Riccardo Drigo

The composer and conductor, who was born in Padua in 1846 and died in his home town in 1930, studied with Antonio Jorich and Pietro Bresciani in Padua and with Antonio Buzzolla at the conservatory in Venice. His first opera Don Pedro di Portogallo was published in Padua in 1868. In 1879 Drigo was appointed conductor of the Italian Opera in St. Petersburg, where his comic opera La moglie rapita premiered in 1884, and in 1886 he took over the post of conductor and composer of the Imperial Ballet. He conducted the premieres of The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker and Raymonda, and for the St Petersburg premiere of Swan Lake he orchestrated some of Tchaikovsky's piano pieces, which were added to the score. He also composed a number of ballet pieces, of which Arlekinada (also known as Les millions d'Arlequin) became the most famous. The once celebrated Serenade from this ballet choreographed by Marius Petipa in 1900 was published in all kinds of arrangements. Other ballet scores include Le Tailsman (for St Petersburg in 1889), La côte d'azur (for Monte Carlo, 1895) and Le porte-bonheur (for Milan, 1908).
Drigo also created an impressive series of interludes to existing ballet music by other composers, including a grand pas de deux for Le Corsaire, two variations for La Fille mal gardée, a variation for La Bayadère, a variation and a polacca for Paquita as well as a pas de trois and a variation for Die Puppenfee. Drigo also created fouir additional numbers for Petipa's St Petersburg production of La Sylphide in 1892. In 1920, when working conditions in the young USSR became too difficult, Drigo returned to Padua, where he created two more operas, Flaffy Raffles (1926) and Il garofano bianco (1929).