Ballets By Riccardo Drigo - Composer and Conductor

Composer and Conductor

In 1884 Emperor Alexander III disbanded the Imperial Italian Opera in an effort to solidify the art of Russian operetta, which left Drigo, the company's kapellmeister, without a position. In 1886 the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet's kappellmeister, Alexei Papkov, retired after thirty-four years of service, leaving the company without a principal conductor. Drigo took over the position before the beginning of the 1886–1887 season. He made his debut as ballet conductor on 7 October 1886 with a performance of the old grand ballet The Pharaoh's Daughter, set to the score of Cesare Pugni, which was the most popular work in the repertory of the Imperial Ballet. In attendance for the performance was the Emperor and his wife, the Empress Maria Fyodorovna, both of whom were fanatic balletomanes and maintained the Imperial Theatres lavishly. So impressed was the Emperor by Drigo's conducting that during the final curtain calls he gave the conductor a standing ovation, and ordered the rest of the house to follow suit.

In 1886 the Imperial Theatre's official composer of ballet music, the Austrian Ludwig Minkus, retired from his post. In light of this the director of the St. Peterbsurg Imperial Theatres, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, abolished the position of staff ballet composer in an effort to diversify the music supplied for new works. Minkus was the second composer to occupy the position of Ballet Composer of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, a position originally created in 1850 for Cesare Pugni. Both composers were known as "specialists", i.e. being highly skilled in creation of the musique dansante then in vogue for the ballet. They were required by contract not only to create the scores for new works quickly and "to order", but to compose supplemental pas, variations, incidental dances, etc. whenever requested, as well as the endless task of correcting and adapting existing scores for the numerous revivals put on by the ballet company. Since Drigo was well known as a capable composer, the director Vsevolozhsky employed him in the dual capacity of kapellmeister and Director of Music, a position which would require Drigo to fulfill all of the duties of the staff composer with regard to adapting and correcting scores at the behest of the Ballet Master.

In 1886 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. For the revival Drigo was assigned the task of refurbishing the old score of Cesare Pugni. As was the custom at that time when reviving an old work, Petipa wanted to add new numbers to the ballet, and in particular a novelty for the ballerina. The Ballet Master had no desire to look outside of the theatre for a composer to score the dances he required, and so approached Drigo, whose four-part Pas d'action not only showcased the dramatic gifts of the ballerina Zucchi, but also included a virtuoso solo for violin crafted by Drigo especially for the great Leopold Auer, who served as principal violinist in the Imperial Theatre's orchestra. The revival of La Esmeralda premiered to great success on 29 December 1886 with the Imperial family in attendance. After the performance the Emperor met with Drigo on stage to congratulate him on his additional material as well as his conducting. Placing his hand on Drigo's shoulder, he commented that " ... the music was magnificent! Under your direction the orchestra has made much progress." Drigo's Pas d'action remains part of the performance score for La Esmeralda to the present day, and is often extracted from the full-length work as La Esmeralda Pas de Six.

With the success of his work on the score of La Esmeralda, the director Vsevolozhsky gave Drigo his first commission to compose for a complete score. This was La Forêt enchantée (The Enchanted Forest), which was not only Drigo's first full-length ballet but also the first original work choreographed by the Imperial Theatre's newly appointed Deuxieme Maître de Ballet Lev Ivanov. La Forêt enchantée was staged especially for the annual graduation performance of the Imperial Ballet School, with the top graduates in the leading roles. The work premiered on 12 April 1887 on the stage of the school's theatre, and was subsequently transferred to the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre, where it premiered on 1 June 1887 with the Italian ballerina Emma Bessone in the lead role of Ilka. Although Ivanov's choreography was not well-received, Drigo received considerable praise for his score. A critic from the St. Petersburg newspaper The New Time complimented Drigo's music: "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."

Marius Petipa was equally impressed with Drigo's score for La Forêt enchantée. In 1888 the Ballet Master was preparing his next work, La Vestale, a colossal ballet set in the ancient Roman Empire. The score was written by the music critic Mikhail Ivanov, who counted Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky among his instructors. Ivanov provided what was at that time considered to be a highly symphonic score for the ballet, and the visiting ballerina for whom the work was produced, the Italian Elena Cornalba, appealed to Petipa for additional, more "dansante" music for her solo numbers. Having just witnessed a performance of La Forêt enchantée, she requested that Drigo should be the composer responsible for supplemental dances she required. Drigo composed two additional variations for Cornalba known as L'echo (The Echo), which was written as a canon; and a Valse mignonne (Sweet Waltz). Drigo also wrote an extra variation for the character of Cupid known as L'amour, and a variation for the ballerina Maria Gorshenkova. Three of these pieces were later published.