The story, possibly of Rhenish origin, tells how Prince Siegfried woos and wins Odette, the Swan Queen. At a celebration the prince is told he must soon choose a bride. A flight of swans overhead distracts him and a hunt is proposed. Siegfried and the hunters are at the lake-side. It is evening. Odette appears surrounded by a bevy of swan-maidens. She begs the hunters to spare the swans. They are maidens under the spell of the enchanter Rotbart. Swans by day, they return briefly to human form at midnight. The prince and Odette fall in love. Siegfried swears she will be his wife. Odette cautions him about Rotbart’s evil power. Breach of promise will mean her death. Rotbart brings his own daughter to the court ball, disguised as Odette. Siegfried makes the false choice of bride, and the pledge is broken. Discovering Rotbart’s ruse, he hastens to Odette, who at first rebuffs him. Siegfried blames Rotbart and Odette relents. At length Rotbart whips up a storm which floods the forest. When Siegfried vows he will die with Odette, Rotbart’s spell is shattered and all ends happily. Tschaikowsky’s close friend and collaborator Kashkin is authority for the statement that an adagio section in _Swan Lake_ was a love-duet in the opera _Undine_ before it found new lodgings. Conversely, a Danse Russe in the group of piano pieces, Op. 40, was written for _Swan Lake_, thus balancing matters. Like _The Sleeping Beauty_ and _The Nutcracker_, _Swan Lake_ is famed for its waltz. The score brims with typical Tschaikowskyan melody, and probably for the first time in ballet music a scheme of leitmotifs is used, two of the principal subjects being the tremulous theme of the swans in flight and the hauntingly wistful theme of Odette herself, assigned to the oboe against soft strings and harp arpeggios. The music adjusts itself snugly to the technic of pure classical ballet and solos and ensembles are contrasted adroitly. SUITE FROM THE BALLET, _The Sleeping Beauty_, OPUS 66 Based on Perrault’s famous fairy tale, Tschaikowsky’s _Sleeping Beauty_ ballet dates from the summer of 1889. Its music is generally regarded as superior to that of the _Swan Lake_ ballet and inferior to that of the _Nutcracker_ suite. Few ballet scores are so suitable in mood and style for the action they accompany. The music is truly melodious in Tschaikowsky’s lighter vein. The fantasy is conveyed in bright, glittering colors, and, as Mrs. Newmarch pointed out, the music “never descends to the commonplace level of the ordinary ballet music.” There are thirty numbers in all, many of them, especially the waltz, endearing in their lilting and haunting grace. The work was first produced in St. Petersburg on January 2, 1890. In the early twenties, Diaghileff, the great ballet producer, revived the work in London and elsewhere with immense artistic _éclat_. Fragments of the ballet have been gathered in the Monte Carlo Ballet Russe’s production of _Aurora’s Wedding_.