Swan Lake is based upon Russian and German folk tales. In four acts, with music by Tchaikovsky, it tells the story of Odette, a beautiful princess who, with her faithful handmaidens, has been turned into a swan and cannot become human until she marries.
Acts one and two see the misguided hero of our story, Prince Siegfried (Alexei Terentiev) celebrating his 21st birthday. As a new patron of the ballet I was unsure how I would interpret the dance with no programme available to me before the interval. However, the combination of celebratory music and grand gestures by various cast members made the party scene relatively easy to deduce. Ellen Kent’s superb cast meant the Pas de Trois in the first act was particularly enjoyable and was described to me in the interval as being like an “elegant dance-off”. The orchestra were magnificent as always and didn’t distract from the dancers.
Act three brings out the famous swans and we get our first glimpse of award-winning dancer Kristina Terentieva. My complaint for the rest of the cast (with the exception of a few members) is that they appear to have learnt the moves and are simply placing them on top of the music, so where the conductor was a little more flexible with the tempo the dancers seemed to be lost and there were pauses in their movements. These criticisms most definitely do not apply to Terentieva. Well deserving of her awards, she puts forward a stunning performance where her movements flow with and around the music creating an incredible fluidity. To back her up, the troupe of swans gained more confidence throughout act three, beginning rather stutteringly with a certain lack of co-ordination but easing into the performance. While the programme insists that the swans are berating the Prince for his lack of commitment to their Queen this is not entirely clear from the dance, but again, I am a novice to ballet so I may have missed something!
The final act sees the Prince being shown a series of young ladies by his mother all of whom he rejects. He is overjoyed when he sees a young lady enter the room whom he believes to be Odette. It is in fact Odile, daughter of the evil Baron von Rothbart who has disguised Odile as Odette in order to get a betrothal out of the Prince. Finally Terentiev shows us his ability to be an expressive dancer. In acts one and two he seems to be acting as a “frame” for Terentieva but in act four he manages to convey joy and despair through dance. The act also gives us a more extensive glimpse of Roman Taranenko as Baron von Rothbart. An excellent choice, Taranenko manages to simply be ominous. His tall stature and lithe dancing style combined with red spotlighting and sinister music prove to be a successful combination. The final fight between Taranenko and Terentiev resulting in the death of the latter is particularly moving. This was the only time when the orchestra let the performance down with a rather over zealous brass section that the Ellen Kent productions often suffer from.
With the exception of having to wait until the final act for all the excitement Swan Lake is a thoroughly enjoyable experience and Ellen Kent and the fabulous dancers make it worth seeing.
Acts one and two see the misguided hero of our story, Prince Siegfried (Alexei Terentiev) celebrating his 21st birthday. As a new patron of the ballet I was unsure how I would interpret the dance with no programme available to me before the interval. However, the combination of celebratory music and grand gestures by various cast members made the party scene relatively easy to deduce. Ellen Kent’s superb cast meant the Pas de Trois in the first act was particularly enjoyable and was described to me in the interval as being like an “elegant dance-off”. The orchestra were magnificent as always and didn’t distract from the dancers.
Act three brings out the famous swans and we get our first glimpse of award-winning dancer Kristina Terentieva. My complaint for the rest of the cast (with the exception of a few members) is that they appear to have learnt the moves and are simply placing them on top of the music, so where the conductor was a little more flexible with the tempo the dancers seemed to be lost and there were pauses in their movements. These criticisms most definitely do not apply to Terentieva. Well deserving of her awards, she puts forward a stunning performance where her movements flow with and around the music creating an incredible fluidity. To back her up, the troupe of swans gained more confidence throughout act three, beginning rather stutteringly with a certain lack of co-ordination but easing into the performance. While the programme insists that the swans are berating the Prince for his lack of commitment to their Queen this is not entirely clear from the dance, but again, I am a novice to ballet so I may have missed something!
The final act sees the Prince being shown a series of young ladies by his mother all of whom he rejects. He is overjoyed when he sees a young lady enter the room whom he believes to be Odette. It is in fact Odile, daughter of the evil Baron von Rothbart who has disguised Odile as Odette in order to get a betrothal out of the Prince. Finally Terentiev shows us his ability to be an expressive dancer. In acts one and two he seems to be acting as a “frame” for Terentieva but in act four he manages to convey joy and despair through dance. The act also gives us a more extensive glimpse of Roman Taranenko as Baron von Rothbart. An excellent choice, Taranenko manages to simply be ominous. His tall stature and lithe dancing style combined with red spotlighting and sinister music prove to be a successful combination. The final fight between Taranenko and Terentiev resulting in the death of the latter is particularly moving. This was the only time when the orchestra let the performance down with a rather over zealous brass section that the Ellen Kent productions often suffer from.
With the exception of having to wait until the final act for all the excitement Swan Lake is a thoroughly enjoyable experience and Ellen Kent and the fabulous dancers make it worth seeing.