Swan Lake

[syr]

I have just returned from Fort Worth to see the Texas Ballet Theater’s Swan Lake. This is just a little report. As some may know the company nearly went under last fall and has been scrapping towards its survival with all manner of of fundraising, an unfortunate but seemingly necessary temporary cut in live music, a shortening of the dancers season – and – at the same time - progressive steps towards implementing a plan for stabilizing towards the future.

From my perspective, turning out performances that can make the city (the donors, the Board, everyone) proud is, of course, the best fundraiser of all – and so they did.

The Swan Lake run was a good success with four performance in Dallas and five in Ft Worth. The company’s already strong level of dance continues to rise – a combination of in-migration, and the gradual (painstaking, of course) maturing of the once “younger” dancers, evident in Swan Lake in both the corps and many secondary roles that were swapped back and forth in different combinations, from performance to performance.

Depending on the performance, the Prince and Odette/Odile were danced by – Andre Silva and Leticia Oliveira; Carl Coomer and Carolyn Judson; Lucas Priola and Carolyn Judson; Peter Zweifel and Lisa Kaczmarck.

It was a simply beautiful production. The local reviewers and the audience agreed.

[bart]

Thanks, syr, for your report. Was this Ben Stevenson's own version? -- a kind of "based on Petipa/Ivanov"? I checked the website but couldn't find much about it.

The website is devoted almost entirely to Stevenson's Cleopatra, coming up in March. I hope you'll report on that, too. (I actually saw this when Ballet Florida imported the production, costumes, etc., for its own dancers.)

[syr]

Hi, yes -- the Ben Stevenson version. I am not sure that Cleopatra will be in my budget. Perhaps I can get someone else to report ....