Swan Lake – combination of affected drama and impressionistic tenderness

There is no doubt that such scene as the National Theater in Prague cannot exist without the most attractive ballet title. The Swan Lake, called many noble synonyms, has again returned onto our major scene to attract along the conventional audience, to let little girls be lost in dreams and to charm with its fairy-tale love story where love overcomes all the traps and intrigues.

A new story?

The first night of the new version on the 12^th and 13^th February 2009, choreography and direction by Kenneth Grev from Denmark, respects the tradition of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, however adapts the original libretto into some sort of more attractive feature. In some moments it appeals with a very fresh impression. Unfortunately, the direction part of the progress of some scenes has rather decreasing tendency and certain acts lack their logic. On the other hand, the clear definition of some personages' actions brings the whole story closer to the audience and carries on the thrill. The shortening in general only contributes to the better availability of the piece for the today's spectator.

Rather a mime then danced prologue opens up the whole ballet. The piece talking about the prince Siegfried’s childhood after his father’s death, where his nanny is telling him the fairytale about the Swan princess who is rescued by the prince who kills the wizard, is rather redundant and disturbing part which the audience could surely spare. They could notice then the live musical interpretation of the foreplay which would pleasantly tune them up. The prologue doesn’t explain, it doesn’t help to the further story and the motive itself isn’t developed. The first scene subsequently has the traditional spirit of dancing youth, pas de trois of the prince’s friends, some sort of display of prince’s melancholy that comes mainly from his mistrust of the queen’s friend von Rothbart. The mistrust shows to be rightful, von Rothbart is namely the one that the skilled spectator knows as Rudovous. The wizard who enchanted Odette into a swan. And it’s exactly her who saves the Prince, while being in a human form, when von Rothbart throws him down into the lake in the second piece still of the first act. The story follows again the convention including the pas de deux, pas de quatre (pas de trois is left out) until the end of the piece, although where untraditionally the transformation of the prince’s friend Benno into the black swan of Odile indicates the next development of the story.

The second act fortunately begins with the foreplay. It’s even more “truncated” therefore the number of ball dances which aren’t important for the story itself was decreased. After the beginning it’s getting right down to it. The three brides introduce themselves in their characterful dances: the Spanish, the Hungarian and the Russian one, and therein comes von Rothbart with Odile. The famous “black” pas de deux keeps at the first sight its traditional form. But the scene where the prince under pressure of the moment promises love to Odile is very confusing and demands from the spectator a great deal of attention which needs to be equally split among all the participants to be acquainted in their pathos. Exactly here as well as in the final ballet scene of the duel between the Prince and von Rothbart, the insufficient elaboration of the directional intension is obvious when too many events take place at the peak, so that the overall drama of the moment slightly fades away.

The beauty of the classical dance

Even though Keneth Greve still has some reserves in his directory and dramaturgic work, he is very resourceful as choreographer. His dance vocabulary is plentiful, the movement flows and gradates without breakneck divides. Since his author’s work is mostly ensemble scenes, we cannot than claim that in his hands they have become an important media for creating the atmosphere. The combinations don’t have too many steps, they let each detail of the classical dance beauty to be seen. The untraditionally conceived port de bras, mainly in case of the swans, provides the dance with freshness, the changing of the formations gives it its content and space. Then even the very conventionalized characterful dances (the Spanish and the Russian one of the soloists are “sur la pointe”) don’t matter. The choreographer gives the classical dance in the classical piece really a new dimension. Perhaps it’s only a pity that he hadn’t done that with the mime parts where we can maybe unnecessarily follow the experience with Bournonville tradition.

The scene itself doesn’t show any big traces of experiment, the only question is “Karlštejn” on the horizon in the first piece. Was it the intention to situate the whole story in Czech environment? But then why do the characters have foreign names? Since the other pieces are scenically elaborated  into a very clean form, we may not specify that other than slight light ash which may be excused in case of the foreigner, Karin Betz, specially because her costumes are very elegant. Not too fluffy and wide swans’ “ballerinas” in the second and fourth act tremendously coact with the light and become together with the dance a splendid art piece evoking slightly impressionistic mood of the Milan Meda dancers’ paintings. Light design in the National Theater finally became a real equal part of the performance.

Different cast, different ballet?

The impression of the performance is naturally exponentiated by the interpretation. That determines the success and as it was possible to find out in the case of both first nights often even the clarity of the whole story. There is no way than simply claim that the second first night cast was in overall better, namely in the expression and technique. Whereas in the face of Odette/Odile of Zuzana Susová (the first cast) showed out of a conceivable reason a pathetical suffering, which except the perfect piqué pirouettes didn’t help to excel the technical qualities of this dancer, Nikola Márová only confirmed that the Thálie award for this role in the National Opera was rightful. The perfect aplomb, sensitive port de bras, the wonderful teamwork with her partner Michal Štípa. He also danced his part with lightness and elegancy. His alternation Jiří Kodym’s expression was determinedly tough and lame. We could hardly find any differences in the interpretation perfection of Alexander Katsapov and Richard Kročil, who both took their own way with the part of von Rotbart, but always in excellent technical and expressive performance. The role of Benno, the prince’s friend, became in this version sort of driving force of the plot which demands a lot from the dramatic abilities of the interpret. The large stage of the National Theater did good to Karel Audy’s dance (1^st cast) after Brno and with his jumps he confidently draws up the first soloists of the ensemble. Unfortunately, he didn’t manage to catch the character of the role. His Benno is in smother love with the prince which sounds untrustworthy and even almost ridiculous. Jiří Vaňka doesn’t exaggerate his expression and finds the measure of his relationship towards the prince, however his dance doesn’t excel as much. In the case of smaller parts pas de trois (1^st cast), pas de quatre (2^nd cast) the volume is balanced as well as in the case of brides from Spain (Edita Raušerová/ Adéla Pollertová), and from Hungary (pas de deux - Klára Kutilová, Pavel Pišan / Klára Jelínková, Viktor Konvalinka). It’s necessary to note that both 2^nd casts were much more sure in the expression and more glamorous in the dance. In case of the Russian dance, on the other hand Zuzana Šimáková (2^nd cast) was superior with her beauty and certainty to Michaela Wenzelová (1^st cast).

The ensemble scenes can’t be left out without praise, while they attract with their surprising teamwork and sensitivity in interpretation, namely in swan dance as well as in the ball and character dances. The distinctness of each individual can be seen which makes the performance a nice balanced whole which is not a redundant drama step in the recent time.

Written from both first nights on the 12^th and 13^th February 2009

Translation: Barbora Čepičková