New York City Ballet's Swan Lake

Thurs, Feb 11 - Through no particular fault of the company's or the production's (though there is plenty to pick over in the latter), I was pretty bored at New York City Ballet's Swan Lake last Thursday. I think it may have been more of a personal overdose full lengths Swan Lakes. I was antsy through all of divertissements and waltzes, and waited anxiously for them to just get it overwith and hurry along to the main stuff with Odette/Odile and Siegfried. When they did get there, it was actually pretty good - I'm a big fan of Ashley Bouder's dancing in general this season, and as Odette/Odile she gave plenty to marvel at. But I find that I'm increasingly unwilling to sit through two hours of fluff to get the 30 minutes of stuff that I'm actually interested in seeing. At this point I prefer Balanchine's single-act condensation of Swan Lake, which NYCB presented last year. (I realize this may be a very personal view of full-lengths, Swan Lake in particular.)

This production didn't exactly help matters: there's lots of motion, but at the expense of drama. Peter Martins' staging has received mixed reviews for most of its life, so I came in well prepared to expect garish sets and choreographic curiosities. And honestly, neither of those elements were so bad to me. Per Kirkeby's scenery is vague and impressionistic, but it works in a way - the backdrops look like they began with the usual scenes but then the paint ran all over the canvas instead. (Also, I didn't really see the backdrops for most of the show - I was sitting in the 4th Ring). The costumes in the ballroom scenes are cheap looking, but the swans look appropriately wistful and traditional.

On its own, Martins' choreography has a propulsive energy that keeps the dancers constantly dancing throughout the evening - they move through pretty standard but satisfying and efficient stage patterns that serve the music well. But in exchange for constant movement, the drama and mime is almost entirely stripped away. You can have drama without the mime, but here there is neither; you'll have to read the program to know what is being represented on stage. Further, the scenes that traditionally establish character and relationships are musically abridged, so we as an audience don't get much time to connect with the characters we're watching. For example, there is a scene in Act 1 where the Queen arrives to give Siegfried his birthday gift and to tell him that he must choose a bride by his 21st birthday. In this production she briskly walks on, points at a few things, hands over the hunting bow and is gone again in about two minute - Tchaikovsky's musical interlude for this scene is cut roughly in half. I'm all for brisk storytelling (it actually works better in Martins' production of Sleeping Beauty), but here it works against the production. The non-stop dancing - which all looks the same, by the way, despite its efficiency - becomes a blur of motion.

That said, there are some things to like about this production. The final lakeside scene is particularly affecting, and I loved Martins' version of the ending. In the traditional Swan Lake, Siegfried swears his love to Odette, who is being held captive by the evil magician Von Rothbart's spell. Siegfried must remain faithful to her, however, otherwise she is doomed to remain a swan forever. When Von Rothbart tricks Siegfried by sending his evil daughter Odile after him, the lovers appear to be doomed until they both commit suicide by hurling themselves into the lake - Rothbart is vanquished and the lovers reunite in the afterlife. Tragedy with an uplift. In this production, most of the story is the same but instead of committing suicide, the lovers vanquish Rothbart by sheer force of their love. Then, Odette sadly leaves Siegfried and returns to swan form forever, a consequence of the ever powerful spell and of Siegfried's infidelity. She bourrees away from him, both of them resigned to the fate that he has assigned to them - it's rather like Giselle in its heartbreaking finality.

The dancing is the main reason to continually revisit Swan Lake. Ashley Bouder's Odette/Odile is very compelling. She's much faster and active than most Odette (the Russians and many Odettes after them tend to take it at an elegaic pace), but it works: she feels really alive and the performance has an urgency that suggests Odette's struggle. And her dancing is fast, but also controlled and precise, so you see the lines and the choreography very clearly. Given Bouder's technical proficiency, the dazzle of her Odile is not unexpected, but it's still a marvel to watch. The adage was crisp and sexy, her variation was fantastic and her fouettes whipped the audience into a frenzy. Her Prince was Benjamin Millepied, who gets plenty of stage time in the Martins production. He was great in his solo moments, but in Swan Lake, isn't it usually about the ballerina? The swan corps looked very good overall as well. In general, the company takes things at a faster clip than many classical companies (the fleet-footedness is ingrained in the company style), but it fit with Martins' more efficient version of things in this production.

I had initially planned to see all three casts that the company was fielding for this production (Maria Kowroski/Stephen Hanna and Sara Mearns/Jared Angle were the others) but I couldn't bring myself to sit through the whole show just for their moments. All of them are cast in Jewels next week, with plenty of opportunity for ballerina glamour in a much shorter ballet. I decided to skip the rest of the Swans and wait for Jewels.

Inset photo: Ashley Bouder as Odette, photo by Paul Kolnik.