Dancers walk on water
SWAN LAKE The Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House, until April 9. Tickets: 020 7304 4000
HERE’S a quiz: how many Swan Lakes can you watch before suffering from a surfeit of feathers?
If The Nutcracker is the world’s most popular ballet, Swan Lake is the most famous. Tchaikovsky’s greatest ballet score and battalions of ballerinas in white tutus are what most people think of when they think of ballet.
It has taken some time to get the ballet right but as various people have tinkered with and tailored it, the work has edged its way to the forefront of our consciousness. And the current Royal Ballet version is one of the best.
With additions by Frederick Ashton and David Bintley to the famous Petipa/ Ivanov blueprint, Anthony Dowell’s production is a truly sumptuous telling of the age- old tale of boy meets swan, boy loses swan, boy and swan chuck themselves off a cliff. There is magic, an evil doppelganger and carousing peasants but the equation at the heart of the story is the same.
On Yolanda Sonnabend’s fantastic sets of twisted gold and mirrors, the company dances its heart out. Led by Carlos Acosta, on terrific form as Prince Siegfried, and Marianela Nuñez as Odette/ Odile ( taking over from the injured Sarah Lamb) this is a joy from start to finish. Lost sequences such as the Dance Of The Stools have been replaced and fresh ones added, including Ashton’s Neapolitan Dance, enhancing an already splendid production.
Significant details add psychological seasoning, such as the compassionate exchange between Siegfried and the exhausted Tutor ( Alastair Marriott).
The swans too are a spectral army, softly floating in long tutus. When Von Rothbart ( Gary Avis) evolves from his giant baby owl guise to Mohican-haired pimp and gatecrashes the Prince’s ball with his own dark retinue including Odile, Siegfried is seduced by her feral sexuality.
Nuñez attacks the notorious 32 fouettes en tournant with demonic energy, finishing with a flourish of her upraised hands. This is a ballerina at the peak of her powers.
So how many Swan Lakes can you watch? If they were all like this, frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn. Drop dead fabulous.