Another swan feather in Ballet Ireland’s cap
Swan Lake Gaiety and touring until Dec 20
Ballet Ireland overcomes its limited resources with great professionalism and attention to detail. The style is not aggressively flamboyant, no single individual takes over the show, but the precise teamwork is always a joy to watch. And this production is one of the best it has done.
The imaginative range of the original classical Russian choreography gives the whole cast an opportunity to display their talents, from the chirpy precision of the cygnets’ dance to the dramatic confrontations between the Prince, Odette and Rothbart.
The swans’ choreography was performed with such delicacy and nuance that the dancers seemed almost weightless. And Ryoko Yagyu, combining the demanding dual roles of Odette and Odile,
gives an outstanding technical and artistic performance.
The highlight comes in the third act at the palace ball, in which Odile is disguised as the beautiful Odette. With the equally talented Michael Revie as Prince Siegfried, they act out a tense, sinister cat-and- mouse game in a series of dances that ends with the Prince cheated into vowing love for her, unwittingly breaking his word to Odette.
He thus destroys the chance of Odette and her companions being freed from the power of Rothbart, who has turned them into swans. The dramatic emotional ending used here is the tragic one in which the prince is drowned and the swans remain forever in the power of Diarmaid O’Meara’s swaggering Rothbart. Richard Bermange’s character dancing as the jester was excellent and presumably was his own choreography.
The music at the Gaiety was provided by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, and Tchaikovsky’s superbly orchestrated score gave all the section leaders the chance to show their class. See balletireland.ie for tour dates.