Powerhouse Ballet's Swan Lake Intensive Workshop

Jane Tucker and the Members of Powerhouse Ballet  

Author Gita Mistry  Reproduced with the author's kind permission

 

On Sunday, 25 May 2025, Powerhouse Ballet held an intensive workshop on Swan Lake at Dance Studio Leeds which proved to be one of its most successful events ever.   Many thanks to our guest ballet mistresses, Sara Horner and Jane Tucker of the Academy of Northern Ballet, and to everyone who turned up for making the day so pleasant and memorable.

Sara Horner and the |Dancers at 13:15

Author Sue Pritchard   Reproduced with the author s kind permission

Sara started our workshop at 10:00 with breathing and stretching exercises on pilates mats and towels.  As soon as she judged that we were ready for 3 hours of demanding barre and centre exercises, we brought out the travelling barres.   Sara took us through the usual exercises - pliés, tendus, glissés, ronds de jambe, frappés et cetera.   After cloches and grands battements, we removed the travelling barres and started the centre exercises with tendus and glissés. Sara taught us a beautiful adagio, and we finished with temps levés in anticipation of the grande entrée of the swans in the first lakeside scene of Swan Lake. The last half hour of Sara's slot consisted of pointework exercises for members who had received pointe training and brought their pointe shoes.  The rest of us followed the class on demi-pointe.

Jane took over from Sara at 13:15.  She began by telling us a little bit of the history of Swan Lake. The ballet had not been an immediate success when it was premiered in Moscow.  She told us that critics had complained that Tchaikovsky's music had been too symphonic for ballet.  They had plenty of other niggles before Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov got to work on the ballet for the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg. Since then, it has been a favourite of audiences all over the world.

Jane had selected three of my favourite pieces from the ballet: the grande entrée that I mentioned before, the pas de trois from Prince Siegfried's birthday party and the cygnets' dance.  A few years ago, I had dinner with the distinguished dancer Terry Hyde.  He told me on the good authority of Mrs Hyde, who was also a dancer, that members of the corps de ballet have been known to whisper under their breath as they enter the stage:

"I hate Swan Lake! I hate Swan Lake!  It's a terrible bore,"

And then words to the effect that they can't wait for the season to end.  I hasten to add that that story was news to Jane Tucker and also Yvonne Charlton.   Anyway, we loved the swans' entry and other pieces amd can't wait to perform them.  That could be on 15 Nov 2025 at the Chroma Q theatre in Leeds, or possibly even earlier if KNT invite us back to dance in one of their shows.  However, Lauren Savage has just proposed another lovely piece for members to consider. 

We now have something on which to build. Our plans for a summer school in Bangor or York, our own mixed bill and full-length ballet and, eventually, a salaried artistic director are becoming realizable.  However, if we are going to implement any of those plans, we shall need some additional revenues. Up to now, I have sponsored all the company's activities, and I will continue to do so to the same extent as before.  But we can do so much more if others contribute.   Earlier this year, I circulated a business plan to members that contained details of a subscription and charges for some merchandise and services.  Nobody objected to the proposals, and I shall consult on ways of implementing them.  At this point, I stress that members' contributions will fund new services and not those that were previously free. We shall also set up a friends scheme for those who want to support the company but not necessarily dance with us.  Later, we shall canvass for advertising, business sponsorship and grant funding.

We have much to look forward to, including a 2-hour class with Rachel Hickey of the Czech National Ballet at KNT Danceworks on 20 July starting at 14:00. Rachel is a fellow Mancunian who trained at Elmhurst before starting her career in the Olomouc ballet, which was also Emily Joy Smith's company.  Many thanks to Emily Joy for introducing us to Rachel.  I will post a registration card in the next few days.

Swan Lake at the Leeds Showcase

Standard YouTube Licence

Royal Ballet Swan Lake  Leeds Showcase, 2 March 2025, 14:00

On 27 Feb and 2 Mar 2025, cinemas across the United Kingdom screened a recording of Liam Scarlett's Swan Lake that had been made at the Royal Ballet and Opera House on 24 Apr 2024.  With Yasmine Naghdi as Odette-Odile, Matthew Ball as Siegfried and Thomas Whitehead as von Rothbart, it was a very polished production.  I saw it at the Leeds Showcase, a multiscreen complex in a shopping and entertainment centre a short distance from the M62. 

Watching images of dancers on a screen reminds me of the prisoners in Plato's cave, but the screen has a few advantages.  One is an opportunity to hear the artists discuss their work.  That was something that the Bolshoi did exceptionally well because they employed the TV journalist Katerina Novikova to interview dancers and others in three languages.  The quality of the Royal Ballet's interviews has improved significantly since Petroc Trelawny was engaged.  Trelawny also brings out the best in Darcey Bussell, who contributes her memories of her performances.

One illuminating interview was with Naghbi.   She discussed Legnani's 32 fouettés in the seduction scene, which is the most spectacular bit of the ballet.  She likened the movement to that of a plane and herself to a pilot.  Naghdi was a powerful Odile but also a sensitive Odette.  Not every ballerina can carry off the two roles equally well, but Naghdi was one who did.

Naghdi was supported gallantly by Ball, a strong but graceful dancer. The role of Rothbart has been greatly extended by Scarlett in that he is head of the royal household as well as an evil magician.  His appearance reminds me of President Putin, whoever dances the role. This is a great character role, which Whitehead performs well.

Swan Lake has divertissements throughout the show.  I particularly liked the cygnets (Mica Bradbury, Ashley Dean, Sae Maeda and Yu Hang), the older swans (Hannah Grennell and Olivia Cowley), the national dances and especially the Neapolitans (Isabella Gasparini and Leo Dixon).

Sadly, the producer of this version of Swan Lake is no longer with us, but Gary Avis, Laura Morera and Samantha Raine have implemented Scarlett's vision. Often overlooked is the orchestra which is one of the strengths of the Royal Ballet. It was as impressive as ever conducted on this occasion by Martin Georgiev. 

Should this recording ever be screened again or otherwise made available it is well worth watching.

Mack and Mair and Adams too at the Liverpool Empire

YouTube Standard Licence

English National Ballet Swan Lake Liverpool Empire 1 Oct 2022  19:30

On the last day of its season at the Liverpool Empire, English National Ballet cast Brooklyn Mack as Siegfried and Natasha Mair as Odette-Odile.  it was the first time those artists had performed those roles with English National Ballet though Wikipedia states that Mack had danced Siegfried with the Washinton Ballet and Mair's website states that she had danced Odette-Odile in Moscow and Turkey.

It is always interesting to watch a dancer perform one of the great classical roles for the first time, particularly at the Empire whose audiences can be loud and demonstrative.  I am glad to say that the crowd loved them.  Several gave them a standing ovation. In the lift of the multistorey next to Lime Street station, a lady purred "Didn't you just love them" eliciting ascent and contentment.

Mack is an American.  He trained at the Kirov Academy in Washington DC. He danced with Joffrey Ballet, Orlando Ballet, the Washington Ballet and American Ballet Theatre before joining English National Ballet in 2015.  He is listed as a guest artist on the company's website rather than as a principal or soloist.  He is exciting to watch as the early clip shows;  muscular, athletic and tightly self-controlled.. He was particularly impressive in the solo part of the pas de deux of the seduction scene of the third act.

Mair is from Vienna.  That is where she trained and began her career.  A clue as to what may have drawn her to England is that her favourite role is Lise in Ashton's La Fille mal gardée.  it is not hard to imagine her excelling in that role from her monologue in Natascha Mair: our new Principal dancer | English National Ballet.  The roles of Odette and Odile are quite different and not all ballerinas can carry off both with ease.  Mair is one who can.  Delicate and vulnerable in the white acts and hard as nails in the black, she is as accomplished an actor as she is a dancer.

Mack and Mair danced in Derek Deane's production of Swan Lake which has been in the company's repertoire for quite some time.  I have seen it several times and know it well.  It has several features that I love like the prologue where Odette is turned into a swan and the Neapolitan dance which Wayne Sleep and Jennifer Penney made their own.  It provides plenty of opportunities for virtuosity in such roles as the pas de trois in act 1, the petits cygnes in the second and the divertissements in the third.   Actually, one artist other than Mack and Mair who did stand out in the show and that was Precious Adams.  She worked hard in Liverpool as a lead swan in acts II and IV and princess in act III,   She was recently interviewed in The Guardian under the headline: Precious Adams on balancing ballet and computer science: ‘you don’t want to be 45 with zero credentials’  

 

 This was the first live performance by English National Ballet that I had seen since the 70th anniversary gala on 18 Jan 2020 just before the pandemic.  It was reassuring to see it back on tour apparently in good shape.  It will soon get a new artistic director (see  English National Ballet announces Aaron Watkin as new artistic director  The Guardian 24 Aug 2022),   If the Semperoper Ballett's class and rehearsal of David Dawson's Romeo and Juliet are any kind of indicator, ENB will be in very good hands.

Amser Da - Dutch National Ballet New Season

National Opera and Ballet

Author Jane Lambert © 2022 Powerhouse Ballet All rights reserved

 

The Dutch are good at puns.  It may be because every schoolchild in the Netherlands is expected to learn enough English, French or German to hold a simple conversation in any of those languages.  One of the best puns came from Remco van Revenstein after the 2020 US presidential election.  It went like this: "Question: "Why does Mr Trunp have to leave the White House?" Answer "Because it's for Biden."

Here is one pun that not even the Dutch will have dreamt up. The Welsh for "Good time" is "Amser da" and of course almost the name of their leading city. If I ran a travel agency, airline or the Dutch tourist board in Cardiff, Swansea or Newport I would be flogging that pun for all that it is worth and then some.

That is because the Dutch National Ballet has just announced its new season in a press release dated 29 March 2022.  It will attract theatre-goers in droves from around the world including, no doubt, many from Wales and the rest of the UK. Highlights will include:

• Celebrate between 13 to 28 Sept 2022: A mixed bill consisting of Yugen by Wayne McGregor to the music of Leonard Bernstein, Christopher Wheeldon's The Two of Us, Ted Brandsen's The Chairman Dances  to the music of John Adams and Milena Siderova's  Regnum to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart;
• The Sleeping Beauty between 12 Oct 2022 to 2 Jan 2023;
• Balanchine, Van Manen and Arques: 9 - 19 Nov 2022  a national tour with Balanchine's Four Temperaments, various works by Hans van Manen and Arques's Manoeuvre;
• Dawson 8 to 18 Dec 2022 a double bill consisting of a new work by David Dawson and Dawson's The Four Seasons to the music of Max Richter;
• The Junior Company Ballet Bubbles 26 Jan to 15 Feb 2023;
• Verdi Requiem in collaboration with the National Opera 9 Feb - 25 Feb 2023;
• Swan Lake 11 May - 16 June 2023;
• Dorian by  Ernst Meisner and Marco Gerris of IDH Dance Collective to the music of  Joey Rouken; and 
• Forsythe Festival between 10 and 27 June 2023.

The company will also take part in the Fall for Dance Festuva in New York this autumn.

Ballet West's "Swan Lake" - A Show of which any Company could be proud

Standard YouTube

Ballet West Swan Lake  SEC Armadillo, Glasgow, 8 Feb 2020 and Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock, 9 Feb 2020, 19:30

According to Wikipedia, the SEC Armadillo has 3,000 seats. When I attended Ballet West's performance of Swan Lake on Saturday evening the place was heaving.  That was the wild night that Glasgow was hit with 70 mph winds and horizontal, torrential rain when most sensible Glaswegians would have been safely ensconced at home.  Though the Beacon Arts Centre in Greenock is somewhat smaller, there was also a pretty large audience there on Sunday.  A small ballet school nearly 500 miles from London and even 87 from Glasgow that attracts crowds like that must be doing something right.

And indeed it is.   The current production of Swan Lake is the best show that I have seen from Ballet West in the 7 years that I have been following them.  It was not just a good student production.  It was a good show - one of which any company could be proud.

There are several reasons why this show worked so well.

 First, it was a true Swan Lake and not just a dance show about humanoid swans.  Swan Lake's appeal lies not just in Petipa and Ivanov's choreography or Tchaikovsky's score but in its simple, powerful message of redemptive love.  Consider the opening lines of Milton's Paradise Lost:

"OF Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat."

The swans have lost their humanity and are held in thrall to von Rothbart for a reason that we know not.  They could have been redeemed by Siegfried but he betrays them by pledging his love for von Rothbart's daughter.  The only other way is the sacrifice of Odile and Siegfried.  Any deviation from that story is just not Swan Lake/   That is why I am exasperated by works called Swan Lake that omit that narrative

The second reason for the success of the show lay in the casting.  I was impressed by Norton Fantinel who danced Siegfried and even more by Karina Moreira who danced Odette-Odile but the artist who caught my eye from his serpentine entrance at the beginning of the white act to his destruction at the very end was Rahul Pradeep. He danced von Rothbart and his role is as crucial as Odette-Odile's and Siegfried's in that he is the personification of evil.  He manifests it in so many ways from the moment he and his daughter barge onto the scene literally sending the chamberlain flying to his studied rudeness as he slouches next to the queen turning his back on the divertissements.  Other dancers who grabbed my attention were Luciano Ghideli, Michaela Fairon and Josephine Mansfield in the pas de trois, Fairon again with Florence Blackwood, Caitlin Jones and either Freya Hatchett or Josie Ridgway in the cygnets and Fairon once again with Gianni Illiaquer in the Neapolitan divertissement.  Their agility and joie de vivre reminded me of Wayne Sleep and Rosemary Taylor in my salad days.  I could go on to list the artists in the Spanish and Hungarian dances and the Mazurka but then this review would resemble a telephone directory. All who took part in the show including the Glasgow associates merit commendation.

The third reason for the production's success was the investment in sets and costumes. The backcloths displayed computer-generated graphics which included falling leaves, a waterfall and ripples on the surface of the lake which were of cinematographic quality. The author of the graphics software is not mentioned in the programme but I understand him to be Léon ten Hove. Rarely have I seen detail of that kind on stage. There were two moments that literally took my breath away. The sudden appearance of a super life-size vision of Odile as Siegfried is on the point of declaring his love for Odile and the final scene as the swans soared above the clouds illuminated by an outsize moon. The costumes, especially the dresses of the guests to Siegfried's party, were sumptuous. So, too, were von Rothbart's robes. How the artists must have enjoyed wearing them.

I take a close interest in dancers' education.  I support other schools such as Central, the Northern  Ballet School and, more recently, the National Ballet Academy in Amsterdam.  But Ballet West has a special place in my esteem which is why I return to Scotland at this time of the year every year.  It is partly its idyllic position with views of the banks of Loch Etive but I think there is something special in the quality of its training.  Towards the end of the programme, there are pages headed "School Highlights" and "Where are they now?" They make very interesting reading.

Breaking Pointe

Standard youtube Licence 


When I visited Cork to see Swan Lake by the Cork City Ballet nearly two weeks ago, I received a full-length copy of Breaking Pointe from Colette McNamee the chair of the company's board.  The film was made to celebrate the first 25 years of the ballet company and consists largely of an interview with its founder and artistic director, Alan Foley.

The first question to Foley was how he started dancing.  He replied that he started when he was very young dancing behind closed doors to records in his parents' sitting room.  Later he was sent to ballet class where he did well in competitions throughout Ireland and beyond. Eventually, he met Joan Denise Moriarty who terrified him.  On their first meeting, he bolted out of her presence.  However, he returned and submitted to her discipline even though there were times when he found it chafing.

In 1989 the Vaganova Ballet Academy invited dancers from around the world to attend a summer school in Leningrad.  He applied without first seeking Moriarty's permission. To his great joy and surprise, he was accepted.  His teacher was about to reprimand him when the Irish national broadcasting corporation learned of his success and asked her for her reaction.  What else could Moriarty say other than that she was very proud of him? In some footage that must be quite rare, she warned him that he could expect to work.  Apparently, he lost two stone in weight while he was there.

Although he also received training in London and New York, Foley seems to have established some close links with Russia.  His lead dancers in Swan Lake were Russian nationals. The sound recording and many of the costumes for his shows came from that country. Foley remarked in the film that Russians and Irish folk share a similar temperament which is a notion that had occurred to me from my own friends and acquaintances from those countries quite independently some time ago. One of Foley's former collaborators, Monica Loughman, who is best known in this country for Big Ballet in which several of my friends and acquaintances participated, trained at the Perm State Choreographic College (Пермский государственный хореографический колледж).

Although I had attended a ballet at either The Gate or Abbey in Dublin as long ago as 1982 I had not been aware of the strength of the balletic tradition in the Republic of Ireland.  I should have been, of course.  Dame Ninette de Valois, who founded our national company and leading ballet school, was born in Co. Wicklow.  Indeed, the teacher who led me back to the barre after a gap of 50 years is an Irishwoman albeit that she trained in Brisbane. What I learned in Cork from a taxi driver who had never attended a ballet was that Moriarty had set up a ballet company and school in Cork as long ago as the 1940s.  She had been a considerable choreographer.  She is particularly well remembered for adapting Synge's The Playboy of the Western World to dance.

Although Foley seems to be adept at rallying support from businesses and politicians - as I mentioned in my review of Swan Lake the President of the Republic wrote a foreword for the programme - it has received no support from the Arts Council of Ireland for several years. I was flabbergasted to learn that.  Performing arts companies in the UK grumble about state miserliness but lesser institutions than the Cork City Ballet seem to get something. Kruschev knew the value of ballet as an instrument of soft power when he sent the Bolshoi to tour the West immediately after Hungary. Maybe we had learned that lesson even earlier when we send the Sadler's Well Ballet to the neutral Netherlands in 1940.  The Cork City Ballet is a valuable cultural asset which should be cherished.

In my introduction to Cork City Ballet, I wrote that the company did not seem to have a school or associates programme but having seen shots of eager children and classes all over Cork and surrounding districts I think I may have been wrong.  It may not be called an associates programme as such but Foley and his company definitely train the young.  And not just the young for adult classes are offered at the company's Firkin Crane studio every Wednesday. According to McNamee, they are often given by Foley himself.

I warmed to the Cork City Ballet the moment the curtain rose and I want to see it do well. I have found lots of personal links to the company.  I have already mentioned Big Ballet and Loughman. There are many others.  One of Powerhouse Ballet's best dancers trained with Katherine Lewis, the company's ballet mistress. Sadly Lewis died earlier this year but she appears in the film. One of the company's solo artists trained at Ballet West.  His principal was delighted to learn of the success of her alumnus.  I shall be back in Cork next year for The Nutcracker and I hope that a good number of my theatre-going compatriots will be tempted to join me.

Cork City Ballet's Swan Lake

Andrei Bolotin and Ekaterina Borytakova in Cork City Ballet's Swan Lake

Author Miki Barlok   Copyright  Cork City Ballet 2019: all rights reserved
Licence Reproduced with kind permission of the company

Cork City Ballet  Swan Lake  9 Nov 2019, 14:30 Cork Opera House

I have seen bigger and better-resourced performances of Swan Lake but seldom have I enjoyed a performance as much as Saturday afternoon's by the Cork City Ballet at the Cork Opera House. There are two reasons for that. The first is that Yury Demakov, the choreographer, made the very best of the resources that were available to him not only in casting but also in procuring costumes and a sound recording from Russia. The second is that ballet should be an interaction between performers and audience rather than a passive exhibition and on Saturday it really was two-way communication.  The Corkonian audience seems to know and appreciate its ballet and supported the company with a 100% standing ovation at the end.

This was a traditional Swan Lake without gimmicks except perhaps for the Soviet-style happy ending.  All the characters were there except Benno. The plot was spelt out with stark clarity.  Siegfried pledges his troth to Odette in the second act with his index and forefinger.  He is tricked by von Rothbart into breaking it by making the same pledge to Odile.  In this production, Siegfried manages to redeem himself not by sacrificing his life but by destroying the wicked magician.

For Siegfried, Demakov recruited Bolshoi soloist Andrei Bolotin, a powerful but slick virtuoso.  For Odette-Odile he cast Ekaterina Bortyakova.  I am told that she came from the Moscow State Ballet but I have been unable to find out much about her career. Like Bolotin, she gave a technically flawless performance. In my introduction to Cork City Ballet, I noted that there were no permanent members of the company other than the founder, Alan Foley, Demakov and their immediate circle.  All other artists are recruited on short term contracts.  They were all good but some stood out.  I was particularly impressed by Robert J Thomas, the jester, Andrew McFarlane who danced the pas de trois and the Spanish divertissement and his partners, Nicole Federov and Julie Pochko.

I am nor sure who designed the sets but I liked the castle and hills in the backcloth to act I.  They reminded me of Westmeath though I suppose they could have been some other part of Ireland.   They were certainly nowhere else and that is as it should be for an Irish company.

It is not every company in the world that can persuade its head of state to contribute a foreword to its programme, but that is exactly what President Higgins has done for the Cork City Ballet.  The company will perform The Nutcracker this time next year.  I hope this review will encourage my compatriots to join me in the auditorium for a company that inspires such pride and affection is definitely worth watching.

Cork City Ballet

Standard YouTube Licence


Something very interesting seems to be taking place in Ireland and it is happening not in Dublin or Belfast but in Cork which has an estimated population of just over 200,000.  In contrast to many cities of that size in Great Britain that do not even have an adequate auditorium for a touring company, Cork has its own recently rebuilt 1,000 seat opera house and a well-established local ballet company that is capable of staging a full-length Petipa ballet.

From this evening until Saturday the Cork City Ballet will perform Swan Lake at the Opera House. Intrigued by this production, I have booked myself a seat in the stalls for the 14:00 performance on Saturday.  I have also googled everything that I can find about the company and opera house and watched every video that I can find on YouTube. From what I have seen, the standard of performance is very high indeed.

The company appears to have been founded by Alan Foley who trained in Cork, London, Russia and New York.  He is its artistic director and choreographer.  According to the company's website, Foley danced with the Irish National Ballet and I think may have seen him in a show by that company in Dublin.  I have not been able to find out much about the dancers other than the guest artists who have appeared for the company over the years so I can't say much about the troupe's size or experience.   The Auditions page states that the company currently operates seasonal contracts for dancers for its winter season.

However, it has an impressive repertoire and has earned some complimentary reviews mainly from the Irish press but also some from Dance Europe and the Dancing Times.  It does not seem to run a school or an associates programme for local students but I am delighted to see that it offers adult ballet training for absolute beginners and improvers at its Firkin Crane studios on Wednesday evenings.  Should I ever be in Cork on that day I shall try to join one of those classes.

I will review the performance of Swan Lake either on Sunday or shortly afterwards.

Scottish Ballet to revive Dawson's Swan Lake

Standard YouTube Licence


One of the most remarkable performances that I have attended was David Dawson's Swan Lake at Liverpool Empire on 3 June 2016.  My review of that show has turned out to be my most popular post attracting nearly 47,000 hits, over 10 times more than my next most popular article.  The reason I love this work so much is that it is innovative and original but still recognizably Swan Lake (see the synopsis). 

I am therefore delighted to announce that Scottish Ballet has announced that this beautiful ballet is to be revived (see Swan Lake The Classic retold for new Generation on Scottish Ballet's website). The work will open at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh on 9 April 2020 and stay there until 11 April. It will then visit Aberdeen, Inverness and Glasgow finishing at the Theatre Royal on 2 May 2020 (see the Places, Dates and Times page).

The dancers expected to take part in the show include Aisling Brangan, Barnaby Rook Bishop, Claire Souet, Evan Loudon and Thomas Edwards.

This is one of the best productions of Swan Lake that I have ever seen and in Scottish Ballet's brilliant repertoire this work shines brightest.

Ballet West's Tour of Scotland

Standard YouTube Licence


My very first post to Terpsichore was a review of The Nutcracker by Ballet West Company. I was so impressed that I had to write it down.  I had been blogging for years on the law and had even found an excuse to squeeze in a review of a show by Northern Ballet on the ground that choreography is an intellectual asset protected by copyright. The only way to do justice to Ballet West's performance at Pitlochry was to publish my review somewhere. As I did not then know any other dance blogger I decided to start my own ballet blog

Not least the most impressive aspect of that 2013 performance was that it was largely a student show,  Ballet West states on its website:

"As part of your studies, you will be part of the Ballet West company which gives you the experience of working with professional dancers and choreographers to perform classical ballet repertoire and new works in genuine performance contexts throughout your time at Ballet West."

Now all ballet schools stage shows but the unique feature of Ballet West's training is that they take their show on a strenuous tour of Scotland.  Between 25 Jan and 16 Feb 2020 they will perform Swan Lake no less than 12 times in 8 cities and towns including Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee, Some of their venues such as the Glasgow Armadillo and the Stirling Macrobert Arts Centre are fair size auditoriums which they manage to fill.

Bearing in mind that all major classical companies in the UK except the Royal Ballet tour the country regularly and some of them such as Ballet Theatre UK and Ballet Cymru can cover enormous distances between performances, this must be the best possible training for professional life.  In fact, Ballet West notes:

"Previous students always consider the experience of these performances as the most useful in securing work and preparing them for life as a professional dancer."

The only other school that sends its students on tour is the Central School of Ballet.  They visit even more venues but they start in March and finish in July.

Although Ballet West is a small school located a long way from Londo, it achieves a lot,  One of the last British students to make it to the final the Grand Prix de Lausanne was a Ballet West alumna (see Natasha Watson in Lausanne 15 Nov 2014).  She also did well in the Genée a few months earlier. So, too, have a number of other students. The school holds outreach classes in the vicinity for students of all ages. Possibly Ballet West's most impressive achievement is the training they give to their associates. Some of those students are very young. Many travel long distances to attend classes and rehearsals. They have a limited time to prepare for a show. But the standard of performance is very high indeed.

If I had a son or daughter of the appropriate age with an interest in and aptitude for ballet, I would certainly not discourage him or her from considering Ballet West very seriously.

Van Dantzig's "Swan Lake"

Standard YouTube Licence

Dutch National Ballet Swan Lake The Music Theatre, Amsterdam, 24 March 2019, 14:00

Rudi van Dantzig is one of three towering geniuses who have given Dutch ballet its reputation for excellence,  The others are Hans van Manen and Toer van Schayk.  Van Dantzig and van Schayk collaborated in the 1980s to stage one of the best versions of Swan Lake that I have ever seen.

As I entered the auditorium, I saw a screen bearing a likeness of Tchaikovsky, his name and the title of his ballet in Dutch and Russian.  As the house lights faded and the orchestra struck up, the principal characters of the drama appeared behind the screen. The tale of Odette's enchantment by Von Rothbart is sketched out.  The screen rose to reveal the palace gardens where Prince Siegfried's coming of age took place.  From there until the final act the ballet proceeds in the same way as most other versions of Swan Lake until the last act.  There, the story deviates.

According to the programme notes:

"Von Rothbart tries to drive Siegfried away from the lake, but although Siegfried manages to defy him, he drowns in the waters."

That appears to be an accident rather than a deliberate sacrifice by Siegfried and Odette to break von Rothbart's spell as in other versions.   The drowning is represented by a pale blue sheet of silky material suddenly fanned across the stage.  The lifeless Siegfried is carried ashore by his companion, Alexander. The programme concludes:

"In Alexander, Siegfried's ideals will live on."

That is how the ballet ends.   No epilogue of lovers ascending to heaven on a swan-shaped barque as in the versions with which we are familiar.

Every performance of Swan Lake turns on its lead ballerina.  She has to assume two very different personalities in the same work.  There are some who dance Odette well but are less convincing as Odile and vice versa.   The superabundantly talented Maia Makhateli can do both.  She is pure and delicate as Odette and brazen and explosive as Odile. Never have I seen Legnani's 32 fouettés performed with greater aplomb. Her virtuosity is thrilling and her acting was compelling. She was perhaps the best Odette-Odile I have seen since Sibley.

Sibley was partnered in Swan Lake by Sir Anthony Dowell who later created a beautiful version of Swan Lake for the Royal Ballet. Comparisons are odious but Camargo does have a lot in common with Dowell.   He is equally graceful and just as strong.  His solo in the seduction scene was a thrill to watch emphasized by a single fiddler striking out his tune.

Swan Lake is a struggle between good and evil as personified by von Rothbart.  Liam Scarlett portrays von Rothbart as a treacherous courtier as well as a magician. Indeed the costume and makeup department make him look like the real-life head of a nuclear-armed potential adversary.    In that regard, he was truly scary. Van Dantzig dressed his evil one in a suit of green which is the colour of reptiles, slime and decay.  Jared  Wright flapped his wings with menace and paced the floor with foreboding.

Jane Lord, a former principal with the National Ballet who is now with the National Ballet Academy, danced Siegfried's mother.  Tall and elegant she exuded regal authority.  Her role is pivotal.   By insisting on his contemplating marriage and acknowledging his state responsibilities, she started a chain of events that ended with the drowning of her son.  The tragedy is that she brought about this catastrophe out of an abiding sense of duty.  That prompted home thoughts from abroad about another female leader courting catastrophe as a result of such a sense of duty.

Van Danzig has expanded the role of the prince's companion.  The companion is called "Alexander" in this work and the role was danced by Semyon Velichko.  Alexander comforts the prince as he bemoans his approaching adulthood and state responsibility.  He is with the prince when he is asked to choose a bride.  He tries to warn the prince that Odile might not be Odette. Finally, as I observed above, it is he who retrieves Siegfried's body from the water.  Benno plays a similar role in David Dawson's Swan Lake for Scottish Ballet (see Empire Blanche: David Dawson's Swan Lake 4 June 2016).   Since seeing van Dantzig's work I have been wondering just how far his Alexander inspired Dawson's Benno.

I was pleased to see that many of the dancers whose careers I follow closely were in yesterday's show.  Maria Chugai (whom I had featured most recently in Meet Maria Chugai of the Dutch National Ballet on 8 March 2019) appeared with Vera Tsyganova as one of the two lead swans in act two.  Chugai also led the Hungarian dance with Dario Elia. The czardas happens to be one bit of the ballet that I know well (see KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 1 18 Aug 2015). I watched it particularly intently.

There were some interesting little touches in van Dantzig's ballet that I have not seen elsewhere. I have already mentioned the fiddler in the prince's solo during the seduction scene. Here is another. One of the prospective brides breaks from the others and hides.  She is coaxed back by one of the other girls. When she dances, she does so with flamboyantly and energetically.  On the other hand, no images of Odette fluttered onto the screen during the seduction scene or after the palace is destroyed.

I was delighted to see the pas de six which is often cut from other productions and I must congratulate  Tsyganova, Martin ten Kortenaar, Jingjing Mao, Sem Sjouke, Floor Eimers and Timothy van Poucke on their performances.   I liked all the divertissements but I think we do the Neapolitan dance better than HNB or, at least, Wayne Sleep did.  Here is a clip of Sleep and Rosemary Taylor in that piece.  I am glad to see that English National Ballet retains that choreography.

Yesterday's matinee was a stupendous performance that was aptly rewarded by a standing ovation, but not by many curtain calls.   Had the show taken place in London there may not have been a standing ovation but there would have been umpteen curtain calls many for the lead dancers and the stage would have been covered with flowers. A bouquet certainly for Makhateli and probably also for Lord and several of the other female dancers who richly deserved them.  Amsterdam and London are very close but we have very different ballet traditions.  A ripple of applause meets a principal when he or she appears for the first time.   We count Legnani's fouettés and explode with applause and roars on the 28th turn - never on the 27th nor the 29th. There was applause for Makhateli but it started just as Camargo got into his stride.

I could not say that this is my favourite Swan Lake.  Derek Deane's for English National Ballet is very hard to beat (see English National Ballet's Swan Lake: Kanehara conquers the Empire 25 Nov 2018) and I also love David Dawson's for Scottish Ballet. However, it is certainly up there with them.

This show will continue until 2 June. There are convenient and inexpensive flights to Amsterdam from most British airports.  My seat in the centre of row 14 of the stalls cost a mere €87 and that includes the programme.  I have paid more than that for the amphitheatre before now.   Tariffs for hotel accommodation, food, drinks and public transport are about the same as in Manchester.  It would be a shame to miss this show.

English National Ballet's Swan Lake: Kanehara conquers the Empire

Standard YouTube Licence


English National Ballet Swan Lake Liverpool Empire 23 Nov 2018, 19:30

There are a lot of shows that call themselves Swan Lake but unless they turn on the impersonation of Odette, the deception of Siegfried and the breaking of the spell they are not Swan Lake.  You can strip out all the divertissements, have swans of both or either gender, dispense with feathers and tutus, dump them in a tank of water and even substitute a Kalashnikov for a crossbow but so long as you have an Odette-Odile danced by the same artist it will still be Swan Lake.  Take her away and it is something else even if you keep cygnets and feathery white tutus.   It may still be a good show (and many of them such as Graeme Murphy's are) but give it another name.  Monkeying with such a perfect piece of theatre really makes my blood boil far more even than stick toting wilis in disused garment factories

On Friday I saw a very good Swan Lake at the Liverpool Empire and what made it good was the performance of Rina Kanehara in the lead role.  Where did she come from?  I must have seen her before as she is a soloist but she has never grabbed my attention as she did on Friday night.  She was a lovely Odette. As delicate as Dresden porcelain.  As light as a lily.  And I felt that she was living Odette and not just dancing it.  How could she possibly change into the imperious, scheming, seductive magician's daughter of the black act after just 20 minutes interval?

But change she did.  When she reappeared in her black blue flecked tutu she was magnificent.  Clearly, she was the same woman but quite a different character and she seemed to live that role too. She was very strong, robust and as indestructible and flexible as wire appearing to deliver Legnani's 32 fouettés effortlessly.   The English National Ballet has a star in Kanehara and I will seek out her performances from now on.

A good Odette needs a good Siegfried and the company produced one in Ken Saruhashi.  Like Kanehara he is a soloist though it appears from his biography that he has danced leading roles before.  He is tall, slender and very strong.  He lifted Odette as if she were weightless and some of his jumps in the betrothal pas de deux drew my breath away.  The crowd loved him.  I heard loud Russian type growls from behind me in the auditorium, the sort you hear regularly in live streaming from Moscow or even occasionally in Covent Garden but hardly ever outside London.

A lot of dancers impressed me on Friday night and it would be invidious to single out any for special praise. It was good to see Jane Haworth as Siegried's mum and Michael Coleman as his tutor and master of ceremonies again.  I liked Erik Woodhouse, Anjuli Hudson and Adela Ramirez in the pas de trois.  Ramirez was also one of the cygnets with Alice Bellini, Katja Khaniukova and Emilia Cadorin all of whom were good.  Hudson delighted me with her Neapolitan dance in Act III where she was partnered by Barry Drummond.  This is a delightful piece which I am sure Sir Frederick Ashton created for the Royal Ballet for it has all his hallmarks on it.  In fact, I remember Wayne Sleep in that role with (I believe) Jennifer Penney.  The Royal Ballet no longer seem to do it and it is good to know that our other great national company does.  Finally, I congratulate Isabelle Brouwers and Tiffany Hedman as lead swans.  I noticed Skyler Martin whom I remember from the Dutch National Ballet and it is good to welcome him to these shores.

English National Ballet's website quotes The Sunday Express in describing the production as "One of the best productions of Swan Lake you are likely to see."  I don't agree with that newspaper on much but I think that its dance critic was right on this point.  I have seen a lot of Swan Lakes in nearly 60 years of regular ballet going including Liam Scarlett's and the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre's with Denis Rodkin this year but this is definitely the best Swan Lake of those three and one of the best of all time. I like Peter Farmer's designs and the ENB Philharmonic under Huddersfield trained Gavin Sutherland. I always give him a cheer for that though I would anyway as he is good.

Altogether it was an excellent show in a fine auditorium with an appreciative crowd.  This is not the first time I have seen an outstanding Swan Lake at the Empire.  David Dawson's very different but equally good production for Scottish Ballet was performed there (see Empire Blanc: Dawson's Swan Lake 4 June 2916).  The Empire's audience seems passionate about dance and quite a few rose to their feet at the curtain call.  I think that the crowd lifted the dancers on Friday.  It was everything a night at the ballet should be.

Van Dantzig's "Swan Lake"

Anna Ol and Artur Shesterikov

Author Michel Schnater
© 2018 Dutch National Ballet, all rights reserved
Reproduced courtesy of the company

Anna Ol and Artur Shesterikov White Swan Pas de Deux, Swan Lake Dutch National Ballet Gala, 8 Sept 2018, 19:30  Stopera

This year the gala for the opening night of the 2018-2019 ballet season was dedicated to Rudi van Dantzig. One of the works for which he is most admired is his production of Swan Lake which will be performed in March.  I have seen extracts before but not yet the whole ballet but the little bits that I have seen persuade me that this is special.  With van Dantzig's choreography, costumes by Toer van Schayk, how could it be otherwise?

On the opening night gala we saw two pas de deux from the ballet.  The first from the white act stars Artur Shesterikov and Anna Ol as Siegtied and  Odette.  The second was the seduction scene from the black act with Daniel Camargo and Maia Makhateli as Siegfried and Odile. I shall discuss that second extract tomorrow.

Not quite blown away but still a good show - "Swan Lake" with Rodkin and Kolesnikova

Queen's View, Perthshire

Author Peter Hermans
Licence Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 unported

St Petersburg Ballet Theatre  Swan Lake 23 Aug 2018 19:30

Three years ago, my friend Gita and I zoomed down to London for the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre's performance of La Bayadḕre at the Coliseum with Denis Rodkin and Irina Kolesnikova in the lead roles.  I was blown away as you can see from my review which I wrote exactly three years ago.  We returned yesterday full of excitement and anticipation to see the same two dancers in the lead roles in Swan Lake.   We had a great evening but it was not quite as good as the last tune we had seen them.

Technically, Rodkin danced faultlessly.  A powerful virtuoso he never fails to impress.  But he seemed a little bit subdued last night as though he was performing on autopilot.  Koleshnikova, one the other hand, rose in our estimation.  She was much more convincing as Odette-Odile than she had been as Nikiya. The dancer who almost stole the show for us was Sergei Fedorkov as the court jester.  Not only did he wow us with his fouettḗs and acrobatics.  He also raised a laugh and won our hearts with his passage across the stage with a single flower in his suit of a lady from the pas de trois.

By and large I prefer the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet's versions of the traditional Swan Lakes and David Dawson's for Scottish Ballet of the revisions to any of the Russian versions but there were bits that I liked very much indeed.   I have already mentioned Fedorkov's performance which won him Gita's accolade as man of the match.  She likes to think of ballet in sporting terms.  I enjoyed the corps - particularly the arrival of the black swans in the last act - the divertisseements (particularly the cygnets' in act 2 and the Hungarians in act 3 perhaps because I had a go at learning the choreography a few years ago) and the fidelity to the libretto and score.

Talking of the score we heard passages in acts 3 and 4 that we do not often hear in England.  The harp music is particularly lovely.   The production also had gorgeous sets and lighting.   I think I liked them even more than I liked John Macfarlane;s for Scarlett's version.  Particularly the backdrop in acts 2 and 4 which reminded me of the Queen's View of Loch Tummel and the castle in the first scene that resembled Schloss Neuschwanstein in Bavaria.

There was a much more diverse audience than I usually see for ballet in London which can only be for the good.  I guess there were more ballet newbies than usual.   Nobody followed me when I tried to clap Rodkin as he first appeared on stage though there was a ripple of applause for Koleshnikova and the clapping for Legnani's 32 fouettḗs started far too soon and ended far too early but hey ho.  Having said that, it was a very responsive audience and they are the best kind to be part of.

Ballet West in Genting

Standard YouTube Licence


This week and next the Ballet West International Touring Company will perform Swan Lake and will give a series of masterclasses at the Genting International Showroom at Genting Highlands in Malaysia.  The cast will be made up of instructors, recent graduates and students of the school.  I have seen and reviewed Ballet West's performances of Swan Lake at Pitlochry in 2014 and Greencock last year and I am confident that the Malaysian public are in for a treat.

I have a very soft spot for Ballet West.  It was they who started me blogging with their impressive performance of The Nutcracker at Pitlochry in Feb 2013 and I have attended at least one performance of every winter tour of Scotland ever since.  Located some 500 miles from London they do not always get the attention of the largely metropolitan dance press and blogosphere that they deserve.  They are a centre of excellence of which everyone in the UK (not just Scotsmen and women) should be proud.  I know because I have experienced their training first hand (see Visiting Taynuilt  4 May 2018).

I have not yet visited Malaysia but I understand from members of my family who served there that it is beautiful and the pictures I have seen certainly reinforce that understanding.  Malaysia also has a rapidly growing economy which is an important market for British goods and services.  There is a clear link between a country's prowess in the performing arts and its perception by overseas consumers.  All of us in the UK have an interest in the success of this tour.

KNT Danceworks Day of Day - A Couple of Postscripts

Standard YouTube Licence


Two postscripts to Vampires, my write up on yesterdays' Day of Dance at the Dancehouse,

The first is that Karen has posted the video of our performance of Daethon and Arundel to YouTube which you can see above.   Remember we learned this piece in 90 minutes.  For many of us it was the first time we had heard David Hotchkiss's music or learned about his libretto.   Daethon was danced by Ruaridh Bisset and the lead vampire by Mark Hindle.

The other postscript is that Harriet Mills, who taught the advanced ballet class yesterday, keeps an excellent blog called A Ballet for Life which I strongly recommend. Harriet is a principal of the Karlsuhe State Ballet.  On 17 Nov 2018 her company will premiere a new production of Swan Lake by Christopher Wheeldon which I for one should like to see. 

If anyone would like to see it with me get in touch as soon as possible.   If there are enough of us we might be able to negotiate group discounts with the theatre, hotel and airlines.

Well Done Jessica!

Standard YouTube Licence

There is a beautiful photograph on Ted Brandsen's Facebook page of two of my favourite dancers: Jessica Xuan and Cristiano Principato.  They are wearing the most gorgeous costumes from a white act.   No gossamer sleeves so it can't be La Bayadḕre and I can't see any feathers so I don't think it is Odette.   Be that as it may the important words are at the base of the photo:

"Wow! 🤩 Jessica Xuan has won the gold medal at the prestigious VARNA - International Ballet Competition! Congratulations! 👏👏👏"

I first saw Jessica in 2013 when  she danced the first pas de deux  with Nathan Brahane in Rudi van Dantzig's Swan Lake (see The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 25 Nov 2013).  As I said then: "The audience loved them and so did I." I have been following Jessica's career and the careers of the other young dancers ever since.  I think the last time I saw her was as the Queen of the Dryads in Don Quixote earlier this year (see A Day of Superlatives - Dutch National Ballet's Don Quixote 1 March 2018.

I wrote about Varna on 23 Feb 2017 as it has its own opera house and ballet company in which Owen Morris danced for a while.  Its International Ballet Competition is one of the most prestigious in the world.  It has launched a lot of distinguished careers.  Jessica has done brilliantly.  I send her my heartiest congratulations and lots of love.

Plato's Cave - the Live Transmission of the Royal Ballet's Swan Lake

Plato's Cave

Author Jan Sanraedam according to Cornelos van Harlaam

Source Wikipedia

Royal Ballet Swan Lake 12 June 2018 Live streaming to cinemas worldwide from Covent Garden

I was lucky enough to see the Royal Ballet's Swan Lake from the stalls of the Royal Opera House on 22 May 2018 and reviewed the performance in Scarlett's Swan Lake 23 May 2018. I saw it again last Tuesday at the Leeds Showcase against my better judgment and really wish I hadn't.

In Flowers for Dreda 9 June 2018 I wrote that ballet should never be a passive experience and that is the difference between watching ballet in the cinema and watching it live. You can marvel at Legnani's 32 fouettés from your local flicks just as much as you can in the theatre. Arguably you can even get a better view.  Certainly more than you would in rows L to Q of the amphitheatre. But however loudly you clap or cheer Nuñez or Nikulina can't hear you.  They are 200 or in the case of the Bolshoi 1,500 miles away and their dialogue is with the living, breathing, thinking audience a few feet away.  Not the hot dog munchers or cola quaffers of Birstall, Bergen or Brescia.

There are some advantages to ballet in the cinema.

You can see details that you might want to see such as the dancer's facial expressions, Rothbart's picking up the crown at the end of act III or Odette's mime in act IV when she breaks the news that they have to spend the rest of their lives floating around a slimy pond because Siegfried has blown it. On the other hand you also see some details that you don't like the brush strokes or bricks on the backdrop or loose threads on the costumes.

The other big advantage of cinema is that audiences can gain insight into the production or performance that they would never get in the theatre by interviewing the choreographers, composers or designers who created the work or the conductors and dancers who are about to perform it.  Generally, that is something that Pathé  Live and the Bolshoi do so much better than Covent Garden. One of the reasons the Bolshoi get it right is that they employ a multilingual journalist with good dress sense and an excellent knowledge of the ballet.

One feature of the Royal Ballet's transmissions that I wish they would drop are the gushing tweets.  Most seem to state the obvious - namely that ballet is a remarkable spectacle (it wouldn't be worth watching otherwise) plus their locations. Social media could have a role.  For example, it could be used to put questions to the creatives. I would love to have quizzed Liam Scarlett on why and how he developed  von Rothbart's role.  Covent Garden just seem to use it as a marketing tool or perhaps just simple vanity.

In watching the cinema transmission I was reminded of the story of Plato's cave.

Standard YouTube Licence

I first heard of it from my father long before I started to learn Greek.  Live transmissions of ballet are rather like the shadows of reality from the fire in the cave.  They may be better than nothing and they have their place but don't let anyone tell you that they are ballet because they are not. The analogy works quite well with live transmissions because some things that look good in the theatre just so not show up well on screen. John Macfarlane's designs are a case in point.  The screen images did not do justice to them.

I expressed these views on a ballet goers' website some years ago and got roasted. I was accused of elitism by a lady who makes her living from translating foreign  language patent specifications and was excoriated a man of the cloth.  I was reminded of the fate of the man who broke free of the cave and tried to warn the remaining troglodytes and gave that website a miss for many years. I am now very careful about what I post to that website confining myself to reviews of performances that most subscribers would not have seen lest I be offered a pint of hemlock.

Ballet West in Asia

Standard YouTube Licence

Long before I got to know Ballet West I wrote Taynuilt - where better to create ballet?  31 Aug 2013. It is a beautiful location and I saw for myself when I attended a class there how the surroundings inspire the staff and students.   In a grand jeté en tournant exercise the instructor, Jonathan Barton, pointed to the surrounding hills urging the class to "soar like the mountains" (see Visiting Taynuilt 4 May 2018). Nobody who has seen a show by Ballet West can doubt the quality of the training that is available there.

And yet Ballet West alumni have to work harder than those from other schools to establish themselves in the profession. In Visiting Taynuilt I explained why. Ballet West is a long way from London and indeed a long way from just about every other major population centre in the British Isles.  If a company in London (or Leeds, Birmingham or Glasgow for that matter) wishes to fill a vacancy and can find excellent candidates immediately from the Royal Ballet School and possibly a handful of other ballet schools there is very little incentive to spend time and money looking further. That may be unfair but it is perfectly understandable.  The same sort of thing happens in other professions including my own.

So what can Ballet West do about that?  Well one partial solution is to look beyond London to the tiger economies of East Asia where there is an insatiable appetite for dance. That is exactly what Ballet West seems to be doing with its International Touring Company. According to the company's website it is a professional ballet company devoted to delivering world class ballet productions globally. It comprises 32 dancers including Jonathan Barton, Natasha Watson, Uyu Hiromoto and Joseph Wright. It will begin with 6 performances of Daniel Job's production of Swan Lake in Genting, Malaysia between 24 Aug and 2 Sept 2918. Performances in Macau and other places are envisaged for the future.

According to the Malaysian website Star Online, those performances will take place at the Genting International Showroom which describes itself as a hi-tech multimedia entertainment venue seating up to 1,000 people with the latest sound and lighting system a revolving stage and flying towers.  Apparently the season was heralded by a flash mob ballet with 80 dancers on the SkySymphony stage. If that report is accurate and all the advertised facilities were used it must have been quite a spectacle.   The Star Online website quotes Gillian Barton as saying that “This will be the first professional full-UK cast, full-length Swan Lake ballet in Malaysia."

As well as providing work for British dancers this summer (see the Auditions Notice on the Dancers Opportunities website) the tour should offer opportunities for young Malaysian dancers. The Star Online website reports that there will be masterclasses at the Arena of Stars on 22, 23, 24 and 30 Aug.  It is entirely possible that some of those dancers will wish to undergo further training abroad in which case Ballet West will be the first overseas school to spring to mind.

With a GDP of US$340 billion Malaysia is already an important economy and it is growing rapidly. English is widely used in commerce, education, government and the arts. Malaysia has many links with the UK.  It could be an important market for the creative industries generally and not just the performing arts.

Ballet West's International Touring Company will not employ all Ballet West's students but it will employ some and that is an important start. More importantly, however, it shows that there is a place for enterprise in the arts just as there is in any other industry. Those who don't find work with the touring company have an example of how they can create a niche for themselves.  As in so many other walks of life it may not be enough to be good at your job. Maybe you need to be an entrepreneur as well.

Scarlett's Swan Lake

Standard YouTube Licence

Royal Ballet  Swan Lake Royal Opera House 22 May 2018 19:30

The curtain fell for the last time at about 22:35 yesterday and it is now 03:22 on Wednesday. Since then I have travelled 180 miles by rail and another 32 by road. I have read the programme from cover to cover.  Yet I cannot sleep because I am still excited about Liam Scarlett's new production of Swan Lake.

There are hardly any gimmicks in this production.  There are no new characters.  The story is unchanged:

"Prince Siegfried chances upon a flock of swans while out hunting. When one of the swans turns into a beautiful woman, Odette, he is enraptured. But she is under a spell that holds her captive, allowing her to regain her human form only at night.
The evil spirit Von Rothbart, arbiter of Odette’s curse, disguises his daughter Odile as Odette to trick Siegfried into breaking his vow of love. Fooled, Siegfried declares his love for Odile, and so dooms Odette to suffer under the curse forever (see the Royal Opera House's website).

Yet there was still innovation (see How choreographer Liam Scarlett is reimagining Swan Lake on the Royal Opera House's site).

There are, of course, John Macfarlane's brilliant new designs which I shall discuss later. For me the most striking innovation was the elevation of Baron von Rothbart from scary cape waving sorcerer on a rock to a an even more menacing scheming court insider reminding me just a little bit of President Putin.  Although he appears in the prologue the baron's first intervention in the story is as the queen's adviser.  It is obvious that he exerts considerable influence over her.  The idea that the prince should marry may even have been his idea.  He throws his weight around when he is alone with the prince. He reminds Siegfried of his mother's command to choose a bride. When Siegfried is about to leave the stage with his crossbow, von Rothbart gestures to him to put it down.  This enhanced role for the baron affects the dynamic of the story and in my view makes it much more realistic.  Particularly the third act when von Rothbart promotes his daughter as a possible royal bride.

A character who is so crucial to the story requires an artist who is as much as actor as he is a dancer and Bennet Gartside performed that role exquisitely.  As I could spare the time (and money) for only one performance of the new Swan Lake I chose last night in order to see Federico Bonelli and Lauren Cuthbertson.  They are two of my favourite dancers at the Royal Ballet.  When I saw them in Giselle three years ago they quite took my breath away (see Cuthbertson's Giselle 3 April 2016). It was on the strength of that performance that I chose Cuthbertson as my ballerina of 2016 (see The Terpsichore Titles: Outstanding Female Dancer of 2016 29 Dec 2016). Bonelli was on stage yesterday and he was as gallant and dashing as ever but sadly Cuthbertson was indisposed. Just before the start Kevin O'Hare came on stage to announce that she had been injured and invited us to join him in wishing her well which I, for one, certainly do. He also announced that Akane Takada. who took Cuthbertson's place, had danced Odette-Odile for the first time the previous Saturday. All I can say is that she was enchanting. While I hope to see Cuthbertson in that role soon I was not in the least disappointed by the casting change.

There were many other dancers who impressed me last night but this already over-long review would become as turgid as a telephone directory were I to include them all.  But James Hay stood out for me as the prince's mate Benno. Not quite as big a role in Scarlett's Swan Lake as in David Dawson's but the character does not appear in many productions.  Perhaps because I have tried to learn the cygnets' dance (see KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 1 16 Aug 2015) I feel a special sense of fellowship with whoever dances on it on stage.  I therefore gave Elizabeth Harrod, Meaghan Grace Hinkis, Romany Pajdak and Leticia Stock who performed that piece an extra loud clap prompting an old fashioned look from the lady next to me as if to say "What's so special about them?" It  would have taken me far too long to tell her.  I also liked the Neapolitan dance. Anna Rose O'Sullivan and Paul Kay were lively and sparky. They performed that divertissement in the way that Wayne Sleep and Jennifer Penney used to do.

This was a ballet in which every artist performed well. Especially the corps who were magnificent.  Not every man shared that view. On the stairs up to the Paul Hamlyn Bar in the first interval a pinstriped gent was holding forth that the boys were alright but the girls seemed somewhat under-rehearsed.  I was amazed by that criticism. "What had he seen that I had missed?" I wondered.  For me it was pure delight from beginning to end.  The lady who was with the opinionated gent didn't agree. She urged him to stop it and she struck him more than once with her rolled-up cast list.

Having said that it was a very funny audience last night. Nobody joined me in clapping the principals when they first appeared. Hardly anybody applauded Takada as she was approaching her 32nd fouetté. Folk were leaving Florida style even before the first curtain call   "It was only 22:30" I thought to myself, "If I can get home to Yorkshire tonight surely there must be trains to Penge." The dancers and musicians gave us there all and they deserved better from the crowd. Ballet Black got a well-deserved standing ovation in Nottingham last week as did Teac Damsa for their Swan Lake in Manchester. "What is it with stuffy old London?" I mused.  Those artists deserved a flower throw and when the flower market was next door they would have got it.

I promised to say a word about Macfarlane's designs. Well, they are good.  The backdrop of swirling waters for the prologue gave way to the palace gardens for act 1. Seamlessly they morphed into a lakeside with a full moon for act 2. The ballroom scene with its throne was magnificent. However, the most dramatic setting of all was the lakeside at the end. A monochrome landscape dominated by a rock. Those scene changes required ingenious lighting design and David Finn delivered it.  The costumes were magnificent particularly Siegfried and Benno's and the uniforms for the men.

Scarlett shows that you don't need bikes on stage, male swans, new characters or even a new libretto to rejuvenate Swan Lake.  His work is already pretty close to my favourite Swan Lake though I would hate to have to choose between it and David Dawson's. They are both excellent with their rspective strengths.  I loved Anthony Dowell's Swan Lake but I think we were ready for this change.