The Royal Ballet: New Swan Lake Production, Summer 2018

[bridiem]

1 hour ago, loveclassics said:

 

Too dark, too fussy and too much unfunny 'business', to put it mildly.  Siegfried and his friends are not upper-class twits to run around a formal ball swatting people on the backside with their swords and royal tutors don't last long if they get drunk and molest courtiers' daughters.  Some lovely costumes but some more like those of a Roger Corman budget horror.

 

 

I don't remember it like this, though I agree there may have been some 'business' that could usefully have been lost. I remember it as exquisite and pure and incredibly moving. And I loved Act 4. I think Dowell's production aimed to be a more authentic choreographic text.

[Clara_f]

Has anyone seen Lamb/Hirano? Interested to hear reports!

[JennyTaylor]

Yes,  I saw it last night.  Along with Luca Acri as Benno, Kristen McNally as the Queen, Thomas Whitehead as V-R, and Mayara Magri and Meaghan Grace Hinkis as the princesses. 

 

I thought Sarah and Ryo danced extremely well, but lacked any chemistry, so I really wasn't moved.  Overall the performance had less impact on me that Marianela/Vadim,  but I feel it would be difficult to surpass their performance.  I'm interested  to read from other reviews that some choreography has been changed (I hesitate to say dumbed down as that seems rude considering the high quality of dance being performed) and I felt this was the case last night too.  Perhaps we should accept that Vadim and Alexander Campbell are in a class of their own and have done with it.

 

I thought the quality of all the Act 3 national dances was high, and for me, this is one of the highlights of the production, in that this section of the ballet has really upped it's game.  Tierney Heap shone as the Hungarian Princess. 

 

Overall, the audience was extremely appreciative of the dancers, the set and the costumes, with a round of applause at the start of Act 3.  Having sat in the Orch Stalls last night, but also in the Grand Tier and Amphi, this production is definitely better viewed higher in the theatre, to get the full impact of the corps swans and the beautiful patterns they produce.

 

Sarah gave it her all, especially in the Act 3 high profile solos/ fouettes.  As she went for attack and speed, she didn't quite nail it on the spot, but that is being extremely picky.  Ryo was impressive here too.

 

I do like the additional scope given to Benno and the 2 princesses and Luca Acri gave it his best as Benno.  Nice to see him back in a role lack this after so much injury. 

Edited May 24, 2018 by JennyTaylor
typo

[alison]

Copying a couple of comments over from the "Nightmare Swan Lake" thread, because they're relevant here:

 

9 hours ago, Tony Newcombe said:

Thankfully the Tutor has gone in the new production. So, too, have the little girls but worth remembering some of those names

Sarah Wildor 1987

Leanna Palmer 1988

Laura Morera 1992

Emma Maguire 1995

Bethany Keating 1995

Anniek Soobroy 1997

Lauren Cuthbertson 1997

Samara Downs 1997

Bethany Kingsley-Garner 2000

Ruth Bailey 2002

Antoinette Brooks-Daw 2002

Jade Heusen 2002

Francesca Hayward 2004

Anna-Rose O'Sullivan 2007

Isobel Lubach 2008

Julia Roscoe  2008

Charlotte Edmonds 2011

 

Quite a list

 

 

8 hours ago, bangorballetboy said:

And current AJYD, Amelia Palmiero (I was talking about this just last night)

 

I very much miss seeing White Lodgers in the new production: as Tony indicates, it's often a first indication for many people of very promising young dancers.

[Rob S]

2 hours ago, loveclassics said:

 

Too dark, too fussy and too much unfunny 'business', to put it mildly.  Siegfried and his friends are not upper-class twits to run around a formal ball swatting people on the backside with their swords and royal tutors don't last long if they get drunk and molest courtiers' daughters.  Some lovely costumes but some more like those of a Roger Corman budget horror.

 

Linda

P.S. But Sim is right about the ending - much more satisfactory emotionally.

 

 

 

I haven't watched the one that ended before 1987 but it sounds like you are describing the Dowell's rather than the one Darlex asked about...in Dowell's Benno and Seigfried swat the character in red's backside at the ball and the drunk tutor does...interact...with the young daughters.

 

I for one love the Dowell production though I have to concede I've only been familiar with it for 18 months rather than 30 years. The costumes are on the whole fantastic except for both of Von Rothbart's though at least the excuse for the Act 3 one is it's fancy dress.

[Rob S]

54 minutes ago, Clara_f said:

Has anyone seen Lamb/Hirano? Interested to hear reports!

 

I did but sadly posting pics and Notting Hill quotes during the interval  is more my style 🙃

[MRR]

Attended Wednesday's performance which was excellent.  Lamb was a riveting O/O: if not always technically solid, she conveyed every step with such meaning that you realized why the choreography was there in the first place.  The entrance scene in Act II was well-nigh perfect, with crystal clear mime and subtle shifts in her eyes and body to explain her predicament.   The Act II adagio was silky and luxuriant, where she and Hirano were physically and psychologically in-tune.  The variation was the only relative weakness in Act II where her ending diagonal went off the rails a bit, turning the last stepover turn from a double to a single. Impressively, however, Lamb's smaller stature still conveyed the authority the Swan Queen demands.  The hope of her Act II contrasted with the despair of her Act IV made Lamb's Odette come to life.

 

As Odile she was more sinister than sensuous.  The pas de deux was taken too slowly, but it did allow for Lamb and Hirano to do multiple whiplash supported pirouettes which were very exciting.  Lamb had a decent balance in arabesque (more centered and better position than Takada's, but not held nearly as long), causing sort of an awkward moment where she went into penchee with Hirano thinking she was going to stay in arabesque.  There were some nerves technically: in her variation the double pirouette-double attitude were rocky (turning the second attempt into a double-single), and the fouettes got a bit unwieldy as she packed in one too many double revolutions in the 32 turns.  Understandably, it wasn't until after the fouettes where her Odile fully burned, her eyes enslaving Siegfried in the traveling steps down the diagonal.  Overall she had many good instincts as Odile and with a second or third performance will surely gain more control.  As O/O, Lamb also had great ability to showcase the beautiful shape to her legs: absolutely straight with no slack in the knees nor any hyperextension.  Just a wonderful, pure, classical line.

 

Hirano is an ideal partner for Lamb, with handsome presence and proportions not to mention great theatrical impulse to his Siegfried.  Even with limited dancing, his Act I evoked the isolated life of the Prince and the pressure he was receiving from the Queen to marry.  He was suitably reverent with Odette and enamored with Odile with devoted partnering throughout.  Dramatically there were many points on par with Muntragirov, though technically he was less virtuosic with occasionally labored tours and pirouettes in Act III (Muntagirov is, and presumably will remain, the only Prince to do the consecutive rebounding double tour in the solo).  If anything Hirano peaked in Act IV, where his search for Odette, the reconciliation pas de deux, and his final cradling of Odette's body were masterfully modulated.  He and Lamb are a beautiful pair whose connection found more success in the white acts than in Act III.

 

Luca Acri lacked the elevation and plasticity seen from the previous Bennos, but overall a fine debut.  Mayara Magri has been the only dancer in the first variation to attempt entrechat six, executing more cleanly to one side than the other but very strong.  Meagan Grace Hinkis in the second variation has fast footwork but a lack of freedom in the upper body which tends to chop up the steps.  Fumi Kaneko and Olivia Cowley were perhaps not the most powerful Two Swans but beautifully synchronized in both Acts II and IV.  And Jenny mentioned Tierney Heap, whose arousing Hungarian Princess just added to the standout performances she has given throughout the run.  How could Siegfried possibly decline her?!

 

Much to my surprise I preferred Kristen McNally's Queen to Elizabeth McGorian's.  McNally (performing Saturday and Wednesday) has a haughty regal quality which makes it very clear who is running the show.  Rothbart is her advisor and they seem to work in tandem, such as the beginning scene where she fully accepts Rothbart's pressure put on the Prince to attend the ball.  Elizabeth McGorian is more reticent to ask Siegried to find a bride, and if weren't for Rothbart probably wouldn't have Siegfried marry at all.  Given such two differing interpretations, I'm not sure what Scarlett wanted, but McNally's sets up the plotline as to how her kingdom gets overthrown.  She trusts Rothbart to do her dirty work for her, and doesn't realize how he is stealing her power until it is too late.  McNally's Queen is perhaps also more successful against a weaker Rothbart, such as Thomas Whitehead's, then it would be against Bennet Gartside who is far more imposing.

 

That is it for my stay in London, loved seeing the Royal Ballet again and especially in this new production.  Can't wait for the reports on Osipova/Ball and Naghdi/Kish, and hopefully Cuthbertson if she is to perform the remainder of her shows.  

 

Edited May 24, 2018 by MRR

[MRR]

Also, this was a collage I did of Lamb, Nunez, and Takada bowing after their respective performances.

[bridiem]

Brilliant! Thank you MRR for the fascinating review and beautiful collage.

[Bruce Wall]

Thanks so for these wonderfully fulsome reports, MMR: So very rich in their detail.  They give us a true sense of your critical voice - and no writer can do more than that in support of their readers and certainly these slices of balletic history.  Bless you. 

 

May you have a safe journey home.  I'm sure many join with me in very much looking forward to your return.  The privilege has been ours. 

 

Edited May 24, 2018 by Bruce Wall

[Ivy Lin]

Really love these reports. Question: do Lamb, Nunez and Takada end the white swan pas de deux with the arabesque penchée? In the Dowell production they do not and go for the more old-fashioned fall-back into Siegfried's (actually Benno in the notation) arms.

[MRR]

Ivy, no they did not.  They all end in the dip.

[Alice Shortcake]

16 hours ago, Darlex said:

Can anybody tell me what was wrong with the production that Anthony Dowell replaced with his own version? It looks beautiful from what I have seen of it on film. 

 

Slightly OTT, but am I right in thinking that there were two versions of the pre-Dowell Swan Lake? The choreography may have been identical but, according to a notebook in which I recorded my visits to the theatre in the early 80s, there were two sets of designs by Leslie Hurry, one of them darker and and more medieval than the other.

 

All this talk of princesses in tutus reminds me of a fairly recent German Swan Lake set in the late 19th century, in which Rothbart was the Prime Minister with marital designs on the widowed Queen and the princesses wore tutus with their family coats of arms embroidered on the skirt.

[ninamargaret]

Seem to remember a RB version where there was a pas de trois in the first act for 2men, 1woman. Often danced by Brian Shaw and Graham Usher with assorted ladies. Might this have been the Leslie Hurry one? 

[Jillykins]

How I loved Brian Shaw and Graham Usher! Lovely to see them mentioned. 

[ninamargaret]

See next post

Edited May 25, 2018 by ninamargaret
Deleted to enable quote

[Sim]

41 minutes ago, ninamargaret said:

See next post

???

[Indigo]

17 hours ago, JennyTaylor said:

I thought the quality of all the Act 3 national dances was high, and for me, this is one of the highlights of the production, in that this section of the ballet has really upped it's game.  Tierney Heap shone as the Hungarian Princess. 

 

I've been enjoying the national dances in this production too.  They feel more an organic part of the story, rather than an add-on, which I gather from the Insight event was Liam Scarlett's aim.    Tierney Heap impressed me in the opening night's Spanish Dance.  In fact, ever since I first properly registered this dancer (back in 2015 when I thought she was fabulous dancing the title role in Carlos Acosta's 'Carmen' )  I've enjoyed Tierney Heap's performances in various roles.

 

And I must put in a word for the "tambourine flunkeys" during the Neapolitan Dance. I gather from ballet-goers more knowledgeable than me, it's a new thing Liam Scarlett's added to his production where the tambourine flunkeys remain on stage after catching the tambourines & start playing them. I think it's a really fun touch.

 

[Xandra Newman]

 

17 hours ago, MRR said:

As O/O, Lamb also had great ability to showcase the beautiful shape to her legs: absolutely straight with no slack in the knees nor any hyperextension.  Just a wonderful, pure, classical line.

 

To me a wonderful, pure and perfect classical line is precisely the beautiful shape of  hyperextended legs of a ballerina, combined with beautiful arched feet! 

I find ".. . absolutely straight legs with no slack in the knee nor any hyperextension" a very unattractive line in a ballerina. 

 

 

[Jane S]

13 minutes ago, Indigo said:

And I must put in a word for the "tambourine flunkeys" during the Neapolitan Dance. I gather from ballet-goers more knowledgeable than me, it's a new thing Liam Scarlett's added to his production where the tambourine flunkeys remain on stage after catching the tambourines & start playing them. I think it's a really fun touch.

 

 

I'm mildly surprised to read about this as I'd have said that's what always used to happen - is this maybe a reinstatement from some time ago rather than an invention?

[Indigo]

1 minute ago, Jane S said:

 

I'm mildly surprised to read about this as I'd have said that's what always used to happen - is this maybe a reinstatement from some time ago rather than an invention?

 

I may well have misunderstood, but it's not shown on my 2009 RB Swan Lake DVD. 

[Richard LH]

Anyone been tempted by the Friday Rush?   Two great seats for  Monday's Naghdi/Kish matinee are currently still available (M27/28 aisle seat in stalls).

[Sim]

In the Dowell version the flunkeys appear, catch the tambourines, then disappear again.

[RuthE]

11 minutes ago, Indigo said:

And I must put in a word for the "tambourine flunkeys" during the Neapolitan Dance. I gather from ballet-goers more knowledgeable than me, it's a new thing Liam Scarlett's added to his production where the tambourine flunkeys remain on stage after catching the tambourines & start playing them. I think it's a really fun touch.

Yes! I'd forgotten about this since seeing it on Tuesday but it was great fun.

 

A musical question.  Here's the orchestral score of the Mazurka:

 

http://ks.petruccimusiclibrary.org/files/imglnks/usimg/9/93/IMSLP05032-Swan_Lake_-_No._23.pdf

 

Was I imagining that I heard additional interpolations from the oboes?  This score shows the version I am familiar with, which is the way the RB used to do it as well as how I've heard it in recent performances by ENB and some of our Russian visitors - with the oboe interpolations happening for the first time in the 10th bar of Fig.61.  But I'm certain this time I heard extra interpolations starting in the 2nd bar of 61, the very first time the melody is played in the clarinets, and the same again in the 2nd bar of Fig.62, so the clarinets never get the melody to themselves at all without the oboes interfering...

 

Has somebody tampered with the performing edition?

[Lizbie1]

13 minutes ago, Jane S said:

 

I'm mildly surprised to read about this as I'd have said that's what always used to happen - is this maybe a reinstatement from some time ago rather than an invention?

 

They're out of shot but they certainly sound present in this (1970s?) film:

 

 

 

[Lizbie1]

18 minutes ago, RuthE said:

Was I imagining that I heard additional interpolations from the oboes?  This score shows the version I am familiar with, which is the way the RB used to do it as well as how I've heard it in recent performances by ENB and some of our Russian visitors - with the oboe interpolations happening for the first time in the 10th bar of Fig.61.  But I'm certain this time I heard extra interpolations starting in the 2nd bar of 61, the very first time the melody is played in the clarinets, and the same again in the 2nd bar of Fig.62, so the clarinets never get the melody to themselves at all without the oboes interfering...

 

Has somebody tampered with the performing edition?

 

I hadn't noticed but I'll try and listen out on Monday, if you're not planning on going again yourself. Seems an odd adjustment to make, unless someone's found it in the MS.

 

[RuthE]

I’ll be there on Monday afternoon so will have another listen. It was odd enough to catch my ear...

[Indigo]

On 24/05/2018 at 16:56, bridiem said:

There's a lot I'll miss about the old production. In spite of its problems, I grew very fond of it over the years and it packed a huge emotional punch...

 

On 24/05/2018 at 16:59, Sim said:

I think the final ten minutes of Dowell's version were the best I have ever seen.  

 

23 hours ago, Timmie said:

... I think for me that’s the problem with this Swan Lake. The previous version ended on an emotional roller coaster so you left the theatre full of joy and sadness at the same time, this one left me emotionally uninvolved.

 

As I've posted before on a few other threads, Dowell's Swan Lake was the first RB production I ever saw - in 2012 at the cinema.  Agreed, it really did pack a huge emotional punch for me too.  So much so, that you could say I've never really recovered - it definitely triggered my love for watching ballet!  😍  And it abundantly demonstrated to me the emotional power that ballet can have.  I'm missing that from the new Swan Lake.  It will be interesting to see how it comes across on the big screen when it's relayed to cinemas in June - I'm planning on catching an encore screening.

 

Re. the tambourines - sounds like a misunderstanding between brand new addition & reinstated new to this production!  Thanks for clarifying, Lizbie1.  I'm glad it's back  😃

 

[alison]

43 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

Anyone been tempted by the Friday Rush?   Two great seats for  Monday's Naghdi/Kish matinee are currently still available (M27/28 aisle seat in stalls).

 

I was, but didn't get anything.  Again.  And missed out on the SCS which went up earlier because I had family visiting

[ninamargaret]

4 hours ago, Jillykins said:

How I loved Brian Shaw and Graham Usher! Lovely to see them mentioned. 

Always enjoyed Graham Usher. He was a particularly good Colas, and was one of the few dancers to dance in Brandenburg Concerto and look as though he could have danced it all over again!

[MRR]

1 hour ago, Xandra Newman said:

To me a wonderful, pure and perfect classical line is precisely the beautiful shape of  hyperextended legs of a ballerina, combined with beautiful arched feet! 

I find ".. . absolutely straight legs with no slack in the knee nor any hyperextension" a very unattractive line in a ballerina.

Actually I like hyperextension on certain dancers, but never thought that a dancer without it automatically has an "unattractive" line, nor that hyperextension in and of itself makes a line beautiful.

 

Alina Somova has all the hyperextension in the world but her placement, turn-out, and shape of her feet are very poor, and her extensions have a floppy quality to them where she never sustains a position she hits.  But Sylvie Guillem's legs were some of my favorite in ballet because she had tremendous strength and control to manage her hyperextension, not to mention great turn-out and beautiful feet.  

 

Uliana Lopatkina has a gorgeous line for Swan Lake, with very straight legs which are perhaps slightly hyperextended but not to the extent of, say, Zakharova.  

Edited May 25, 2018 by MRR

[bangorballetboy]

My better third spoke to Scarlett about the tambourine flunkies at the first night party and he said this is part of Ashton's original, but that he has changed the rhythm a bit. 

[Jane S]

Good - I'm glad I hadn't just imagined it!