CCMusic.com

This 1987 Naxos CD has the Nutcracker and Swan Lake suites, but omits the Sleeping Beauty. The Slovak Philharmonic, directed by Michael Halasz, excels on the rather longer Swan Lake suite, with some nice playing in the brass and a lovely duet between solo violinist Josef Bogacz and an unnamed cellist. The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (op. 71). The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It was given it's première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on Sunday, December 18, 1892, on a double-bill with Tchaikovsky's opera, Iolanta. Swan Lake Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875-76. The scenario, initially in two acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales[a] and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger. The ballet was premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet on 4 March [O.S. 20 February] 1877 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Although it is presented in many different versions, most ballet companies base their staging's both choreographically and musically on the 1895 revival of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, first staged for the Imperial Ballet on 15 January 1895, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. For this revival, Tchaikovsky's score was revised by the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatre's chief conductor and composer Riccardo Drigo.