Swan Lake from Russia, with Love

For the first time in years, I made it back to one of my favorite places in Atlanta, the converted and still part-time shriner temple which is now the Fox theatre, one of the most fun architectural (though, alas, not acoustical, which is why the opera doesn't perform there) buildings around.  Shriners have a seriously fun sense of architecture.  The Russian State Ballet was in town to perform Swan Lake.  There were ballerinas in the lobby in full swan maiden regalia, available for photos and autographs (at a silly price, of course.) After an attempt to be a dignified adult who does not need her photo taken with a ballerina, I abandoned that project and had my photo taken with a ballerina.  She signed it "From Russia, with love!" and drew a little stick ballerina after her name.

Once I have my OWN apartment, which cannot happen fast enough, this will be
a decoration in my dance room. 

It was a simple, actually quite low budget, production of Swan Lake, no programs, recorded music and a rather small ensemble.  Nonetheless, the sets were quite classic, and it's hard to be lovelier than the softly painted forest and lake backdrops of a simple production.  Likewise the costumes were both classic and exquisite.  The Evil Von Rothbart had a feathery headdress, wild face paint, and bat wings.  The swans looked exactly as the swans always look, which is always pretty.  The palace scenes were filled with women in lovely floating dresses, accompanied my swains in velvet tops with sparkles.  Also a jester in red and purple who completely stole the show with comic antics and gorgeous floating leaps.  Though that did, unfortunately, do a little more to show up the prince who has, at best, the personality of mayonnaise.  It's not the fault of the production, it's a problem in the ballet itself.  This prince is boring.  The other inherent problem with the ballet is that invariably Odile is more interesting, and more interestingly costumed, than Odette, but what can you do, while still being faithful to the source material?  Though the production did use one of the alternate endings, in which Odette and her forgettable prince live happily ever after.  I disapprove.  I deeply believe that everyone should die at the end of Swan Lake.  Oh well.

Despite mostly faithfulness to the source material and the classic choreography of Petipa (which I honestly don't like) the second act wasn't boring.  The music, while canned, emphasized horns and percussion, which is good because without that the music just becomes impossibly saccharine.  Furthermore, the pas de deux between Odette and the prince was shortened, which helps, in favor of more and more constant movement of the swan maidens.  Any time 15-20 dancers in white move together, the effect is beautiful.  And of course, the famous pas de quatre is still the exact same as the way everyone does it, and it's still cool.

It was the palace scenes that really shone.  In the first act, the prince was dancing with two princesses, each in gold with puffy sleeves, and surrounded by ladies and peasants in white and cream or bronze and brown.  In the third act, the princesses were all properly county coded, and danced by themselves, the Spanish princess with her tambourine, and the Russian princess with her handkerchief (I loved the Russian princess.  Not only was her handkerchief choreography precisely with the music, she had on a white gown with puffy sleeves and pale blue accents.).  They were all quite properly snubbed when the prince declined to propse to any of them despite their really fabulous performances.  When Odile entered, stealing the show in her black tutu with sparkly green wing accents, she brought with her a pair of flamenco dancers as retinue.  The flamenco pair did a balletic flamenco together in black with gold and red accents, and both were phenomenally and skinny and generally impressive and probably evil.

The final act was very anticlimactic for me, because I've seen at least 4 different versions of this now, and I keep waiting for all the principles to die.  I was still waiting for them to die when the curtain went down.  Apart from that, it was a lovely rendition of one of the classics, lovely enough to gloss over some of the weaknesses inherent to this ballet (I think it could really stand some major overhauls to the typical Petipa choreography, frankly.  More swan maidens, less Odette and Siegfried, and more of Odile.  Also, I wish Odile and Odette were two different ballerinas and more attention was paid to Odile.  As Neko-sensei remarks in Princess Tutu, "who is to say that the love of Odile is less pure than that of Odette?").  Regardless of my opinions on the inherent structure of the ballet, it was a joy and a delight to watch the dancers of the Russian State Ballet.  There was one minor bobble--the prince had to put his hand down as he landed a leap and promptly sank into a kneeling position he started to tip sideways--and two minor wardrobe malfunctions.  Von Rothbart's headdress fell off during the first act and the flamenco princess was developing a rip in the back of her skirt.  Live productions are sometimes plagued by such issues, and while I would have appreciated being less distracted during the flamenco performance, overall this was a pleasing production that made me happy.