December 22, 1905: "The Dying Swan" Premieres

Anna Pavlova

December 22, 1905: The Dying Swan premieres, at Noblemen's Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia. It closes a troublesome year in that country with a great moment in the history of the performing arts.

The Dying Swan is a four-minute ballet piece by Russian dancer Michel Folkine, based on "The Swan," the 13th of the 14 movements, each dedicated to a particular animal, of Le Carnaval des animaux -- The Carnival of the Animals -- a musical suite written in 1886 by French composer Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns.

Saint-Saëns had originally scored "The Swan" for a solo cello, accompanied by two pianos. Folkine composed The Dying Swan as a pièce d'occasion for Anna Pavlova. Born in St. Petersburg in 1881, she made The Dying Swan not just her signature performance, but one of the most familiar in all of ballet.

Pavlova performed it over 4,000 times, mostly for the Ballets Russes, making her the most famous ballerina in the world. Her fame was helped by the fact that she left Russia for Britain in 1912, and touring America nearly every year from then until 1926, helping spread her fame throughout the English-speaking world.

In 1931, shortly before her 50th birthday, upon arriving in The Hague, the Netherlands, she fell ill with pleurisy. She was told she needed surgery, and that she would never be able to dance again if she went ahead with it. She refused, saying "If I can't dance, then I'd rather be dead." She got her wish on January 23. Her last words were, "Get my swan costume ready."

The next night, for what should have been her premiere, in accordance with old ballet tradition, the show went on, as scheduled, with a single spotlight circling an empty stage where Pavlova would have been. She was buried in London, in her swan costume.

Saint-Saëns died in 1921, Fokine in 1942.

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December 22, 1905 was a Friday. Kenneth Rexroth, the poet who hosted the 1955 San Francisco poetry reading that is considered the start of the Beat Generation literary movement, was born on this day.

Baseball and football were out of season. Professional hockey didn't really exist, and professional basketball barely did. So there were no scores on this day.