The Polovtsian Dances (or Polovetsian Dances) (Russian: Половецкие пляски, Polovetskie plyaski from the Russian name of the Turkic Polovtsy people) are perhaps the best known selections from Alexander Borodin's opera Prince Igor (1890). They are often played as a stand-alone concert piece. Borodin was the original composer, but the opera was left unfinished at his death and was subsequently completed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov. In the opera the dances are performed with chorus, but concert performances often omit the choral parts. The dances do not include the "Polovtsian March," which opens Act III (No. 18), but the overture, dances, and march from the opera have been performed together to form a suite from Prince Igor. In the opera Prince Igor, the dances occur in Act II (in the original edition). A typical performance lasts between 11 and 14 minutes.
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Famous quotes containing the word dances:
“I tell you the dances we had were really enough,
your hands on my breast and all that sort of stuff.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)