Much ado about the swan that didn't die
posted 1-15-2009 - 6:30 am

I hate artistic revisionism. At least in ballet. And I blame the post-Walt-Disney Disney Company for it.

What started this rant, you ask? I attended a performance last Sunday of the Russian National Ballet Theater, and they performed Swan Lake. Theirs is a relatively new company, having been founded during the late 1980s, and, by the caliber of dancing that I saw, clearly second tier: fine, but certainly no threat to either the Bolshoi or the Kirov. I wouldn't put them on the same level as the New York City Ballet or the American Ballet Theater, either, but those two are also world class, so no surprise there. But I love Swan Lake and Tchaikovsky's score, so I really didn't mind.

Despite some lack of precision now and then among the corps de ballet, I was enjoying the production, for the most part. Particularly the performance of the prima ballerina portraying Odette/Odile, whose performance was clearly on a higher level than the rest of the company but whose name I don't know because the program listed four names for that role (this is a traveling company, and this role is obviously rotated, as are several others). In fact, I eagerly anticipated watching that particular Odette do the dying swan scene.