The Dying Swan

The Dying Swan
Anna Pavlova in costume for The Dying Swan, Buenos Aires, Argentina, c. 1928
Choreographer	Mikhail Fokine
Music	Camille Saint-Saëns, (Le cygne from Le Carnaval des animaux)
Premiere	1907 St. Petersburg, Russia
Created for	Anna Pavlova
Genre	Romantic
Type	Classical ballet

The Dying Swan (originally The Swan) is a solo dance choreographed by Mikhail Fokine to Camille Saint-Saëns's Le Cygne from Le Carnaval des animaux as a pièce d'occasion for the ballerina Anna Pavlova, who performed it about 4,000 times. The short ballet (four minutes) follows the last moments in the life of a swan, and was first presented in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1905. The ballet has since influenced modern interpretations of Odette in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and has inspired non-traditional interpretations as well as various adaptations.