Swan Lake

[osprey_archer]

My adventures in ballet continue! Yesterday the gang and I went to see Swan Lake, my first ever Swan Lake, although I've wanted to see it since I saw Black Swan in 2011.

Now obviously as a relative ballet neophyte I don't have a lot of standard to comparison, but my impression is that the Indianapolis Ballet Company does pretty classical productions: their ballets tend to be set when and where they were originally written to be set, rather than, let's say, "Romeo and Juliet but it's a discotech on the moon." Swan Lake is in Fairytale Europe, with gorgeous costumes: various shades of silvery-gray for all the guests at Prince Siegfried's birthday, Siegfried himself in a frogged blue jacket (lots of gorgeous fitted jackets in the production as a whole), his mother the queen entering a sweeping yellow gown to gesture imperatively at her ring finger: time to get married, son!

Prince Siegfried, not quite ready to get married just yet thank you, runs away into the forest with his birthday crossbow. Here he meets a bevy of swans, all in soft white tutus and feathery headbands... and one of the swans turns into the most beautiful girl in the world! She is Odette, who has been turned into a swan by the cruel Baron Rothbart, and just as Siegfried is about to plight his troth the Baron appears to rip the lovers apart... in a costume that looked like Mothman had an illegitimate baby with a peacock, which let the otherwise excellent standard of costuming down a little bit, but on the other hand going through life looking simultaneously sinister and hilarious would be enough to sour most of us into villainy.

That was the first two acts, and they were enjoyable enough but, I must admit, a bit slow. Tchaikovsky composed for an era with a more gracious attention span, clearly.

Fortunately, things really picked up after the intermission. In the third act, the queen presents Prince Siegfried with four potential princesses, whom he greets with a polite sigh... until the black swan Odile (enchanted to look like Odette) appears! She knocks Siegfried's socks off, and he rushes after her, leaving the stage clear for the divertissements. (I love a good divertissement. The Hungarian and Polish dances both had more beautiful jackets, blue for the Hungarian dance and dark red for the Polish.)

Siegfried and Odile return... Siegfried plights his troth... only to see, moments too late, his true love Odette outside the window! He has been TRICKED by the wicked Baron Rothbart.

We rush back to the lake. It's not clear from the program if we're getting a tragic ending or a happy one, so we're all on tenterhooks. The swans comfort the heartbroken Odette... Siegfried appears, and in a lovely pas de deux Siegfried and Odette reconcile... only for the wicked baron to burst onto the scene and tell Siegfried too bad! You swore to marry Odile and there's no way out of it!

So Odette jumps into the lake. Siegfried attempts to fight the Baron, but is driven into the lake too. It's looking bad all around... but then the swan chorus rebels! They rise up and overwhelm the wicked Baron Rothbart! (The wicked Baron should have considered turning the girls into ducks or sparrows or something generally less vicious than swans.) The Baron falls into the lake, draping his peacock-mothman cape artistically over the rocks (this was the best it looked all show). Siegfried and Odette emerge from the lake and embrace at center stage! Happy end!

Looking at the Wikipedia article, apparently sometimes the play ends with Siegfried and Odette united in death and ascending togetherr. I suppose that may have been what was intended here, but honestly what I got out of it was "ODETTE'S SISTER SWANS HAVE SAVED THEM," and I was on my feet cheering with everyone else.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Swan Lake was my first experience of classical music and of ballet--I loved the music, and put putting on an old LP and dancing with it eventually transformed into wanting actual ballet lesson. The liner notes on the back had the expression "wracked with grief" in the description, and boy did I spend an inordinate amount of time contemplating those words and what they indicated. Pre-teen me was THERE for the tragedy, but current-me likes the ideas of a bunch of swans teaching Rothbart what's what.

[osprey_archer]

I was surprised how much of the music I recognized! Not that I could tell you where I've heard it before, but I've definitely heard a lot of the score before. Delightful to see it in its home habitat, as it were.

I was all set to be snotty if this production had a happy ending, but actually I loved the finale. I'd like to see a tragic production too, just to compare, though.

[luzula]

I am not a ballet person, so I didn't know the plot of this. But at "So Odette jumps into the lake," all I could think is, "but isn't she a swan? surely swans can swim?"

[osprey_archer]

I believe at this point Odette is in her original (human) form, but also I think by ballet logic even a swan can drown herself if she is sufficiently weighted down by a broken heart.

[sovay]

It's looking bad all around... but then the swan chorus rebels! They rise up and overwhelm the wicked Baron Rothbart! (The wicked Baron should have considered turning the girls into ducks or sparrows or something generally less vicious than swans.)

I am a big fan of a staging finally remembering that swans may be beautiful and balletic and can legendarily fuck a dude up.

[osprey_archer]

Twenty extremely angry swans could absolutely kill a man EVEN IF he were also an evil sorcerer.

[philomytha]

I've seen the straight original version years ago at Sadler's Wells, but last autumn I got to the Matthew Bourne queer version, which massively emphasises the dangerousness of the swans, as you might expect when they're all danced by half-naked men in feathery leggings and facepaint. They all hiss as they dance, which was incredibly sinister. Bourne's ends in the united-in-death rather than saved-by-swans, in fact in Bourne's the Odette character (just called The Swan) is attacked by all the other swans as he tries to protect the Prince from them, and they die together on a big bed in a gloriously whumpy final sequence. It was fantastic.

[osprey_archer]

Why are the swans attacking the prince? Wicked swans! Have the swans taken over the Baron Rothbart role?

[philomytha]

I think the swans disapproved of the Prince stealing their leader's affections away. They're played very much as wild creatures. There wasn't a Baron Rothbart in this version, The Swan is a swan, not an enchanted person.

My favourite bit was when the Prince tames The Swan - it starts off with The Swan attacking him, and ends up with him twining himself around the Prince, it's a stunning bit of dancing. The whole thing is very much the gay fanfic reworking of the original - but I can't help thinking Tchaikovsky would have approved.

[osprey_archer]

This sounds like an important public service announcement about not getting too close to wild creatures. They are very much wild and MAY attack.

Seriously though, this sounds delightful. I hope I have the chance to see it some day.

[mme_n_b]

Swan Lake is beautiful in any form, but the true joy comes when you see it on Russian television.

[osprey_archer]

LOL! Yes.

[littlerhymes]

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Act 1 always does feel a bit slow to me but Act 2 onwards on repeat viewings is like wandering through a gallery to see beloved paintings again: "oh it's the dance of the cygnets" or "the pas de deux is here" or "ohh Odile's 32 fouettes!"

I really like the Matthew Bourne version too, if you get a chance to see that, it's so interesting.

[osprey_archer]

I was surprised how much of the music I've heard before! Couldn't for the life of me tell you where I'd heard it, but still it was familiar and I was glad to finally hear it in its home habitat, as it were.

philomytha described the Matthew Bourne version and I DO want to see it now! Wicked prince tries to steal away the leader of the swans (by stealing his HEART) and is justly punished for his presumption by an outraged swan swarm. (This is ofc the swan POV on happenings.) Moral of the story: Do Not Mess with Swans.

[littlerhymes]

The Bourne Swan Lake is free for streaming on ABC iview if you're geolocated in Australia (I know you are not lol)/have a VPN (maybe you have a VPN!), though I think it's also available on rental in the USA on Prime. It's really interesting (though imo some bits of the choreo just don't quite cut it compared to the classic version).

[osprey_archer]

Ooooooh. As you know I am terrible at watching things if I'm not actually pinned down by a specific ticket with a specific time, but I will keep this in mind!

[littlerhymes]

So am I! Maybe we can tee up a buddy watch sometime.

[osprey_archer]

My mom DOES have Amazon Prime, so I could at least check if it is available there for a possible buddy watch... I will report back!

[oracne]

Attacking swans definitely seems more true to Actual Swans. Interesting interview relating to the recent Philadelphia production: https://www.broadstreetreview.com/previews/the-duality-and-musicality-of-philadelphia-ballets-swan-lake

[osprey_archer]

I suppose since the swans all started out as girls before being transformed, it took them a while to come into their Swan Power. But when they realized it, that was the end of Baron Rothbart.

[regshoe]

I know nothing about ballet, but I do like the idea of a play with an ending that varies depending on the production. Always a surprise!...

[osprey_archer]

IIRC the original Swan Lake was a tragedy, but it's one where you can get away with performing it either way.

[lokifan]

on the other hand going through life looking simultaneously sinister and hilarious would be enough to sour most of us into villainy.

Ahahaha, true!

The wicked Baron should have considered turning the girls into ducks or sparrows or something generally less vicious than swans

Ahaha, fair point! A swan almost broke my arm when I was two, they're mean.

Yay for the happy ending! I love it being the sister swans that saved them!

[osprey_archer]

Yes, it was brilliant to have the sister swans team up to defeat the Baron. There are so many of them and they've been so beautiful and ethereal up till now but all of a sudden they're closing in on him with MENACE and you remember that swans, beautiful as they are, are also deadly.

[skygiants]

The best bit in the production we saw here was in the fourth act when we finally get back to the lake after the disastrous party -- the whole stage was covered in mist (fog machine deployed with absolute chef's kiss perfection) and then the whole swan chorus, which had been completely invisible beforehand, rise up out of it and the whole theater gasped.

(I mean of course the other best bit was the 32 fouettes but that's always the best bit. Siegfried's mother nodding approvingly in the audience going 'I always told my son he had to find a queen who could do 32 fouettes!')

[osprey_archer]

the whole swan chorus, which had been completely invisible beforehand, rise up out of it and the whole theater gasped.

Oh that sounds so beautiful. Fantastic use of the fog machine.

Are you even allowed to be queen if you can't do 32 fouettes? Absolutely necessary to queenhood.