Ludwig Minkus

Ludwig Minkus , also known as Léon Fyodorovich Minkus (23 March 1826 – 7 December 1917), was an Austrian composer of ballet music, a violinist and teacher of music.

Minkus is noted for the music he composed during his career in St. Petersburg, Russia. Beginning in 1871 Minkus served in the official post of Composer of Ballet Music to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, a position he held until it was abolished upon his retirement in 1886. During his long career in St. Petersburg, Minkus composed for the original works and revivals staged by the ballet masters Arthur Saint-Léon and Marius Petipa. Among the composer's most celebrated compositions is his score for La source (1866; composed jointly with Léo Delibes), Don Quixote (1869); and La Bayadère (1877). Minkus composed many pieces for older works. The most well-known of Minkus's additional music is the Grand Pas classique and Mazurka des enfants composed for Petipa's 1881 revival of Paquita.

Early life Ludwig Minkus was born Aloysius Bernhard Philipp Minkus on 23 March 1826, in the Innere Stadt district of Vienna, the capital of the Austrian Empire. His father, Theodor Johann Minkus, was born in 1795 in Groß-Meseritsch, Moravia (today known as Velké Meziříčí near Brno, Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic) and his mother, Maria Franziska Heimann was born in 1807 in Pest, Hungary.

It was for the private performances at the Yusupov palace that Minkus composed what appears to be his first score for ballet, the mythological L′Union de Thétis et Pélée (The Union of Thetis and Peleus), first performed in 1857. Since ballets at that time were only performed at the Paris Opéra as diversions during the intermissions of full-length operas, Saint-Léon was required to mount the ballet in a redacted edition in two-acts. The first performance took place on 11 July 1864 with an audience that included the Empress Eugénie. The cast included the celebrated Premier danseur and choreographer Louis Mérante in the role of Count Molder and the ballerina Eugénie Fiocre in the role of Cupid. Minkus's score was praised by Parisian critics, among them Théophile Gautier, who found the music to be filled with a " .. haunting, dreamy quality. The music for the dances were filled with sparkling melodies and infectious rhythms." The change of titles of this ballet has caused much confusion among historians.

In the fall of 1866 Saint-Léon was invited to stage a new work for the Théâtre Impérial de l'Opéra. This was La Source, which was written by Minkus in collaboration with the composer Léo Delibes. Minkus wrote the whole of Act I and the second tableau of Act III, while Delibes wrote the whole of Act II and the first tableau of Act III. Minkus's scores featured violin cadenzas written especially for the great Leopold Auer.

Act III of La Camargo. In the center is Pierina Legnani in the title role with Nikolai Legat as Vestris. St. Petersburg, 1901.

In 1883 Minkus composed the music for Petipa's Nuit et Jour, a sumptuous pièce d'occasion staged especially for the celebrations held at the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow in honor of the coronation of Emperor Alexander III. The Emperor, a fanatic balletomane, bestowed upon Minkus the Order of Saint Stanislaus for his score. During the ceremony the newly crowned Emperor told Minkus " ... you have reached perfection as a ballet composer."

Petipa's Les Pilules magiques (The Magic Pills), which premiered was a grand work staged for the inauguration of the newly renovated Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, which was now the Imperial Ballet and Opera's principal venue. Les Pilules magiques was in the tradition of vaudeville, and aside from Petipa's danced episodes included comedy and singing. Minkus naturally supplied the music for Petipa's danced passages in three fantastical tableaux. The first took place in a cave inhabited by sorceresses, while the second included various card games brought to life through dance. The third and final tableau was known as The Kingdom of the Laces in which a Grand divertissement of national dances from Belgium, England, Spain and Russia was performed.

Minkus's next score was for Petipa's one-act ballet L'Offrandes à l'Amour, staged especially for the benefit performance of the ballerina Eugenia Sokolova on . Minkus's music was hailed as a masterwork of ballet music by contemporary critics. It would be his last known ballet score for Petipa.

Retirement

By 1886 Minkus's contract with the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres was set to expire. In light of this, the director of the Imperial Theatres Ivan Vsevolozhsky felt that the time had come for Minkus's post of official ballet composer to be abolished in an effort to diversify the music supplied for new works. Minkus officially retired on with his benefit performance that featured excerpts from Les pilules magiques and the Grand pas classique from Paquita.

In spite of his retirement, Minkus was asked to return to ballet composition for a new ballet one final time in 1890 for Petipa's ballet Kalkabrino, set to a libretto by Modest Tchaikovsky. This work premiered on for the benefit performance of the Italian ballerina Carlotta Brianza. Though not a success, the ballet was acquired by the young Mathilde Kschessinskaya upon the departure of Carlotta Brianza in late 1891, who used it to launch her own career.

Departure from Russia and later life Minkus and his wife Maria left Russia forever in the summer of 1891, relocating to their native Vienna. The composer lived in semi-retirement on a modest pension from the Tsar's treasury. For a time he lived in the Karl Ludwig Strasse on the third floor of a rented apartment belonging to his friend, the revered pianist and teacher Theodor Leschetizky. These years saw Minkus's last known compositions: Das Maskenfest (The Masked Festival) was originally written by the composer as Tanz und Mythe (Dance and Myth) in 1897 for the ballet of the Kaiserliches und Königliches Hof-Operntheater (a.k.a. the Vienna Court Opera). The ballet was rejected outright by the Operntheater's directorate Gustav Mahler, who felt that the work's libretto was out of touch with contemporary tastes. Minkus then composed Die Dryaden (The Dryads) for the Viennese stage in 1899, a ballet in one act. The final work associated with Minkus's name before his death was Rübezahl, staged in 1907 at the Court Opera to a pastiche of airs taken from his and Delibes's La Source and the works of Johann Strauss II.

Minkus later relocated to an apartment in the Gentzgasse where he spent his final years alone and in utter poverty, his wife having died in 1895, and the events of World War I having cut off his pension from Russia. During the extremely cold winter of 1917, Minkus developed pneumonia and died on 7 December 1917 at the age of ninety-one. With no children of his own, Minkus was survived only by a niece, Clara von Minkus.

Ludwig Minkus was interred at the Döbling Cemetery in Vienna.

For some time, it was reported that, in 1939, after the Nazi invasion of Austria, Minkus's grave was one of many that fell victim to the national socialist policies of the time that demanded for all cemeteries to be systematically "cleansed" by the invading Nazi regime. The graves of those who were considered ethnically "undesirable", especially if one was of Jewish descent or without any documented subscriber to the annual cemetery fees, were exhumed and deposited into a mass anonymous grave. However, this was not the case. Records held at the Döbling Cemetery confirm that Minkus's grave was never disturbed or destroyed and before the war, the name on the initial stone was changed to save the grave. Other people have since been buried in the same plot, but Minkus stayed in his resting place.

Ballets

Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, St. Petersburg Fiametta, ou L′amour du Diable (new staging of La Flamme d′amour, ou La Salamandre). Choreography by A. Saint-Léon. . Le Poisson doré (expanded staging in three acts). Choreography by A. Saint-Léon. . Le Lys. Choreography by A. Saint-Léon. . La Camargo. Choreography by M. Petipa. . Le Papillon. Choreography by M. Petipa. . Les Brigands. Choreography by M. Petipa. . Les Aventures de Pélée. Choreography by M. Petipa. . Le Songe d'une nuit d'été. Based on Felix Mendelssohn's music. Choreography by M. Petipa. . La Bayadère. Choreography by M. Petipa. . Roxana, la beauté du Monténégro. Choreography by M. Petipa. . La Fille des Neiges. Choreography by M. Petipa. . Mlada. Choreography by M. Petipa. . Zoraïa, ou La Maure en Espagne. Choreography by M. Petipa. .

Imperial Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow Deux jours en Venise. Choreography by ?. 1862. La Flamme d′amour, ou La Salamandre. Choreography by A. Saint-Léon. . Don Quixote (Original staging in 3 acts/8 tableaux). Choreography by M. Petipa. . Nuit et Jour. Choreography by M. Petipa. .

Works for other venues L′Union de Thétis et Pélée. Choreography by ?. 1857. Private Theatre of the Yusupov Palace, St. Petersburg. Néméa, ou L′Amour vengé (Reduced staging in two acts of Fiametta, ou L′amour du Diable). Choreography by A. Saint-Léon. 11 July 1864. Théâtre Impérial de l'Opéra, Paris. La Source (composed jointly with Léo Delibes). Choreography by A. Saint-Léon. 12 November 1866. Théâtre Impérial de l'Opéra, Paris. Le Poisson doré (Original staging in one act). Choreography by A. Saint-Léon. . Amphitheatre of Olga's Island at Peterhof Palace, St. Petersburg. Les Pilules magiques. Choreography by M. Petipa. . Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg. L'Offrandes à l'Amour. Choreography by M. Petipa. . Peterhof, St. Petersburg.