ABT's Swan Lake: first night in Los Angeles

(Michele Wiles and David Hallberg with American Ballet Theatre's corps de ballet. Photo: me)

American Ballet Theatre opened a brief run of Swan Lake performances tonight at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. I've seen Kevin McKenzie's production before, so I knew to what to expect going in: very attractive and colorful designs by Zac Brown, and a production that at least gives us all the famous parts of the classical Swan Lake. Still, this Swan Lake is condensed into a fast moving, one intermission evening, and the time in between those big choreographic set pieces is filled with unsatisfying chunks of McKenzie's own, fussy choreography. McKenzie also inserts "ideas" like having Rothbart seduce the princesses in Act 3, which makes more for an unintentionally comic scene than a useful addition. Thankfully, most of the famous Act 2 lakeside scene remains untouched (except for a strange decision for the corps to flap its swan arms downward instead of skyward during the swans' entrance).

I suppose, on the one hand, that everyone really comes to see Swan Lake for the Act II lakeside scene. So eliminating the intermission between Acts III and IV and condensing the Act IV lakeside scene has some logic to it in this age of shorter attention spans (mine included). But the additional corps dance for the white swans in Act IV is one of the most plaintively beautiful moments in a full Swan Lake, and its omission here turns the production into a kind of Swan Lake Lite. But I guess if we're going to be stuck with McKenzie's not revolting, but also not particularly good interpolations, it's best if we zip straight on to the end of the evening.

ABT performs Swan Lake ably, if not as distinctively as, say, the Mariinsky or even the Royals. There are 24 swans instead of 32, and the herd moves more as a painstakingly drilled ballet boot camp team, rather than the Mariinsky's seemingly effortless flow of individuals that happen to move as one. Still, they give as good an account as can be given by a company whose dancers come from entirely different training backgrounds.

In the principal roles, David Hallberg was wonderful as Siegfried. Noble in bearing, his stage persona was fully invested in Siegfried's drama and passion. Hallberg has always had gorgeous, immaculate technique, but since I last saw him in The Sleeping Beauty, he has gained some virtuoso flash and now really gets the audience clapping for his dancing. His noble bearing, though, keeps it from becoming a total circus act, which in turn makes for a satisfyingly complete performance.

As Odette/Odile, Michele Wiles was very inconsistent. Her strong technique cannot be denied - her blazing fouettes in the Black Swan Pas de Deux whipped the audience into a frenzy - but the bright spots only came sporadically. Instead of extending an adagio phrase slowly across the musical line, she tended to throw her legs quickly into position or snap ungracefully from pose to pose. She also rushed through important moments of stage business, or performed them too small and close to her body; she needs to open up her movement and project, and to appropriately pace the telling of a story in wordless dance and mime.

The Pas de Trois in Act I, danced by Yuriko Kajiya, Maria Ricetto and Sascha Radetsky, was one of the evening's most satisfying moments of the night for its straightforward, clean classicism. Act 3's national dances were disappointingly bland tonight, though I couldn't tell if it was the dancers or the chaotic choreography.

I'm looking forward to seeing tomorrow night's cast, with Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky in the lead roles. Dvorovenko is gorgeously trained in the Russian school, a style which lends itself naturally to Swan Lake, so it should (hopefully) be good!