironic...I was just having a conversation about this over my spring break (on the origins of "Swan Lake" - French, German, etc). It's been a favourite ballet of mine since I was a little girl and only recently, I found the nerve to actually try and retell the story in writing.
Of course, a few months later, I discovered someone had already taken the approach I had (Mercedes Lackey in "The Black Swan"), so I've set it aside at the moment.
But I do think it's a wonderful story, and if someone does end up finding the original tale, I'll certainly have to get a copy of it. Not being an expert on symbolism and whatnot, I'm fascinated on the subject of the overt sexuality/chaste swan-maiden controversy.
My personal interest is in the fact that all the characters can be taken in different ways. Odile can be the evil sorceress daughter, or she can also be a victim of her father. Even Rothbart's reasons for that transformation of Odette remain rather cloudy. It never does say in the ballet how long Odette was a swan, does it? That had me wondering if it might not have started for reasons that had nothing whatsoever to do with sexuality or his desire for her. Perhaps he turned her into a swan for some political gain (she was a princess, right?) and then grew to desire her through proximity.
Just my thoughts,
~Kavita
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Terri
Registered User
(3/28/01 7:24:51 am)
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lyrics
Tara: Yes, I'd love to see those lyrics. If they're too long to post here, can you send them to me through the Endicott Studio web site address? (endicottstudio@earthlink.net)
Thanks!
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tlchang
Registered User
(3/28/01 7:14:11 pm)
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Re: lyrics
Terri,
Hopefully this is not too long...
Polly Von
I shall tell of a hunter whose life was undone
By the cruel hand of evil at the setting of the sun.
His arrow was loosed and it flew through the dark
And his true love was slain as the shaft found it’s mark.
Chorus
She’d her apron wrapped about her and he took her for a swan
And did so and alas, it was she, Polly Von.
He ran up beside her and found it was she.
He turned away his head, for he could not bear to see.
He lifted her up and found she was dead.
A fountain of tears for his true love, he shed.
Chorus
He bore her away to his home by the sea
Crying “Father, oh Father! I've murdered poor Polly!
I’ve killed my fair love in the flower of her life.
I always intended that she be my wife.”
Chorus
But she’d her apron wrapped about her and I took her for a swan,
And did so and alas, it was she, Polly Von.
He went to the place where his true love was slain.
He wept bitter tears, but his cries were all in vain.
As he looked on the lake, a swan glided by
As the sun slowly sank in the gray of the sky.
Chorus
This is off of Peter, Paul and Mary's "In the Wind" album. It gives no information on author or origins. It comes across somewhat silly with out the mournful, folkish vocal and acoustic accompaniment. :-)
I always liked this song (I've been drawn to melancholy, love-lost songs ever since I was a kid. What do you suppose THAT means? Must be why I like Irish ballads so much now.)
I did an (VERY unsuccessful) illustration based on it when I was in college. I might want to try that again sometime.
I'd love to hear what you end up with!
Tara
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tlchang
Registered User
(4/3/01 8:41:34 am)
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Re: lyrics
Oh, I think I forgot to request - Midori, I would be interested in seeing your British version of the Polly Vaughn ballad, if you find it. :-)
Thanks!
Tara
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