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George Balanchine later recalled a tale about Ivanov during his staging of 'The Magic Flute'. Ivanov had not set sufficient rehearsal time to stage the whole ballet. During dress rehearsal, one of the scenes was not yet choreographed. The scene was supposed to include everyone dancing uncontrollably to the flute's music. In this rehearsal, Ivanov went downstage and told everyone," All right, now, everybody dance!". He went through, dashing among the improvising dancers, to arrange something here, and suggest a step there. This resulted in a staging of utter chaos, exactly as the plot of the story demanded!
In 1901, Ivanov was set to stage Delibes' 'Sylvia'. He started suffering from intense fatigue and grew ill, leaving his assistant, Pavel Gerdt to complete the choreography. He died in St. Petersburg, December 11, 1901.
For more information on Lev Ivanov, check out: http://www.balletmet.org/Notes/Ivanov.ht...
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