About the work
Le Réveil de Flore is a one-act anacreontic ballet by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, with music by Riccardo Drigo. It was created in 1894 for the wedding celebrations of Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, daughter of Tsar Alexander III, and premiered in August of that year at the theatre of Peterhof Palace. Shortly afterwards the Mariinsky Theatre took the ballet into its permanent repertoire.
Plot
The nymph Chloris is roused from sleep by the cold of the north wind Boreas; the goddess Eos comforts her, and the sun god Helios awakens both nature and Chloris with a kiss. When her husband Zephyr arrives, Zeus grants her immortality: she becomes the goddess Flora, as the Olympian gods appear to celebrate.
Cultural significance
The ballet is one of many scores through which Drigo, as house composer of the Imperial Ballet, shaped the St Petersburg repertoire for decades; individual numbers, notably its well-known flute solo, are still danced in ballet schools and gala programmes today, even though the complete work is rarely staged in full.