Whose ballet is Swan Lake?

The music for Swan Lake was composed by the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky between 1875 and 1876, and the ballet premiered at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1877. It tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer, and Prince Siegfried, who falls in love with her. The first production was not a great success, partly because of weak choreography. After Tchaikovsky’s death in 1893, choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov created a new version in St Petersburg in 1895, which became the basis for most productions today. It is now one of the most performed ballets in the world.