The Royal Ballet: New Swan Lake Production, Summer 2018

[RuthE]

4 hours ago, MRR said:

Selfishly I wanted Laura Morera to trot out one more Neapolitan for the premiere.

 

Ahhhh, now you've got me wondering if her recent illness is perhaps why the dancer who ended up in the all-star premiere cast was somebody I wouldn't have put in such a cast...

[annamk]

I saw Nunez/Muntagirov on Wednesday evening. Although I always admire Nunez's technique and strength I am rarely moved by her, but on Wednesday I found she inhabited that rare space which contains effortless, magnificent technique and exquisite softness and tenderness. Absolutely awesome, and with the peerless Siegfried of Muntagirov it seems in this Swan Lake the most harmonious pairing. 

 

Aspects of the production jar though: what is all the saluting in Act 1 about ? Why does Siegfried salute Rothbart ? Why does Benno have so much more dancing than Siegfried ? I don't find the story telling clearer than the old production and the ending still doesn't work for me.  As for the choreography I am enjoying the national dances but whilst act 4 has good moments overall I don't find it an improvement. 

[Lizbie1]

32 minutes ago, annamk said:

what is all the saluting in Act 1 about ? Why does Siegfried salute Rothbart ?

 

You might have missed it, but there's some discussion of this a bit earlier in the thread - you'd be forgiven for having done so, it's very long already!

[Rob S]

35 minutes ago, annamk said:

Why does Siegfried salute Rothbart ? Why does Benno have so much more dancing than Siegfried ? 

 

The same reason Princes Harry and William saluted various soldiers on their carriage rides after their weddings?

[alison]

Which would be?  I'm not up on military etiquette - and nor was I paying much attention to carriage rides.

[Rob S]

11 minutes ago, alison said:

Which would be?  I'm not up on military etiquette - and nor was I paying much attention to carriage rides.

Well I’m not completely sure, being a huge Kate fan has not enlightened me on that but it shows that royalty does, from time to time, salute people in their service. I assume they are high ranked officers in a part of the military that the princes have a personal connection with rather than just any officer otherwise they’d get a serious repetitive strain injury on a carriage ride a couple of miles long .

Rothbart is clearly an important person militarily although why he doesn’t salute back is slightly odd

 

ps, I think it’s Trooping the Colour tomorrow, I’ll pay attention to who gets saluted 🙂

Edited June 8, 2018 by Rob S

[bridiem]

10 minutes ago, Rob S said:

Well I’m not completely sure, being a huge Kate fan has not enlightened me on that but it shows that royalty does, from time to time, salute people in their service. I assume they are high ranked officers in a part of the military that the princes have a personal connection with rather than just any officer otherwise they’d get a serious repetitive strain injury on a carriage ride a couple of miles long .

Rothbart is clearly an important person militarily although why he doesn’t salute back is slightly odd

 

ps, I think it’s Trooping the Colour tomorrow, I’ll pay attention to who gets saluted 🙂

 

Rothbart's outfit is only quasi-military, and as you say he doesn't salute back. Maybe he's just someone with so much authority at court that he's treated as a military person would normally be treated. Either way there's clearly a power struggle between him and Siegfried from the outset - Siegfried salutes him, and reluctantly complies with his wishes/orders in the early part of Act I, but when Rothbart tries to stop him going off hunting/to the lake (can't remember exactly) Siegfried does hold his ground and effectively dismisses Rothbart. I find that interesting and it all works for me (even if I can't quite work it out!).

[alison]

While we're back on the "whys", 2 things which are persistently bugging me about Act III:

 

- there is only one trumpeter for the fanfare for Siegfried and/or the princesses, yet there are two for all the others - and the music is clearly scored for a plurality of trumpets!!

 

- having Rothbart take Siegfried aside and talk to him seems an underwhelmingly dull way of distracting him from the appearance of Odette outside the window.  Indeed, for a ballet which revolves about a magician turning a woman into a swan, the production does seem rather short on magic in general.

 

 

Come to think of it, is Rothbart under some sort of reverse spell to Odette?  That's the only reason I can think of for his "get me out of here before I turn into a bird" bit at the end of Act I (nicely getting in the way of Siegfried's solo, IIRC). 

Of course, I realise the reason is that's the only obvious narrative link between "human" Rothbart and "bird" Rothbart, otherwise they might appear two completely different characters, but ...

[Rob S]

10 minutes ago, alison said:

While we're back on the "whys", 2 things which are persistently bugging me about Act III:

 

- there is only one trumpeter for the fanfare for Siegfried and/or the princesses, yet there are two for all the others - and the music is clearly scored for a plurality of trumpets!!

 

- having Rothbart take Siegfried aside and talk to him seems an underwhelmingly dull way of distracting him from the appearance of Odette outside the window.  Indeed, for a ballet which revolves about a magician turning a woman into a swan, the production does seem rather short on magic in general

 

Lol....so note to Kevin O’Hare, introduce the rank of Principal Trumpet Artist (bet Yuhui won’t get that either!) and do fanfares properly, and stop spending  the entire glitter budget on the Nutcracker! 🤣

Edited June 8, 2018 by Rob S

[Lizbie1]

I can't say I paid much attention to the Swan Lake ones, but I usually hate mimed fanfares - they make me cringe with their weird exaggerated motions! Has anyone ever seen a real fanfare which looks anything like your standard ballet one?!

[Rob S]

2 minutes ago, Lizbie1 said:

I can't say I paid much attention to the Swan Lake ones, but I usually hate mimed fanfares - they make me cringe with their weird exaggerated motions! Has anyone ever seen a real fanfare which looks anything like your standard ballet one?!

 

They exaggerate everything, if you drank the way they do in Swan Lake you’d end up with it all over your face!

 

 

[Sim]

20 minutes ago, Lizbie1 said:

I can't say I paid much attention to the Swan Lake ones, but I usually hate mimed fanfares - they make me cringe with their weird exaggerated motions! Has anyone ever seen a real fanfare which looks anything like your standard ballet one?!

Well I guess that, as with many gestures in ballet, they are exaggerated so that the people up in the cheap seats can see them too!

[Lizbie1]

19 minutes ago, Rob S said:

 

They exaggerate everything, if you drank the way they do in Swan Lake you’d end up with it all over your face!

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, Sim said:

Well I guess that, as with many gestures in ballet, they are exaggerated so that the people up in the cheap seats can see them too!

 

Yes but it's particularly cartoonish with fanfares - it's as if it's done for comic effect.

[DrewCo]

Have seen the production twice now and been very impressed. There is a great deal to praise both about the entire production and the company’s dancing —Wednesday, in particular, to mention just one element and not the most important, I thought the ensemble of male soldiers in Act I showed a preternatural discipline worthy of the military combined with an elegance worthy of ballet dancers that was really extraordinary. (Strong Tuesday, too, but Wednesday every angle of every fingernail seemed to cohere across the ensemble.) But I am forced to agree with many posts above about the problems with the production’s ending. I found the final scene almost impossible to make sense of the first time I saw the ballet Tuesday even though I had read reviews, the synopsis, and descriptions here on this discussion board. 

 

I made better sense of it Wednesday, but am still not convinced by it, though much else Scarlett has done appeals to me greatly.  For starters Odette slides off the cliff almost before one has registered she is there (this was true with both Lamb and Nunez and seems to have to do with the way it is timed to the music). Siegfried appears to have been killed by Rothbart, and with Odette’s death the swan maidens suddenly seem, not so much freed from their spell as really pissed off at Rothbart, who—running onto the cliff after Odette, looked to me on Tuesday as if HE were going to join her in a double suicide. After Rothbart’s death the swan maidens go to revive Siegfried —a touch I liked except that he stll lay unconscious for a few more seconds. Having achieved their freedom (according to synopsis) they then simply fall back into swan-maiden formations, and Siegfried walks into the darkness of the Lake, which is both puzzling (is he going to drown himself in the manner of Woolf?) and visually anti-climactic. It is also just a very odd moment in the music for him to disappear upstage into shadow and has no visual weight at all, especially since he has only just returned to consciousness. He returns with Odette-as-princess, and just as one infers her corpse’s human dress is supposed to signal her freedom from Rothbart’s spell in death, her truly free spirit appears in swan-maiden image—an image that is human, yes, but as she appeared when still under Rothbart’s spell and “swan-like”)—this image is visually striking and makes emotional sense but still seems odd if her returned humanity is signified by her Princess-dress....and in the meanwhile, the freedom won for the other swan maidens —which is what gives her sacrifice meaning — isn’t clearly visuallized at all, as at the end they are neatly lined up much as if they were still a corps of enchanted maidens so we can better appreciate Siegfried’s isolated sorrow. It is Scarlett’s staging so I assume that Siegfried’s sorrow and sense of loss is what he cares about, but I would have found it more compelling if the new freedom was somehow more clearly part of the tableau. (Not through changes of costume, but the corps’ stance and port de bras).That is, I would prefer it in the context of this ending. Like some others here, I really would prefer to see an entirely different ending —I love the double suicide and lovers united in land of the dead...But uh...I’m no choreographer.

 

Both nights I have attended so far—the dancing was so powerful, and not just from the leads—that I found the staging effective anyway, but for that very reason could very much wish the final meaures made greater sense to me EVEN on their own terms telling the story Scarlett wants to tell and not trying to imagine it differently. 

 

I will add that I think Scarlett seems drawn to complex, busy narrative scenes—Act III closes on multiple focal points with Rothbart grabbing the crown, Odile laughing entirely separately in triumph, Siegfried rushing upstage towards Odette.... And I felt my eye drawn in three different directions at once. But we do get to identify with the Queen at the very end when she is left alone on stage as if crying out her bafflement at everything that just happened. At the end of the ballet, it’s as if we don’t quite have time to sort out the different climaxes and make them cohere. Or at least that was how I felt.

 

This is very long...I will try to post my many positive reactions separately.

Edited June 8, 2018 by DrewCo

[alison]

DrewCo, your second paragraph pretty much sums it up for me too.

[alison]

1 hour ago, Rob S said:

and stop spending  the entire glitter budget on the Nutcracker! 🤣

 

They clearly haven't - too much of it is spent on the Spanish Dance costumes here, to my mind.  (And I keep recognising just how flattering those black velvet trousers are on the men, in terms of leg length, anyway - I keep meaning to mention that)

[Rob S]

6 minutes ago, alison said:

 

They clearly haven't - too much of it is spent on the Spanish Dance costumes here, to my mind.  (And I keep recognising just how flattering those black velvet trousers are on the men, in terms of leg length, anyway - I keep meaning to mention that)

 

Noooo, I’m talking about the glitter Gary Avis throws all over the place as a sign of his magic 

[Richard LH]

6 hours ago, alison said:

DrewCo, your second paragraph pretty much sums it up for me too.

But for me, this is rather too much over-analysis Drew !...with all due respect. But we agree as to being very impressed overall.

[RobR]

7 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

But for me, this is rather too much over-analysis Drew !...with all due respect. But we agree as to being very impressed overall.

 

Absolutely. After all it’s only a fairy story used as a framework for ballet. 

 

Or am I missing something? Perhaps I should posit a thesis on myth and reality in ballet. Can magicians really turn people into swans, nutcrackers etc?

[bridiem]

4 hours ago, Richard LH said:

But for me, this is rather too much over-analysis Drew !...with all due respect. But we agree as to being very impressed overall.

 

Not too much for me! I thought it was brilliant and clarified for me some of the problems with the ending that I either hadn't registered or hadn't been able to articulate. So I'm very grateful to DrewCo.

 

 

[bridiem]

4 hours ago, RobR said:

 

Absolutely. After all it’s only a fairy story used as a framework for ballet. 

 

Or am I missing something? Perhaps I should posit a thesis on myth and reality in ballet. Can magicians really turn people into swans, nutcrackers etc?

 

I'd be very surprised if such a thesis hadn't already been written. If I really thought that Swan Lake - for me, the ultimate ballet - was 'only' a fairy story used as a framework for ballet I would have long ago stopped going to ballet performances. Yes, it's a fairy story; but it's SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT!! And deserves as much analysis as we may wish to give it. (Yes, sometimes you need to suspend disbelief; but any given interpretation of a fairy tale should have its own inner logic.)

[bridiem]

Back from seeing Sarah Lamb dance Odette/Odile for the second time this week. Absolutely bowled over by her beautiful, pure, crystalline dancing, her absolute commitment to the role, and her brilliant fouettés! I find her a truly thrilling dancer. Not a hint of showiness or histrionics, but real drama and feeling expressed in every inch of her body.

 

I was less keen on Bonelli's Siegfried. I thought his dancing was mainly good but I found the characterisation weak and he only occasionally really seemed to engage with what was happening around him. Hirano on Tuesday evening was much more interesting - a mature, reserved prince who found himself swept up in this unexpected passion.

 

Lots of wonderful dancing in other roles. Tonight, I was constantly drawn to watch the grave, beautiful, sorrowful big swan of Tierney Heap. Such grace and musicality. I'd love to see her do O/O. 

 

And P.S. - the harpist was indisposed, so the performance tonight started late and by Act 2 still no harpist, so the harp part was played on a piano in the wings!! Kevin O'Hare made 2 rather harassed announcements about this, one before the performance started and one between Acts 1 and 2 (when there was an unscheduled stop). The pianist did an amazing job - but it was all very strange!

Edited June 8, 2018 by bridiem

[DrewCo]

1 hour ago, bridiem said:

Back from seeing Sarah Lamb dance Odette/Odile for the second time this week. Absolutely bowled over by her beautiful, pure, crystalline dancing, her absolute commitment to the role....Not a hint of showiness or histrionics, but real drama and feeling expressed in every inch of her body.

 

 

 

Exactly how I felt about Lamb when I saw her Tuesday. (And thank you for your kind words posted above.)

[Odyssey]

6 hours ago, bridiem said:

 

 

And P.S. - the harpist was indisposed, so the performance tonight started late and by Act 2 still no harpist, so the harp part was played on a piano in the wings!! Kevin O'Hare made 2 rather harassed announcements about this, one before the performance started and one between Acts 1 and 2 (when there was an unscheduled stop). The pianist did an amazing job - but it was all very strange!

Poor Kevin he'd probably never considered that finding a replacement harpist would be more difficult than a principal dancer who is indisposed. Perhaps he should have made the announcement, " Is there a harpist in the house?"

[bridiem]

1 hour ago, Odyssey said:

Poor Kevin he'd probably never considered that finding a replacement harpist would be more difficult than a principal dancer who is indisposed. Perhaps he should have made the announcement, " Is there a harpist in the house?"

 

Yes - we did wonder if that was about to happen! (My niece's husband said he would have been happy to volunteer his banjo version. ).

[Anna C]

16 hours ago, bridiem said:

 

.....Lots of wonderful dancing in other roles. Tonight, I was constantly drawn to watch the grave, beautiful, sorrowful big swan of Tierney Heap. Such grace and musicality. I'd love to see her do O/O. 

 

 

I forgot to mention Heap in my post - to be perfectly honest I haven't been her biggest fan before; I admire her in "fierce" roles and thought she was terrific in Corybantic Games, but hitherto for me she has lacked grace and lyricism and I've struggled to picture her in "softer" roles.

 

However, I thought she was really lovely as Big Swan last Saturday and yes, definitely drew my eye.   My daughter said just the same on the way home; as a sorrowing swan, Heap was a real revelation.   

[DrewCo]

Headed back to U.S. wanted to say thanks to everyone who advised me on seating at ROH. I have been to the opera house a very few times over the years but usually picking up seats rather haphazardly whereas this trip I could plan more carefully. 

 

I said above I would write some of my positive thoughts about what Scarlett has done. Truthfully, as a fan, I still sometimes miss many aspects of the David Blair Swan Lake of my childhood, a production he did for American Ballet Theatre, and that I infer was closely based on the Royal Ballet’s Swan Lake of that era. And, when I think about my ‘idea’ of Swan Lake, I do see it partly as a nineteenth-century fantasy about the middle ages which that production seemed to me to capture. Scarlett and Mcfarlane have a different idea (call it a twenty-first century fantasy about the end of the nineteenth). Accepting that vision when I came to the theatre and also accepting that this wasn’t a turn back the clock—or in any way pious— revival, I found this Swan Lake quite powerful, and the company’s dancing likewise. I’ve already noted my caveats about the ending, but many other aspects seem to me to work fabulously well. Just one example:  integrating the dancers of the pas de trois into the narrative really worked for me and seemed to speak to the production’s overall intentions. When Siegfried’s two sisters exit in Act I, I just loved seeing the attending court ladies wrapping them in their cloaks. I instantly felt what a stifling sheltered world Siegfried lived in, even if a prince has options princesses don’t. And it was entirely natural to see them return in Act III which proved an organic way to get some more classical dancing into the ballroom scene. At least that was my reaction.

 

Since I began by mentioning seating, I will add that I saw the production from three different locations, and had a very different experience of the ballroom scene depending on whether I was somewhat on the left side of the theater or somewhat on the right. In the former case I was staring right into the gleaming golden wall behind the throne. The glare of the light bouncing off that wall kind of dominated everything else—even from the balcony I found it almost distractingly shiny. From the other angle, looking into the silvery-toned wall opposite the throne  I felt I got a better sense of the vast architecture of the scene as a whole. Both were striking, but I did prefer that Act from the right.

 

I usually write about performances on my American ‘home board’ so to speak, and I may write something more there — there is certainly a ton to write about —but people here were helpful to me planning this trip, and reading this thread also helped prepare me for the production, so I thought I would chime in with some reactions. But people who see the Royal Ballet all the time are bound to see things in the production and the dancing I don’t. My dates in London were dictated by my partner’s work taking him to London and I therefore missed some dancers I would like to have seen, but I was very well satisfied with all three (very different) Odette-Odiles I saw and the quality of dancing from the entire company. And if the dancing of the big swans is anything to go by, then the company has a number of potentially excellent new Odette-Odiles in the offing too.

Edited June 10, 2018 by DrewCo

[Legseleven]

DrewCo, it is fabulous to read your views and for you to have taken the time to post on this forum! Wishing you safe travels back home and, perhaps, a return visit in the near future?

Which cast did you see for your third Swan Lake, by the way? 

[Jan McNulty]

DrewCo I would like to add my thanks to you for giving us your insightful and articulate thoughts on the new Swan Lake.

 

Safe journey home.

[DrewCo]

Thank you both —

 

1 hour ago, Legseleven said:

 

Which cast did you see for your third Swan Lake, by the way? 

 

In addition to the Lamb-Hirano and Nunez-Muntagirov casts, we saw Osipova-Ball. 

[Legseleven]

How fabulous! Did you have any particular favourite cast or dancers within each cast? I can imagine that each of those 3 principal pairings would be amazing but for different reasons and probably appealing more or less to different audience members. 

[JohnS]

What a fabulous occasion last night with Natalia Osipova & Matthew Ball giving scintillating performances.  I’d seen their first performance and Matthew is fast becoming a compelling Siegfried, complementing Natalia’s extraordinary Odette/Odile.  I can imagine he will be sensational in the Matthew Borne Swan Lake.  I loved Natalia‘s pique turns and spins and don't miss the fouettés at all.  There seemed a slight lack of security at one point in the Act 3 pdd when it would have been good to have held the closing positions.  The whole cast were so strong but I was particular impressed by Alex Campbell, Gary Avis and Elizabeth McGorian.

 

I’d managed to get a Balcony return seat, central - perfect for appreciating the corps.  It was fabulous to see all the detail that has been lavished on their choreography, the beautiful flow from one arrangement to another, and the precision with which the corps danced.  Congratulations Liam Scarlett and the Royal Ballet.

 

There have been some comments about the extent of Von Rothbart’s control.  I think the production makes clear that he is far from all powerful, knowing too well his spell can be broken.  His control of the swans is not absolute.  The swans do have agency (to some extent) between dusk and dawn.  We never see swans (not even in flight when Siegfried is hunting), just women in their dusk to dawn metamorphosis where they retain swan characteristics and where Von Rothbart can exercise more control as dawn approaches.  And while he craves power at the Court, he clearly does not have full control as Siegfried when pushed refuses to comply.  

 

Much has been said about the ending and I have been reflecting on recent posts, particularly Drew’s.  Given we do not have a double death/transfiguration, I keep thinking why not take what Scarlett presents as a more human ending?  The Act 4 pdd to me captures wonderfully the depths of the shared sorrow, regret, Siegfried’s plea for forgiveness, and Odette’s granting of forgiveness.  Odette sets out very clearly that it is for her to break the spell with her suicide and I find her final embrace of Siegfried and flight to the rock compelling and not rushed as some have suggested.  

 

I think the production works well with Odette's swan companions finishing off Von Rothbart as all swans are increasingly able to exert their own agency with the spell breaking.  I find very touching the big swans reviving Siegfried - and last night I thought are they suggesting to Siegfried that he should look for Odette’s body?  I am very taken with Siegfried’s recovery of the human Odette’s body from the lake with Odette’s spirit on high.  But I agree the ending can seem rushed and as said before, I’d welcome some acknowledgement from Siegfried of Odette’s spirit.

 

Some have questioned why the swans at the end and Odette's spirit still appear as swans rather than in human form and Drew suggests a more human rather than traditional swan stance would help.  I do very much appreciate the reasoning and there’s certainly something very attractive about the idea (others have referred to productions where the swans are indeed progressively replaced by women).  But I wonder if that resolution alongside Siegfried's regaining his consciousness, his recovery of Odette's body and the appearance of Odette’s spirit would be adding yet another layer of subtlety to what already may seem unduly abbreviated.  And I think it’s worth asking if after breaking the spell, the women now freed will always retain an element of having been swans.  Haven't we all at some point experienced ‘swan’ like trickery/manipulation/obsession and hopefully found resolution and asserted our moral agency whilst retaining that knowledge of being a ‘swan’?  But perhaps all these comments and the many posts about the ending suggest a wish for a little more time for allowing the final moments to resonate fully.

 

I’m still waiting for a fabulous Neopolitan dance.  I can't help thinking that if the tambourines were absolutely on the beat played emphatically the dance too would generate that precision that I would like.

 

The more I see Swan Lake the more taken I am with the whole production and performances - next week the cinema relay and a double performance on Friday bring this hugely impressive run to an end for me.  Looking forward already to its revival.

 

[bridiem]

9 hours ago, JohnS said:

Some have questioned why the swans at the end and Odette's spirit still appear as swans rather than in human form and Drew suggests a more human rather than traditional swan stance would help.  I do very much appreciate the reasoning and there’s certainly something very attractive about the idea (others have referred to productions where the swans are indeed progressively replaced by women).  But I wonder if that resolution alongside Siegfried's regaining his consciousness, his recovery of Odette's body and the appearance of Odette's spirit would be adding yet another layer of subtlety to what already may seem unduly abbreviated.  And I think it’s worth asking if after breaking the spell, the women now freed will always retain an element of having been swans. 

 

I like that idea very much - that they retain a swan element for ever more! So I'm happy for the maidens to remain swan-like, as long as their liberation is clear.

 

I do agree with DrewCo and the inner logic of this ending. It is a bit of a problem for me that Odette's body  back in her dress (which as you say we have never seen except in the 'prologue', and Siegfried of course has never seen at all) whereas her 'spirit' is in a tutu even though now free from the spell, and all the other maidens are still in tutus even though now free from the spell. Which sounds nit-picking, but I think these symbolic uses of costumes do affect how you understand and respond to the story.