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Bolshoi BalletJuly 2004 London, Covent Garden by Lynette Halewood |
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Covent Garden was packed with a rather more glamorous crowd than usual for the opening night of the Bolshoi’s Swan Lake. This production is by Grigorovitch, and is not, so I was told, the same version as they brought here on their last visit to Covent Garden in the late 90s. It is described in the text of the programme as first produced in the 1969/70 season, and occasionally slightly revised, and in the cast list as having its premiere on 2 March 2001 at the Bolshoi. Whatever the precise production details, this is a majestic, massive production, the stage packed with dancers, with soloist after soloist displaying impeccable technique in the grand court scenes. The full might of the company’s strength is brought to bear. However, the story itself at times almost seems lost in the process: stripped of all mime passages and explanation, it is not easy to follow, and for all its grandeur it is curiously uninvolving. Not that this will prevent it selling tickets by the bucket load: the appeal of Swan Lake endures. Does such a thing as the ideal Swan Lake exist? Paradoxically, the very success of Swan Lake, its eternal allure as the epitome of a certain ideal of ballet, is undercut and yet reinforced by many of the productions we see. Somewhere, as out of reach and as exquisite as Odette, the perfect Swan Lake must exist. A production of purity and elegance, without vulgarity, with a noble prince, a doomed love. But we never reach it: each production always has its flaws or jarring moments so that the smooth water of the lake is rippled and we cannot see through its surface clearly to the crystal purity of the underlying vision. But the attraction remains.
Of course we all have differing views about what that eternal, ideal Swan Lake might contain: whether it would be a jester free zone, for instance. But all our views still hark back to some sensed, impossible original, some poetic icon – something more elusive than the actual literal notated text of the original steps perhaps, a sense of moonlight, tragedy and yearning. It’s always easy to wish that a production would be just a little bit different, to adjust some detail or other but the more adjustments that take place, sometimes the more blurred the picture becomes.
 © John Ross What this production gives us is a polished display of wonderful classical ballet. In the lakeside scenes where the corps of swans dance as if it’s a statement of faith in the art form. In the ballroom scene in Act 3, the luxury of the Bolshoi’s casting in apparent in the five different princesses who appear, all delivering their solos with authority and grand style (just the one slip from the Spanish princess at the end of her solo). It is all very splendid, but somewhere in here should be an immortal love story as well as the splendid display. Uvarov is a noble Siegfried, elegant, poised, with a pleasingly unhurried air, always with time to get round the most difficult steps. He is a very attentive and considerate partner, and in the first act has two lady friends (again, strongly cast, Maria Allash and Maria Alexandrova, who returned as some of the princesses in Act 3) for a pas de trois. There is little hint of the melancholy or longing that one sees sometimes in other Siegfrieds early in the ballet in this version: it all seems a happy occasion. Siegfried does not chose to go hunting: the Rothbart figure, here named the Evil Genius (Belogolovtsev), lures him away from the court to the lakeside. The lakeside setting looks curiously dull compared to the sumptuous sets for the court and it must be the only lake in history to be lit by the same chandeliers hanging from the sky as were at the court – seriously distracting. The Evil Genius is an all powerful figure. Siegfried is doomed before he starts: no question of free will here or making a choice. Grigorovitch’s Siegfried is just a pawn. His first encounter with Odette is oddly undramatic: it takes a while until the great pas de deux for any sort of chemistry with Zakharova to become apparent.
Zakharova’s long limbs are displayed to great effect, slowly, slowly unfurling. Her Odette begins as distant, unengaged, and only slowly melts. Technically, she is very strong and secure dancer, but her Odette was polished and beautifully displayed rather than vulnerable or yearning. The pas de deux in Act 2 with Uvarov was very beautifully danced, but it was oddly difficult to care about the fate of these two lovers or be quite convinced by the reality of their passion.
 © I Zakharkin Act 3 takes us back to the palace. Here the character dances are each allotted to a different princess who has arrived as a candidate for Siegfried’s wife (a detail which you could easily miss – plot details are only very lightly sketched). Sir Peter Wright used this approach in his 1981 version of Swan Lake (though BRB does not run to quite so many princesses). Here I particularly enjoyed the Russian Princess, in a very delicate display – no big steps, no big jumps, but very precisely and cleanly executed. The arrival of the Evil Genius and Odile is grandly announced, though the presence of a group of black swans with them is rather disconcerting. Zakharova still maintained a kind of detachment as Odile. She looked coy rather than glamorous in her moments of flirting, but while her mind was on her dancing she looked curiously businesslike, as if she was doing some rather mundane domestic chore like unblocking a sink and was keen to get it over quickly. She despatched all her big moments with quite frightening ease, and the audience lapped it up. Dramatically, the moment where Siegfried promises to marry her fell rather flat on the London stage. The pleading Odette was barely visible at all in the background, and there was little by way of gesture of triumph – Odile just disappeared. Grigorovitch’s ending to the ballet also falls curiously flat. Siegfried returns to the lakeside where Odette is already failing, and doomed to die. The Evil Genius separates them: she dies, he survives. No apotheosis, with its lovely music. Curiously unmoving. I don’t think I have ever sat though the end of Swan Lake dry eyed before. Despite the delightful dancing from the corps, I felt oddly cheated.
If you want a big, expansively danced production of Swan Lake, with consistently high standards of dancing, then this is for you. If you are fond of winsome jesters, then Gennadi Yanin almost burns a hole in the floor with the speed of his pirouettes. But if you want your heart to be wrung, then I’m not sure this is the one.
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