The Pharaoh's Daughter
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Pharaoh's Daughter (The Daughter of the Pharaoh, Russian title Doch Faraona, French title La Fille du Pharaon), is a ballet choreographed by Marius Petipa, to the music of Cesare Pugni, with libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges from Théophile Gautier's Le Roman de la Momie. First presented by the Imperial Ballet at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, in St. Petersburg, Russia, on 18 January (old style 30 January) 1862.
The principal dancers at the opening night were Carolina Rosati (Mummy/Aspicia), Nicholas Goltz (Pharaoh), Marius Petipa (Ta-Hor), and Lev Ivanov (Fisherman).
The libretto was a collaboration between Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Petipa, partly after Théophile Gautier's Le Roman de la Momie. The music was composed by Cesare Pugni, while the design was by A. Roller, G. Wagner (scenery), Kelwer and Stolyakov (costumes).
Other productions include: Ballet of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre (staged Petipa), with Praskovia Lebedeva as Aspicia, Moscow, 29 November (old style 17 November) 1864; Ballet of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre (staged Aleksander Gorsky after Petipa), with Vasily Tikhomirov as the English Tourist (Taor/Lord Wilson) and Enrichetta Grimaldi as Vint-Anta (Aspicia), Moscow, 27 November 1905; a new production by Pierre Lacotte for the Bolshoi Ballet in 2000, which included only three reconstructed dances from Petipa's original choreography for the Grand Pas d'action of Act II.
The Sergeyev Collection, housed in the Harvard University Theatre Collection, contains choreographic notations of Petipa's 1898 production of The Pharaoh's Daughter for Mathilde Kschessinskaya. The notations document Petipa's choreography for the dances of the principal roles, while the rest of the choreography (i.e. for the corps de ballet and much of the action sequences) is only vaguely documented.
