Swan Lake Premieres: Tchaikovsky's Ballet Becomes Classic
Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake stumbled through a disastrous première at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre, where choreography and music clashed so badly that audiences walked out confused. This failure forced Tchaikovsky to revise the score and eventually led to the 1895 Petipa-Ivanov revival that established the ballet as a global masterpiece.
February 20, 1877
149 years ago
What Else Happened on February 20
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