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Australian BalletOctober 2008 Salford, The Lowry by Ian Palmer |
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With all the boldness of my mother approaching the Marks & Spencer sales, the Lowry opened its third production of Swan Lake this year on Tuesday. Happily for us it was the staging of the piece, which Graeme Murphy created for Australian Ballet in 2002 and which was last seen in this country at the Coliseum in 2005. It is a vivid and powerful re-thinking of this tale, in its portrayal of infidelity and the effects it may wreak upon the human psyche. Odette, betrothed to Prince Sigfried, is pushed out of her marriage by his adulterous relationship with the Baroness von Rothbart, and committed to an asylum wherein she dreams of swans who are similarly blighted. There are echoes of John Neumeier’s Hamburg staging, Illusions - like Swan Lake, which is in itself an exploration of the protagonist's fantasies and delusions, but also of more recent historical occurrences in its allusions to the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales and the presence of a third in their relationship. Yet it is wisely never overt in its insinuations, but a fascinating drama, fascinatingly told. Murphy is a sensual choreographer – as I recall from his wonderful ballet The Silver Rose which I saw in Munich last year – who clearly uses his movement to express passions and motivations and it is dance that is bold in its construction. Yet he is also not afraid to still the stage, to clarify its images; and by doing, heighten its poetic and dramatic tension. His use of the score is unfailingly intelligent in its understanding of what the music can mean and I was especially taken with the moment when, to the music usually heard as Siegfried’s solo with the cross-bow, Murphy sets it as a Pas de Trois in which the Prince is torn between his wife and the love of his mistress; so too the use of the music of Odile’s Coda variation, is brilliantly taken as sound-track to the on-coming delirium which besets Odette. Of the BBC Philharmonic under Nicolette Fraillon, I can only report that they appeared to be “winging it” and did little for the reputation of this illustrious orchestra.  © Liz Ham, Australian Ballet
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