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Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux

Music
Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky
Choreography
George Balanchine

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A virtuosic ballet, Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux is brief, beautiful, and beloved – an adrenaline rush for both dancers and audiences.

For the original production of Swan Lake in Moscow in 1877, Tschaikovsky composed a pas de deux for Act III at the request of Anna Sobeshchanskaya, a Bolshoi prima ballerina who was one of the first dancers to perform the lead role. Since it was composed later than the rest of the music, it was not included in the published score and was therefore not available to Marius Petipa when he choreographed his famous Swan Lake in St. Petersburg, in 1895. In its place, Petipa moved some music from Act I to Act III, and it is this piece that is now well-known as the Black Swan pas de deux. Well over half a century later, the complete and original Swan Lake score was found, including an appendix with the lost pas de deux. Hearing of its historic discovery, George Balanchine asked for — and was granted — permission to use it for his own choreography. The result is an eight-minute display of ballet bravura and technique.

9 minutes

Inside the Repertory

Tiler Peck on Balanchine's TSCHAIKOVSKY PAS DE DEUX

Principal Dancer Tiler Peck talks about taking risks and learning to trust herself in Balanchine's high energy crowd pleaser set to extra music from Tschaikovsky's Swan Lake

TSCHAIKOVSKY PAS DE DEUX

With remarkable musicality, Principal Dancer Tiler Peck redefines the limits of Tschaikovsky's exhilarating score in George Balanchine's Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux.

Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux

Principal Dancer Roman Mejia, as daring and dazzling as ever in George Balanchine's Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux.

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