Is there any reason why in this musically enlightened age in which we
are supposedly living that when "Swan Lake" is performed on the stage,
it is nearly always given as the musical travesty dished up by one Signor
Drigo in 1895?

My question comes after seeing the broadcast on BBC2 in the UK on Christmas
Day of the Peter Wright production at the Royal Swedish Ballet, Stockholm.
The visual production was most excellent realised, but unfortunately not
to Tchiakovsky's music as he wrote it, but as re-arranged, reordered and
cut to shreds by Drigo.

I note that this production is available as a BBC Opus Arte DVD.  From
their advertisement in the November 2002 issue of Gramophone, I was most
interested to see that there is a feature on the DVD entitled "Back to
the original".  I had been assuming that "original" referred to the
score, but I think it must actually have referred to the original 1895
travesty of the score.  How disappointing!

Is there a ballet producer out there capable of fashioning a production
of this music according to Tchaikovsky's original score (ie the original
Russian score as presented in most complete recordings) and in the
original sequence in which he wrote it or must all productions irritate
when it comes to the music?

Longing for a stage production of "Swan Lake" which will respect the
music and give the score complete.

PS.  Yes, I know the all male version gave the score virtually intact!

Stefan Pilczek