The Seasons (1899)
The Seasons is a one-act, four-scene allegorical ballet made for the Imperial Ballet, with choreography by Marius Petipa and a score by Alexander Glazunov (his Op. 67). It personifies Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn as dancing figures surrounded by elemental and mythological companions — frost, ice, hail and snow spirits, Zephyr and flower fairies, naiads, satyrs and fauns, bacchantes — culminating in an apotheosis of revealed constellations.
What it contains
- Classical Ballet — Grande bacchanale des saisons / Petit adage / Variation du Satyre / Coda générale · Tableau IV, the Grande bacchanale des saisons — A massed ensemble dance for the Seasons together with Bacchantes, Satyrs, Fauns and the Spirit of the Corn, staged as a revel with falling stage leaves, followed by a petit adage and a general coda. Source: "The Seasons take part in a glorious dance (the well-known "autumn bacchanale") while leaves from autumn trees rain upon their merriment."
- Classical Ballet · the full ballet, across all four tableaux and the apotheosis — Each tableau is organised as scène, a run of named solo variations for allegorical figures, and a closing coda — the entrée/variation/coda architecture of the Imperial grand pas codified under Petipa, repeated across Winter, Summer and Autumn. Source: "No.03 Variation du givre (frost)"
What is danced
The work is built as a sequence of formal set-piece dances rather than a continuous narrative: each tableau opens with a 'scène' establishing the personified season, moves through a run of named solo variations for individual allegorical figures (Frost, Ice, Hail, Snow in Winter; the Spirit of the Corn in Summer; the Satyr in Autumn), and closes with a coda that gathers the ensemble. This entrée–variation–coda structure is the standard architecture of the Imperial grand pas as developed under Petipa, and a company reviving it needs soloists capable of carrying discrete, contrasted character variations rather than a single unbroken pas de deux line.
Summer contains a 'Valse des bleuets et des pavots' (Waltz of the Cornflowers and Poppies) and a Barcarolle-framed entrance for naiads, satyrs and fauns, followed by the Spirit of the Corn's variation of thanksgiving — material that mixes lyrical, flower-like ensemble dancing with more grotesque, animalistic satyr and faun figures typical of Petipa's demi-caractère vocabulary. Autumn builds to the ballet's best-known set piece, the 'Grande bacchanale des saisons' (the 'autumn bacchanale'), a massed revel for the Seasons, Bacchantes, Satyrs, Fauns and the Spirit of the Corn danced under a fall of stage leaves, followed by a 'Petit adage', a Satyr variation, and a 'Coda générale' before the apotheosis of stars.
The article gives titles and running order (via the 1899–1900 Imperial Theatres yearbook) rather than step-by-step choreographic detail, so specifics of Petipa's actual vocabulary — pointe work, partnering holds, mime passages — are not described directly in the source and must be inferred from the ballet's genre and period.
Context
The Seasons was made at the height of Petipa's tenure with the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg, in the same period he was also preparing Les Millions d'Arlequin; the two scores were in effect swapped between Glazunov and Riccardo Drigo by mutual agreement of the composers. It belongs to the late Imperial repertory of allegorical, divertissement-heavy one-act ballets built around a symphonic score, a format distinct from Petipa's earlier multi-act narrative spectacles.
Staging history
The ballet was first given privately before the Imperial court at the Hermitage Theatre in the Winter Palace, with the same cast repeating it almost immediately at the Mariinsky Theatre. Nikolai Legat mounted a revival at the Mariinsky in 1907, with new costumes by Aleksandr Golovin, and this production continued to be given intermittently by the Imperial/Soviet company until its last recorded performance in 1927; an abridged version also survived in the touring repertory of Anna Pavlova's company.
How to watch it
Watch for the entrée–variation–coda pattern repeating in each tableau — this is the grand pas skeleton of Imperial classical ballet applied to purely allegorical, non-narrative figures rather than named story characters. The autumn bacchanale is the piece's dramatic peak and is often excerpted on its own; note how it contrasts the classical figures of the Seasons with the more grotesque, ground-bound satyr and faun vocabulary before the whole cast is buried under falling leaves.
Structure
- Act I · Scene 1 · Scène de l'Hiver / Winter variations / CodaWinter appears with Hoar-frost, Ice, Hail and Snow amid snowflakes; two gnomes light a fire and the assembly vanishes.
- Act I · Scene 2 · Entrée de Printemps, Zéphyre, les Fées des fleurs, les oiseaux et les fleursSpring dances with Zephyr, flower fairies and enchanted birds until the heat of the sun sends them into flight.
- Act I · Scene 3 · Valse des bleuets et des pavots / Barcarolle / Variation de l'Esprit du maïsCornflowers and poppies revel with the Spirit of the Corn; naiads bring water, and satyrs and fauns try to abduct the Spirit before Zephyr rescues her.
- Act I · Scene 4 · Grande bacchanale des saisons / Petit adage / Variation du Satyre / Coda généraleThe Seasons, Bacchantes, Satyrs, Fauns and the Spirit of the Corn dance a bacchanale as autumn leaves fall over them.
- Act I · Scene Apotheosis · La Révélation des étoilesConstellations of stars are revealed above the earth.
Structure read from an encyclopaedia article, not from a libretto or score we hold. Confirm against a programme before treating the numbering as authoritative.
Credits
- composer: Alexander Glazunov