I have a recording of the music for the "Diane & Acteon Pas de Deux" by Drigo (unnecessarily re-orchestrated by Peter March - Drigo's arrangments are great!) via Richard Bonynge and the English Concert Orchestra in a 2 CD set called "Ballet Gala" (London 421 819-2, out-of-print). In the booklet it says -

"The "Diane & Acteon Pas de Deux" was added to diversify Petipa's 1886 revision of "La Esmeralda"."

Is this true? Or is it a later creation to music that was used in "La Esmeralda"?

I have the film of "La Esmeralda" danced by the Mussorgsky Ballet and the "Diane & Acteon Pas de Deux" shows up nowhere in the film, nor does any of the music from it. Neither does the "La Esmeralda Pas de Deux" by Drigo. Where does the "Diane & Acteon Pas de Deux" fit in the ballet as a whole? What about the Pas de Deux? For what dancers were these pieces created? After Petipa, who revised the choreography?

Also -

I have a film called "Essential Ballet" of the Kirov/Mariinksy at the Royal Opera House and at a Red Square Gala - it contains a performance by Lezhnina & Ruzimitov of the "Diane & Acteon Pas de Deux". This is the only performance I have ever seen live or on film where a corps de ballet is part of the Pas. Along with dressing up the Entree and Adagio, they have a dance right after it to music that matches the rest of Pas; they do not participate in the coda however.

I have danced in this Pas myself quite a few times, and there was never a corps de ballet in it (Marat Daukeyev taught me this pas, a former Kirov dancer, and he never staged a part for a corps nor did he ever mention a corps being part of the way it is danced in Russia. He was very fond of throwing lots of Ballet History trivia at us dancers, in class and rehearsal, and I think he would have mentioned at least once a corps being part of the "real thing"). Is this performance the "true" way to dance this Pas? Or is it something that the Kirov/Mariinksy Ballet made for this performance?

It's sometimes done with a corps. Its also danced with a corps of 12 on the Kirov Night dvd (Diana: Terekhova, Acteon: Bereznoy, early 80s).

I dont know much about the details of Esmeralda but many pas have been left out of the Maly tape. Perhaps it should not be watched as a record of what Esmeralda was really like, or what even the Maly production was like.

The D&A choreography now performed is by Agripina Vaganova & was first presented around 1935. I don't know how much of it was based on earlier choreographies. I'd also like to know more about the history of D&A.

{
Edited to add:
the depth of info on ballettalk is amazing ( to all the knowledgeable people who make this such a great forum!) I searched a bit and came on the following link with information & photos courtesy of rg:
http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...topic=17413&hl=
scroll down to the Ulanova photos
There's info also:
http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...wtopic=6042&hl=
http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...wtopic=8099&hl=
}

the only info i have to add to whatever else was posted before on my part is that the dance from TSAR KANDAV'L - said to be the precursor of vaganova's DIANA AND AKTEON PdD - is listed on one historic affiche i have seen for a moscow performance in 1875 as LES AMOURS DE DIANE - and there is a poster announcing a 1922 benefit(?) performance in which a pas de deux a trois entitled in russian LYUBOV' DIANA (as a translation of LES AMOURS DE DIANE?) was given w/ E. I. Vill as diana, V. A. Semyonov (the handsome dancer teacher who married the young marina semyonova) as endymion and G. M. Balanchinvadze (as in Geo Balanchine) as the satyr. interestingly, and perhaps erroneously, the music is given as Minkus. the 1875 poster for TSAR KANDAV'L says only pugni.
i now suspect, btw, for anyone who knows the 1922 pastel portrait of a handsome young balanchivadze in lynx?/leopard? skin and headband by serebyakova, may well show g.m.b. costumed for his satyr role in this number.

a recent perf. by NJ Ballet showed the D&A pdd in the betrothal scene as a kind of divertissement to help celebrate the nuptials of Phoebus and Fleur de Lis.

vaganova's divertissement was definitely a pas de deux and it was first given by ulanova and chabukiani. i believe alla shelest took over as diana fairly soon thereafter, still i think opposite chabukiani.

I have read somewhere, and here goes my memory again, that the Diane and Acteon PDD has its roots in "Le Talisman".

"The "Diane & Acteon Pas de Deux" was added to diversify Petipa's 1886 revision of "La Esmeralda"."

Is this true?

The D&A pas as we know it today was an Agripina Vaganova creation Vaganova in 1886 was around 7 years old.
Esmeralda is a ballet created by Perrot in the romantic era. Petipa recreated as he did with many other romantic ballets and he add the Esmeralda Pas de deux with music I think by Drigo Later in 1900 Petipa already dead Vaganova added the Diana and Acteon pas de deux which was took from another Petipa ballet and add solo for the man

Just to add to Robert's post.

When Marius Petipa revived King Candaule, he created virtually a new ballet and Riccardo Drigo was let free to re-orchestrate and interpolate music to the Pugni original. The Pas de Diane for this production was as mentioned elsewhere a pas de trois plus eight nymphs.

When Vaganova staged her own version of Esmeralda, she took the Pugni (arr. Drigo) music from King Candaule and interpolated the pas de deux that we all know and love, for Ulanova and Chabukiani which was given its first performance at the Kirov on April 3, 1935.

PS
Petipa died in 1910.

[I can definately remember hearing something about this PDD, but cannot recall the ballet, I do not think in it's original form it was La Esmeralda, something concerning Sylvia rings a bell,Who was Diana's lover that [she appears with in a vision in the last act. He is featured in a animal skin costume, remaniscent of a shepherd, like Aminta. And that is the point which is being made. But this raises a query about the composer, unless a different person worked on Delibes score. So much was altered over the years it is noqw hard to research. Poor memory does not help me.

as discussed elsewhere here the personages of LES AMOURS DE DIANE were Diana, Endymion, and a Satyr (plus the 8 nymphs noted by Leonid).

:unsure Am I going off topic? if so, still talking of Diane/Dianna, in connection with Sylvia, Sir Fred Ashton's version, taken from the original, was Endymon the lover in the vision Act 3. As in the modern Sylvia (John Nei.) So is it the same Diana in the PDD, and who is Acteon. ?? Sorry if I am being thick!!!

Firstly we are only talking about a takes on mythological tales many times removed from the various original Greek and Roman sources. Sylvia is a nymph of the goddess Diana. In the last act of the ballet, Eros creates a vision of Endymion a mortal the moon goddess had once loved to show a parallel between her and Sylvia and Aminta’s love and she agrees to pardon the lovers.
Acteon is a figure from Greek mythology and a Theban hero. Diana is a character taken from Roman mythology. Check the balletalk archives where I gave a possible explanation for the use of the names in Vaganova’s pas de deux.
Both Diana and Acteon are related by two mythological characterisations as Acteon was involved with the goddess Artemis(Greek) who became mythologically associated with the moon as did Diana(Roman).

Is it the same Diana? It is a similar source for the characters name.

Ballet is an art not noted for its historical accuracy in portrayals. Quite happily exactitude in its mythological representation is ignored, relationships from two cultures are intertwined to entertain us and in the process we are sometimes discombobulated.