In a week when a spare princeling consumes our thoughts, English National Ballet’s Swan Lake reminds us that being the heir is also no feather bed. Forget fisticuffs and Elizabeth Arden cream – Tchaikovsky raises the stakes with implacable curses and moonlit swan maidens.
Siegfried is a prince without purpose – his face falls when his mother reminds him it’s time to marry and perpetuate the dynasty. Plunged into sulky perturbation, he throws up his arms, lost in a thicket of confusion. Aitor Arrieta, the Basque dancer leading ENB’s first-night cast, is an elegant if unshowy performer, and portrays an introspective, none-too-bright hero. Draw your own princely parallels.
This production of the Russian classic was created by Derek Deane in 1997 for arena settings like the Royal Albert Hall. A few years later, he restaged it for conventional theatres – and in 2011, a BBC documentary notoriously filmed him browbeating ENB’s dancers in a display of hissyfit privilege. The current cast is impressively drilled but hopefully not impelled by fear.
The iconic swans cluster under a watery moon. Led with tilting grandeur by Precious Adams and Emily Suzuki, 22 dancers seem to breathe as one, swirling in anxious circles or susurrating on point. An audience member nearby sang along to all the big tunes: conductor Daniel Parkinson too relishes Tchaikovsky’s melodies. The magic is only marred by James Streeter’s distractingly cloak-swirling sorcerer, turning the acting up to 11.
This plush production requires its leads to give it meaning. Emma Hawes makes a forlorn Odette, the enchanted swan princess – haunted eyes, wings crossed over her aching heart, shoulders curled in agitation. She and Arrieta don’t exactly strike sparks, but they share a bereft interiority, folding about each other in search of refuge. Hawes slows the drama to a dreamy hush, a charmed moment when it seems cursed destiny might cease.
Deane works his dancers hard, cramming in footwork and ruffles of hand gestures. The late Peter Farmer’s stippled painterly backdrops are an asset, and so too some ardent performances. Julia Conway notably adds bite to the lemony pas de trois in Act One, and plays a crisply haughty cygnet.
The third act, a palace celebration, is the production’s fussiest, lit in a red mist. National dances have an adult assurance – impish Neapolitan duet and a lunging Spanish dance that’s borderline slutty. Siegfried, by contrast, seems an innocent dupe, and duped he is by Rothbart and the ‘black swan’ Odile. An impressive Hawes here goes fast to dazzle, slow to ensnare; caps her triumph with a nasty giggle.
The harp’s unhappy ripple opens the tragic final act, back at the lake, the swans’ arms flexing in sorrow. Odette’s hands flutter above her head – like our own wretched royals, not waving but drowning.
London Coliseum, to January 22; buy tickets here
