Ballets By Cesare Pugni - Russia

Russia

In 1849 Jules Perrot and Cesare Pugni travelled to St. Petersburg to stage La Esmeralda for the ballerina Fanny Elssler, who was engaged as guest ballerina by the Imperial Ballet. While in the Imperial capital Perrot was offered the position of Premier Maître de Ballet to begin in the 1850-1851 season, which he accepted. In this position, Perrot recommended to the Court Minister that Pugni accompany him to Russia so that he might serve as the official composer of ballet music to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. Until that time in St. Petersburg, the composition of new ballet music typically fell into the hands of the orchestra's head conductor, who was in this case Konstantin Liadov. A new position was thus created, Ballet Composer of the St. Petersurg Imperial Theatres, for Pugni.

In the winter of 1850, Pugni severed all ties to London and Paris. He arrived in St. Petersburg with English wife Marion Linton and their seven children. By 1860, Pugni was maintaining two households — the first with his English wife, and the second with the Serf woman Daria Petrovna, with whom he fathered eight more children before the end of his life.

In the winter of 1861, Anton Rubinstein hired Pugni to teach composition and counterpoint at the newly established Saint Petersburg Conservatory of Music, a position he held with great acclaim and respect until his death.

During his time as Premier Maître de Ballet to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, Jules Perrot staged many of the works he had originally mounted for Her Majesty's Theatre in London. Unlike the ballet companies of London or Paris, the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres presented evening-length ballet presentations separate from those of opera. As Pugni was the author of nearly all of the music for Perrot's works, the composer expanded many of his scores for the Ballet Master's productions. Among such expanded revivals were La Naïade et le pêcheur (The Naiad and the Fisherman), a revival of Ondine, ou La Naïade in 1851; and Éoline, ou la Dryade in 1858. Many of Pugni's scores featured instrumental cadenzas for the renowned soloists in the Imperial Theatre's orchestra, many of whom were members of the nobility and even of the Imperial family. Aside from their revivals of already-existing works, Pugni and Perrot created several Grand Ballets to acclaim, among them, La Guerre des femmes (The War of the Women) in 1852; Gazelda in 1853; and the grandiose Armida in 1855.

In 1855 Pugni wrote L'Étoile de Grenade (The Star of Grenada), his first ballet for the choreographer Marius Petipa, who had been serving as Jules Perrot's assistant and Premier danseur to the Imperial Theatres since his arrival in Russia in 1847. Petipa was fast becoming a celebrated choreographer in his own right, as he turned to composition more and more.

In 1858 Perrot left Russia, and Pugni found himself in need by both Petipa and Arthur Saint-Léon, who succeeded Perrot as Premier Maître de Ballet to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. The two choreographers, both highly gifted in their art and differing dramatically in their respective approaches to the creation of the Grand ballet, were engaged in a healthy and productive rivalry on the Imperial stage. In spite of the differences between Saint-Léon and Petipa's styles Cesare Pugni composed the music for nearly every one of their works during the 1860s.