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Swan Lake


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Australian Ballet -- Swan Lake, May 1, 2004 - Sydney Opera House

The Swan Lake that the Australian Ballet performs now is probably the most absorbing full-length story ballet I’ve ever seen. With a lot of these oldie but goodie story ballets, you really have to voluntarily suspend your 21st-century need for a smooth storyline and plausible characters, and you have to agree to enjoy the classical genre for what it is: beautifully stylized with some fairly artificial rules for presentation. But not with this one.

This Graeme Murphy version of Swan Lake (or, more correctly, as the program notes indicate -- this choreographer Murphy/creative associate Janet Vernon/designer Kristian Fredrikson version) first debuted in 2002 and I think it’s a very successful reworking of the traditional classic. The story is transported to some kind of Edwardian-era court of indistinguishable nationality. The triangle in this version is Odette the innocent bride, Prince Siegfried (the royal dinkhead, if you ask me), and Baroness von Rothbart, who is Siegfried’s lover. Siegie and the Baroness are more than happy to marry him off to Odette and continue their romping on the sly, but Odette goes nuts from her shock/outrage/jealousy at the arrangement. Major overtones of the whole Chuck-Di-Camilla triangle. All we needed was a little binging and purging, and the parallel would have been complete. Fortunately we were spared that, and Odette was instead shipped off to a sanitorium, complete with winged-habit nuns, where, when not hunched in a windowsill and rocking pensively, Odette escapes to a dream world where she frolics with - you guessed it -- a flock of lovely white swans. This whole dream-world conceit works, even when Siegfried shows up in her dreams and behaves himself. And then it’s back to reality where Odette recovers and attempts to rejoin the “sane” world. She crashes a party that the Baroness is hosting with Siegfried. The big jerk falls in love with his wife when she impresses everyone (except the Baroness) with her elegantly restrained new personality. But, just as Odette and Siegfried are really enjoying their turns around the ballroom floor together, the Baroness summons the nuns in white coats and they attempt to haul Odette off again. But she escapes to the woods and her flock of swans, where Siegfried finds her, professes his love for her in terpsichorean terms, and then she drowns herself. And until the last, crashing measures of the score, I fervently would have preferred that Siegfried drowned instead, but, as I’ll explain later, the Murphy/Vernon/Fredrikson staging ended with an image that made Odette’s death “work” so quickly and so powerfully that just about everyone around me gasped and then went rifling through their handbags and pockets for tissues as the curtain fell.

So, back to the beginning. (A note of explanation: our family, ordinarily American in residence, has been living in Australia the last few months while my husband works during his university sabbatical with the Australian Institute of Sport. We return home at the end of May.) My two children (ages 10 and 5) and I saw Swan Lake on its first Saturday-afternoon matinee after it opened at the Sydney Opera House two evenings earlier, so imagine my surprise when we were handed our programs and found we were getting the A-team cast of Madeline Eastoe as Odette and Steven Heathcote as Siegfried. I think we got the B-team Baroness with Lucinda Dunn, no slouch clearly, but more on her later.

I consider this Swan Lake to be fully engaging and successful because it passed the all-critical “attention span of a 5-year-old boy” test. My son made it through all three hours and four acts of the ballet with minimal fidgeting because, I think, the storyline was clear and strong enough to give him a heroine to cheer for (the “crazy girl” as he called Odette) and a villain to cheer against (the Baroness who was the “bad girl”). Siegfried frankly puzzled him, but he took my word for it that Siegfried was weak and wishy-washy and being very stupid to have a girlfriend when he already had a perfectly good wife.

The storyline clarity is, I think, a large part of why this Swan Lake works. Gone is the traditional pas de deux with its four-part format that you really have to be a decently educated ballet spectator to know and accept. Gone also is the endless parade of wedding reception entertainers, reduced only to one stomping Hungarian mazurka number. The emphasis is placed on good storytelling and that made it the shortest three hours I’ve ever spent watching ballet. Eastoe (Odette) brings very strong acting abilities to her interpretation (Simone Goldsmith originated the role in 2002, and Eastoe was one of the backups then, but judging from the reviews I’ve read, her current interpretation is wowing one and all, and making Goldsmith a fading memory). She’s lithe and athletic, but she pulls off hairpin turns in Odette’s emotions that a lesser actress could have never managed. Heathcote, whom I believe is 40 now and whom I could tell is a huge favorite with Australian audiences, is a truly gifted partner to his ballerinas: I don’t think I’ve ever seen better in a live performance. With most male dancers, the goal seems to be “if you don’t notice me supporting the woman, then I’ve done a good job,” but Heathcote seems to make his partnering part of his characterization. With most male dancers, the face goes blank with concentration as he helps his gal complete as many turns as possible or slither around his body in intricate ways, but with Heathcote, he continued to facially and physically react to the woman. I do feel compelled to note, though, that from the shoulders to the waist, Heathcote has gotten a bit solid and I’m surprised the costuming wasn’t modified to hide that better. The slight chunkiness did not seem to hinder his mobility and exquisite flexibility at all, but it was a little distracting.

Other quibbles: with all the impressive acting and intricately enjoyable choreography going on, I found the Baroness’s third act breakdown surprisingly unconvincing. In Acts I (wedding and Odette’s breakdown) and II (sanitorium and first trip to Swan Lake), there was no slimier a snake to be found on that stage than the Baroness. Dunn was utterly convincing as the beautiful, imperious and utterly-in-control bitch, but for the Act III eruption of jealousy and insecurity to work (when Odette wins back Siegfried), I felt like I should have seen some chinks in the armor earlier on. I don’t know if this is the fault of the choreography, the direction or the dancer: Perhaps it’s a combination, but the Baroness needed to be more three-dimensional in the first half if I was going to buy it in the second half.

Similarly, since good acting was meant to be such a major part of this Swan Lake, for me to totally believe that an Odette who won back Siegfried would still off herself, then I needed her reaction to the Baroness’s Act III breakdown to be less emotionless. For me to believe that Odette would sacrifice herself in the end, she needed to show signs of sympathy and even concern for the woman who had tried to destroy her. And that’s what the ending is clearly meant to be -- self-sacrifice and not self-pity. The program synopsis and other reviews seem to regard Odette’s drowning as a desperate last act to quell the troubled waters of her mind, but the way Eastoe mostly played her and the way the drowning was staged, to me it more strongly suggested an almost Christ-like/Resurrection scenario.

Spoiler warning: The Ending. Swan Lake is represented by a large tilted ellipse that dominates the upper half of the stage. In Act II, it’s covered with a white, velvety cloth with wave-like patches of sparkles. The swans started and ended in supine positions on the ellipse. In Act IV, it’s covered with a black, sparkling velvet cloth. As the ballet draws to a close, the lights dim and when they rise again Odette is positioned at the top of the ellipse with the black cloth drawn up around her legs. She very decisively gestures to the skies with her right hand, then sinks below the ellipse (through a trap door obviously). BUT the most telling and powerful action comes as she disappears: The black cloth is drawn swiftly into the hole, following her and leaving behind a blindingly white ellipse from which Siegfried has to shield his eyes. The interpretation that immediately sprang to my mind was that Odette had conquered evil by willfully dying and taking the darkness with her. She left behind the light and the goodness that will inure Siegfried to the evil enticements of the Baroness.

Not bloody likely in the real world, I feel compelled to add, but in the theatrical world, totally plausible. Without that ending, I would have given the show 3.5 stars out of 4. With it, it got the 4 stars.

A few other thoughts: this was my first time seeing the AB or any other RAD-dominant dance company perform live. And the only other live Swan Lake I had seen was performed by the Grigorivich Ballet, a third-tier touring company of Soviet and Asian dancers. The Grigorivich version was very traditional, and I remember finding the corps the most impressive element of it. Their precision was a sight to behold. But the principals, other than the Jester if I remember correctly, were less than impressive. They didn’t bring the intensity and dramatic commitment to their dancing that the AB performers did. The AB corps was not something to write home about, although when doing Murphy’s large-scale, complicated, weaving-around choreography, they exuded youth and enthusiasm (in a good way). I suspect that the training here (and nearly everyone in the company comes from the Australian Ballet School, the Royal New Zealand Ballet School, or the Western Australian Ballet School) emphasizes individual and dramatic development more than the Vaganova method does. Something about the arms with these RAD-trained dancers was also less precise, but their legs and feet consistently were to die for. Eastoe struck me as having extraordinarily languid feet: Even when performing rapid movements on pointe, she could still flex and do things with her feet within a margin of milliseconds.

The very evident individuality of the AB dancers also seems to give rise to some diva-esque showboating by a few of the minor dancers. There were a few men and women within groups of two and six who were clearly bucking for promotions, giving their leaps and arabesques extra-noticeable oomph. Interestingly, the group of Four Little Swans had the egotism in check, but then again, when you’re locked into each other like that, there is no room for stars or you all end up flat on your bony white asses. Which reminds me of one last point: I’m not knowledgeable enough about ballet to write in detail about the choreography itself. But it seems to me that Murphy kept certain segments intact from the traditional original. Four Little Swans in particular seemed very much like the original with the most evident changes coming in some very clever arm work. He’d have the dancers bend over and rotate their joined arms up and over from that position. And, though best known probably for his work with the contemporary Sydney Dance Company, Murphy kept the modern impulses well in check and mingled nicely with the classical. Most of the contemporary vocabulary came out in Odette’s mad dances, and there was only one part, in Act III when Siegfried and the Baroness are fighting their respective evil impulses that Murphy reverts to contemporary-style choreography that seemed too ungainly -- a lot of squatting second-position stuff that was just too vulgar even for the point he was trying to make. Otherwise, though, it was consistently intelligent and interesting stuff. And, like I said, it kept a 5-year-old’s attention, so, on the balance, I have absolutely no complaints.

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Chauffeur, thank you for that review. It's by far the most detailed and thoughtful account of this production I've read.

Reading your description of the ballet, though, I was reminded of the thread on "using Swan Lake loosely." Murphy's ballet bears so little resemblence to traditional one by Ivanov and Petipa (or what we've come to think of as the traditional production) that wouldn't it be more honest of him to do as John Neumeier did and call his production something like "Illusions -- Like Swan Lake"? At least it would be truth in advertising. I wonder how many people will see Murphy's production and think that that is what Swan Lake is.

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This is one of the problems that I have about Murphy's Swan Lake. To my mind it is not Swan Lake and should be given another title.

At least it would be truth in advertising. I wonder how many people will see Murphy's production and think that that is what Swan Lake is.

When I heard that Swan Lake was on this year I was very excited :hyper: because I love the classics. My face when I heard that it wasn't :D :angry:

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I can't say as that I agree with you, Ari and Floss. In this day and age of declining arts revenues, I honestly don't mind the use of the same title, especially if it helps bring people in. The advertising made it very clear that it was a modernized interpretation of the original. I was under no illusions that this Swan Lake was the same as the classic, traditional version. And I think Murphy did a marvelous job of clarifying the narrative flow in a way that deserves its own place in the classical canon. We don't have enough new classical story ballets, and this Swan Lake, I think, is a great addition. Let's not discourage the creation of more by quibbling over titles!

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Ahhh.. Thankyou Chauffeur - a great review!

I agree with so much of what you've written...

I think that this swan lake should remain titled as such ... some of it is still true to the spirit of the original fairy tale. I know the idea of the leading lady being in an insane asylum has been done to death, but this retelling is fabulous - well conceived and developed. Judging by how difficult tickets have been to get to this show, i'd say the vast majority agree..

I love steven heathcote and am eternally loyal - but i really think he's getting on in years and its beginning to show. The thickening of his whole body gives him a grounded look that he never used to have. He still has that long noble line, but the jumps are not as effortless as they once were. However your observations are what i've always thought - he's the most perfect partner imaginable! I'll be thrilled to see him with Justine Summers soon, because they always made a picture perfect couple - her delicate blonde legginess against his dark handsome looks.

I love Lucinda Dunn, but I can be sure that Lynette wills would've made a better baroness. Lynette is one of the most superb character dancers that the company has - her imperial looks are perfectly manipulated for these sorts of roles. Lucinda is still a bit cutesy, imo... She has developed into a real ballerina and a really juicy dancer at that - but still lacks that amount of depth in her characterisation.

I think you are being kind to the corps - the past few times i've seen them they've been sloppy. I don't know if they think the work of the corps is beneath them (despite a substantial amount to work with in Murphys swan lake) but I've noticed a huge amount of slapdash dancing.

You may be interested to know that they teach a vaganova based syllabus at the Australian Ballet School, however.

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Thanks for the review, I'm seeing Swan Lake in Melbourne, as I didn't get to see it in Adelaide when it was here.

I personally am more of a Lucinda Dunn fan (I met her last night after La Fille Mal Gardee, she was beautiful both in La Fille, and outside when I met her, and I got a photo with her). Lynette comes off really cold to me, and she was extremly rude to a friend of mine, so thats kind of put me off her. chauffeur, do you know if Danielle Rowe was dancing, and if she was what role?

It will be interesting to see how Annabel Bronner Reid takes her role as the baroness, she's a beautiful dancer, but I can't picture her as the baroness for some reason.

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Guest alescna

i'm so jealous!.. i live in perth and it doens't come here... 've seen the ads for ages... on the upside, we did had la boheme by the WA ballet a couple of weeks ago :(

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