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anyone seen Graham Murphy's Swan lake?


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Swan Lake is about to start in Melbourne. Has anyone seen it and would you give a comment? I have his Nutcracker - which I can see is an interesting piece -but I am very in love with Lopatkinas version of Swan lake and I fear Murphy's will not match up. As well, for the price of the tickets I could buy one if not two DVD versions.

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Swan Lake is about to start in Melbourne. Has anyone seen it and would you give a comment? I have his Nutcracker - which I can see is an interesting piece -but I am very in love with Lopatkinas version of Swan lake and I fear Murphy's will not match up. As well, for the price of the tickets I could buy one if not two DVD versions.

I have seen Graham Murphy's Swan Lake at the Australian Ballet's Japan tour and I enjoyed the version very much. But it is very much different from the Kirov-Mariinsky Swan Lake by Sergeyev so you shold think it is apart from that. The variation in Act two has no pas nor movements close to the traditional Petipa-Ivanov choreography. But it is very beautiful and dramatic.

This is a bit of a spoiler so don't read if you don't want to know the plot.

The whole plot is different. The story is about a Princess Odette married to a Prince but the Prince had a lover, Countess Rothbart, and the lover appears at the wedding party, thus Princess Odette gets totally out of her mind as though she was like Giselle. Act two starts in an asylum where she gets comfort only when she is dancing with the swans. The icy lake scene is very beautiful, and Odette is not dressed in a classic tutu but a short tutu like ones used in Balanchine works. But she is a swan.

Act 3 plot is very entertaining.. it looks a little like the brothel scene in Manon but it will be not good to tell you the plot.

But I really like this version, the artwork and costumes are very beautiful, choreography is unique but based on classical technique. And the dancers, Kirsty Martin, Damien Welch and Lucinda Dunn were excellent. I recommend this version as fine entertainment.

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Whetherwax - I haven't seen this (I'm not sure it's been in the US yet) but I've heard mostly favorable reports similar to Naomikage's. The important thing to recall is that the only thing that is "Swan Lake" about this is the score. If you regard this as its own ballet (and a modern derived one rather than fully classical), you won't feel thrown or disappointed.

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