Staging of Swan Lake returns it to dark side
Russia’s Perm Ballet sees tragic death as love story’s only possible outcome
When the Kiev Ballet presented its full-length Swan Lake in Montreal in 2012, the drama ended on a happy note with the bad guy, Rothbart, falling in combat at the hands of Prince Siegfried, who freed the Swan Queen, Odette, from Rothbart’s spell. But in the version being staged here this month by the Perm Ballet — one of Russia’s finest — the Prince and Odette are joined in eternal love only after they die drowning.
Happy ending? Tragic ending? Both have been around for long enough to have their own traditions and adherents among major ballet companies (happy at the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky, tragic at the Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theatre). For Perm Ballet’s artistic director, Alexey Miroshnichenko, who is also well known in Russia as a choreographer, the two lovers’ tragic death is the only possible outcome.
“In principle, Romantic ballets cannot end well. Romantic ballets don’t offer ‘happy love,’ ” he said in a recent Skype interview from Perm, a city some 1,100 kilometres east of Moscow with a storied ballet history. “Take the ballet Giselle, for example. Imagine that she didn’t die, but got married, had kids.”
Indeed, the poignancy of Giselle, as with Odette, lies in the betrayal of their love, an act that arises out of the kind of hyperintense emotions that romantic souls expect and demand.
Romantic ballet involves a notion of destiny in which protagonists like Prince Siegfried believe in finding a unique soulmate. Romantic that he is, Siegfried cannot admit that temptation comes in many attractive forms. After pledging his love to the gentle Odette, he falls for the flashy Black Swan, Odile, a betrayal that dooms Odette and himself. Yes, Romantic ballet protagonists seem to carry the seeds of their own destruction.
In counterpoint to the protagonists’ anguished yearning, Perm Ballet’s Swan Lake has an ebullient male/female duet by another couple. It opens the ballroom scene with a series of effervescent entrechats (quick crossing and uncrossing of legs) and playful jumps that show a couple in healthy, uncomplicated love.
As staged by the great Russian ballerina Natalia Makarova, Perm Ballet’s Swan Lake incorporates the famous Prince/ Odette Act II duet by the lakeside, and the Prince/Odile Act III duet at the palace ball, where Odile tosses off 32 consecutive turns on point (called fouettés).
These and other parts of the ballet — notably all of Act II, with its celebrated white swan corps de ballet — are remnants of the choreography created in 1895 by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov.
Since then, many choreographers, such as Makarova, have taken these remnants and added their own contributions to fill out the four acts (sometimes considered as a prologue and three acts). Makarova’s version even includes some choreography that the late British choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton created for the Royal Ballet’s Swan Lake. Undeniably, over the years the “authentic” Swan Lake became a patchwork.
Makarova taught her Swan Lake to the Perm dancers in 2006 and since then has checked on the company’s performances from time to time to ensure that all is well.
“She came once while we were on tour in France and said she was quite satisfied,” said Miroshnichenko, “though, of course, she made comments.”
In November 2015, six years after becoming artistic director, Miroshnichenko staged his own full-length Swan Lake for Perm Ballet. Along with the Petipa/ Ivanov material, he added a prologue, gave Prince Siegfried a big solo, and brought back the controversial character of the Jester, who was introduced into Swan Lake by Alexander Gorsky, a choreographer who began making changes to the ballet as early as 1910. Montreal fans who saw a production by the Mariinsky Ballet (then called the Kirov Ballet) in 1986 will recall the Jester’s rubber-ball leaps — impressive, but largely distracting from the dramatic action.
“People ask, ‘Why a new version? It’s a classic!’ Firstly, because we need to keep the classics fresh, to refine and purify the choreography. Secondly, it gives the company a chance to contribute something of its own. In general, wherever a classical ballet company has a resident choreographer, it has that choreographer’s version of Swan Lake.”
There is also a practical reason for Perm Ballet to have two active versions of Swan Lake.
“It’s the most in-demand ballet on tour, but if you consider how long a tour lasts — packing, shipping, travelling — then Perm would not see Swan Lake for half a year. This way, while we take Makarova’s version on tour, we have my version at home.”
Perm Ballet’s touring Swan Lake is indeed a big production. For the company’s first appearance in Canada, 63 dancers plus a crew of 15 — including orchestra conductor Valeri Platonov — will
be coming to Montreal along with boxes of decor and costumes.
Montrealers had a chance to see some of the Perm stars last year at the Stars of Russian Ballet gala at Théâtre Outremont. Despite jet lag and performing on a relatively small stage (Perm’s 972-seat theatre built in 1879 has a stage 18 metres wide, one metre wider than the stage of Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier), the dancers showed fine form and presence in a mixed program. Among them were Nikita Chetverikov and Inna Bilash, a prize-winning couple who will dance the leads here on opening night, Feb. 22, and at the evening performance on Feb. 25. Other lead couples are Oleg Kulikov and Polina Buldakova (Feb. 23 and Feb. 25 matinee) and Ruslan Savdenov and Alexandra Surodeeva (Feb. 24 and 26).