@ Theatre Royal, Glasgow, until Sat 23 Apr 2016 and touring
It is a brave choreographer who will take a very well-known and well-loved ballet such as Swan Lake, and attempt to recast it into something new. It is, after all, the archetypal classical ballet—and because of that much codded—all tutus, evil sorcerers and betrayed love.
David Dawson, however, clearly doesn’t frighten easily, and working with Scottish Ballet, a company that positively thrives on taking risks, has produced an exciting, really essential version of the ballet. It represents a clean break from the distracting trappings of more traditional productions, thus allowing a clearer and more universal narrative to shine through.
Dawson’s choreography is often asynchronous and asymmetrical, making very effective use of the whole stage—indeed sometimes completely filling it with texture—and he is able to create, for example, real contrasts between foreground and background. There is much fluidity here, movement often undulating around points or lines with an almost fractal quality. The titular swans appear more avian and less otherworldly than is conventional, and denuded of their tutus, the dancers are able to make full, expressive use of their bodies.
Sophie Martin is simply incredible, both as the mysterious and sensual Odette, and as the femme fatale Odile. Her refined, fluid dancing—intense but still full of exquisite subtlety—is the perfect match for Dawson’s choreography. Christopher Harrison is very strong as the confused Siegfried, whose grey life is only occasionally splashed with Technicolor. Martin and Harrison’s Act I duet is vital, passionate and beautiful.
Both the clean and minimal set (John Otto) and the modern, uncluttered costume design (Yumiko Takeshima) help focus Dawson’s Swan Lake on the choreography and the dancers: this is truly a dance piece. The fairytale may be all but gone, but it is all the better for that. This is a clever, exciting and well executed production, which appears to have brought the best out of everyone involved.
I went to see Swan Lake last night at Her Majesty’s Theatre Aberdeen, choreographed by David Dawson. I unfortunately found it uninspiring. The costumes were not aesthetically appealing to the eye. The choreography was clumsy and boring except for the par de deux by the prima ballerina. She was excellent and expressive in the dance. I think that the chosen principal male dancer was ill chosen. The more expertise and expressive dancer was Victor Zarallo, if he was the one in the orange shirt, that is. I was very disappointed and left after the interval. I am not opposed to new interpretations but this is an abomination of a beautiful traditional, classical story.
I just came back from seeing this in Aberdeen. Unlike the commenter above, I actually stayed for the entire performance, and, well… I was disappointed. To say the least. Unfortunately, I had not done very much research into this adaptation of Swan Lake before I bought my ticket. I thought the only changes to the ballet were the costumes (which I could have forgiven if they had sticked to the original storyline of the ballet). I completely agree with Sue. Dawson has stripped this ballet down so much that it is barely Swan Lake any more.
Okay, so what do we still have? Swans. The White Swan and the Black Swan. The “prince” (although I have been informed that he was just supposed to be a regular guy in this…). The lake, apparently (I could not tell that it was a lake when I was watching the performance; judging by the set design, I honestly thought that it was a forest). The “prince’s court”. And that’s about it.
Rothbart isn’t in the ballet at all. There is no magical spell that turns Odette into a swan. Odile probably has no relation to Rothbart at all, considering that he isn’t in this version; meaning that she’s just some random woman who looks a lot like Odette who wants to seduce Siegfried and ruin his chances with Odette, I guess? It honestly isn’t made very clear. It isn’t very clear what happens at the end either. My friend and I concluded that Odette had been turned into a swan because Odile seduced and tricked Siegfried (which lead us to question why the prima ballerina hadn’t had a different costume in the first act to show that she was human). We were both very disappointed that Dawson didn’t at least keep any of the three endings that are usually used in Swan Lake (Odette killing herself, Odette and Siegfried killing themselves, or Rothbart being defeated), as the ending really was rather lacking of any drama or tension.
Tchaikovksy’s original score does not work well with the choreography at all. At times where the music indicated that there should be great expressions of emotion, there weren’t any. The Black Swan’s dance was especially underwhelming in this sense, as her dancing did not become any more fast paced along with the music, as many other adaptations of Swan Lake have included. The choreography for the final scene is also very underwhelming, as the music is often very dramatic, but Siegfried and Odette are just dancing the same repetitive steps over the stage when the music indicates that something drastic is supposed to happen…
The costumes were also very disappointing, in my opinion. All of the male dancers had extremely boring costumes (consisting of plain trousers, long-sleeved T-shirts and blazers. Siegfried also had sweat-patches on his shirt for the entire performance… just saying…).
The costumes for the swans just seemed bland (very plain white leotards that were a wardrobe malfunction just waiting to happen, honestly – I’m amazed that no wardrobe malfunctions did happen).
Odette’s costume just wasn’t good enough. I’m sorry, but it wasn’t. She had the exact same skimpy white leotard design as the other swans (which isn’t staying very true to her character, as she is supposed to be pure and innocent – I cannot imagine Odette wearing a leotard that barely covers her chest. I’m sorry, I just can’t), which actually made it very difficult to tell which swan was her. She did have a red jewel on her bodice for the first act, but she gave that away, making it even more difficult to tell the difference between her and the regular swans. Couldn’t they have at least given her a skirt of some kind? Or something to distinguish her from the “lower swans”? She is the Swan Queen, after all. And a chiffon skirt might have looked nice when she was pirouetting…
Odile’s minions (or whoever they were supposed to be) just looked like Zorro with their completely black outfits and black masks. They could have at least tried to change the shape of the masks. It was literally Zorro’s mask.
Honestly, the only costume that looked any good was Odile’s black dress. It looked very sleek and seductive, and stayed true to her character. Unlike the costumes of the other characters in the ballet.
This adaptation of Swan Lake has many faults. It is by no means terrible as a performance – it was just incredibly disappointing. I am not opposed to modern ballet at all – but when it comes to something as classic as Swan Lake, it really is best to just leave it alone. I could have forgiven Dawson if this had been another ballet (for example, Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella), but you just cannot take everything away from one of the stories that quite possibly made ballet as popular as it is today.
2/5
I could not agree more with Sarah Watson. She has detailed my thoughts. It was the first time I took my 19 year old daughter to a ballet. I had seen “Swanlake” many years ago and it had left me enchanted. I should have read up on this one before buying the tickets…
We felt absolutely deflated when we left.
(I felt angry that something so beautiful had been changed to something so depressing)
The stage setting could not have been more drab: “Forth Road Bridge in Grey” or maybe “The Eiffel Tower when you look up from the bottom,on a rainy day”?? Grey girders, not exactly the backdrop for something as beautiful as this ballet.
As for the costumes- trousers and T-Shirt and everyday dresses in the 1rst act??? Then the “dancing in the underwear” with Odette only distinguished by a red gem which she “lost” later on unfortunately.
The dancing did not do any justice to Tchaikwosky’s music, emotions not being well portrayed, as Sarah Dawson mentions. In the group dancing the dancers were out of sync.
I do not have a problem with adapting “to the times” but this was neither daring nor modern just a very depressing change to grey, drab, bland, boring from something very beautiful.
Very disappointing indeed.
I agree entirely with the foregoing comments. I was so disappointed that this production was stripped of all beauty, and most of the narrative. I usually leave the ballet feeling I could fly. Yesterday in Inverness I left at the interval with lead in my boots wondering where all the sparkle had gone. I felt guilty because the dancers are so competent and the musicians were wonderful, but I just couldn’t bear it any longer. I have since tried to evaluate what remained after my expectations had been stripped away, was I missing a point of subtlety, was a particular dynamic being pressed on my attention? No, it was as dreary as a queue on the motorway on a wet day, and I could extract no redeeming feature.