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