Swan Lake

Swan Lake is the epitome of classical ballet, the Hamlet of its genre, and worldwide most ballet companies have a few productions on the shelf. The Australian Ballet staged it in its first year in 1962 and, after imaginative reinventions this century by Graeme Murphy and Stephen Baynes, has appropriately revived it for this 60^th anniversary year.

The new AD David Hallberg first presented some astonishing contemporary ballets, stretching his dancers to ever new storytelling, but this year he follows his double bill homage to Sir Frederick Ashton with a similar unashamedly return to tradition. 

In this Swan Lake, Hallberg directs an exquisite reworking of Anne Woolliams’ highly classical interpretation for the company in 1977 of Marius Petipa’s original choreography, but Hallberg employs new sets, costumes and dancers today, of most ranks, razor sharp in technique and distinctive emotional expression. 

In a courtly palace setting outside by the lake, somewhere in early 1800s Austria, clean and happy peasants dance folk, while the aristocrats match their joy, more formally with more steps and lifts. This endless repetition of group set pieces would easily be tedious if it weren’t done with such perfect symmetry and gusto, helped by Mara Blumenfeld’s splendid costumes and, of course Tchaikovsky enchanting score.

But moody Prince Siegfried (Britain’s Joseph Caley) is well over it. He dismisses the three marriage proposals arrived from abroad and escapes to the forest, where he glimpses an ethereal princess doomed to be a swan until, we learn, she wins an oath of fidelity.  The becloaked sorcerer, Von Rothbart (Joseph Romancewicz) sweeps down to intercept Siegfried’s wooing of Odette (Benedicte Bemet), while the female corps fabulously flutter, quiver and then recoil downwards in alarm, drawing in those arched arms so evocative of long-necked swans.

As the leading tremulous swan, Bemet excels, vulnerable, easily panicked but with the strength of love’s purpose, and with such emotional reality and technical precision she makes a perfect partnership with Caley’s striving, melancholic but ever agile Siegfried.   With sublime help again from Tchaikovsky, conducted by Barry Wordsworth, Daniel Ostling’s shimmering night view of lake sweep us into this dream.

Back at court Von Rothbart crashes in with his daughter, Odile, a black clad sexy imitation of Odette, who Siegfried unwittingly betrays by swearing love to this dark Odile.  Both are danced by Bemet but without the malevolence associated with the Black Swan.

Interestingly, as Siegfried returns to Odette, there are many different endings to Swan Lake, most sad, but the one here is a perfect end to this final magnificent swirl.

David Hallberg’s Swan Lake is so soulful and transportive, with the artistry of the Australian Ballet at full strength, reminding us how great classics can reveal their fresh perfection by returning to their original tradition.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Daniel Boud