Adam Cooper's Swan Lake

[Lukayev]

Seeing how the ballet is just 'Swan Lake', this month, I was wondering if anyone saw the version that had bits in Billy Elliot and has the Act II pdd in 'Great Pas De Deux'.. any thoughts?

--Luka

(personally, I find it a bit scary)

[Mel Johnson]

I believe that the Matthew Bourne male Swan Lake was a sensationalist attempt at creating a suces de scandale like Nijinsky used to create, notably with "Afternoon of a Faun" and "Sacre du Printemps" and less so in "Jeux". While theatrically vivid and colorfully interpreted, it was very much a "Broadway" interpretation of the original ballet, with a lot of inside jokes for the people in the audience familiar with the original. The "scandale" wasn't sufficient to give it a lot of staying power, so to use another Broadway phrase, "it doesn't have legs." i.e., It can't run very far. And to use another Johnson (the good Doctor) as a source for useful quotes, it was "worth seeing, but not worth GOING to see" and "like a dog walking on two legs; one wonders not at that is done well, but that it is done at all." Relax, the tradition is safe. ;)

[Juliet]

Respectfully disagree.

I don't think it was attempting to threaten tradition....it was simply different. Very different!

Very musical, very inventive, very well acted and danced. Third and fourth acts, particularly.

It is available on video, probably also in libraries, Luka, so you might want to look at the entirety, as a single pdd does not give a true feeling for the entire ballet. Of course, few pdds do encapsulate a ballet....

Actually, it is "Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake"....Adam Cooper is forever going to be associated with a black line down the middle of his head, but we must give the originator and director his due!

[Mel Johnson]

While sensationalism is not iconoclasm, necessarily, I still feel that the production was sensationalist in attempting to excite comment on the basic work by changing the hermeneutic (You remember hermen? One of the eutic brothers?). I thought it was dynamite theater, but ultimately more a curiosity than a durable addition to the repertory or a provoker of fresh insights into the more traditional productions. I'm still with cousin Dr. Sam.