Petipa's Original Choreography

[sugarplum239]

Do any dance companies use all of Petipa's orignial choreography? Is it copyrighted?

[Mel Johnson]

Petipa's choreography itself is public domain. That said, any staging made of his choreography based on, say, an interpretation of Nicolai Sergeyev's Stepanov notation scores, could easily be copyright.

 

And the Maryinsky made a couple of revivals of entire Petipa ballets, Sleeping Beauty and La Bayadere, but they were too long for most audiences.

[Serendipity]

Royal Ballet did one of Petipa's choreography - I think it was Nutcracker, in the original (they'd found an old manuscript of it), some years ago. I loved it! It's on video somewhere....

[Mel Johnson]

Nutcracker was Ivanov's choreography, and it was staged from Stepanov notation.

[Serendipity]

Ah. Thanks for that info. I recall only that the Royal Ballet found an original manuscript of some sort and staged a version using it. I saw it and loved it!

[Mel Johnson]

The Sergeyev Collection of Stepanov notations is in the collection of the Libraries at Harvard University. When Sergeyev was still alive, he used those notations to stage the Tchaikovsky Big 3 for Vic-Wells and Sadler's Wells Ballets, forerunners of today's Royal Ballet.