Conflicts
“Swan Lake”
American Ballet Theatre
Filene Center, Wolf Trap Park
Vienna, Virginia
July 13, 2019
Of the characters in “Swan Lake”, Odette and Odile fascinate because they are opposites as well as being similar. Suffering has given Odette her allure. Force is Odile’s magnet. However, Siegfried is just a routine prince. Perhaps he has a domineering mother, yet he both manages the courtiers and mixes with them to some extent. Like all princes who have just come of age, he has longings but doesn’t know for what. Can Siegfried be made to hold our interest? That was one of two challenges for Aran Bell, the last of ABT’s three Siegfrieds at Wolf Trap this summer. His other challenge was the bravura of the prince’s solos. Bell was making his debut in the Siegfried role. The solos Bell delivered had a sculptural sweep, a tangible and spacious musicality. That he is long legged gave his partnering harmony. Physically, he and his ballerina, Devon Teuscher, were well matched. She phrased Odtte’s role more pliantly than Odile’s, giving sharper accents to the latter. This suits “Swan Lake”, the most Wagnerian of composer Tchaikovsky’s three big ballets. The human/swan image - arched torso on a linear body, arms rippling like wings about to take flight, feet bourreeing - is a female figure that may have been coined by a choreographer prior to Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. The team of Petipa and Ivanov used that image for choral as well as individual effects and Kevin McKenzie, ABT’s director, has staged much of the dancing rather traditionally, “after” their 1895 version at St. Peterburg’s Maryinsky Theater. The magician Rothbart in “Swan Lake” chillingly resembles the magician Klingsor in Wagner’s late opera “Parsifal” (1882). Both men castrated themselves in order to gain supernatural power over people. However, the transformation of human into swan had already happened in Wagner’s earlier “Lohengrin” (1848/50) and predates Tachaikovsky’s “Swan Lake”, as does the theme of extreme love and self sacrifice. It is not unreasonable to suspect that Wagner may have been influenced by Tchaikovsky after having influenced him initially. They weren’t living far apart while working on “Parsifal” and “Swan Lake” – Wagner in Riga and Tchaikovsky just a short boat ride away in St. Petersburg.
If only McKenzie had been able to stage not just the dancing but also the drama of “Swan Lake” after a classic model. The non-dance action of this production is an inconsistent mix of naturalistic acting, stylized pantomime and what looks like improvisation. An experienced performer such as Thomas Forster, in the role of magician Rothbart in his human guise, hid the muddled drama behind an angry presence but Bell sometimes appeared to be lost, particularly when his Siegfried is supposed to be chatting with prospective brides. Also unconvincing was the constant good humor of Calvin Royal III as Siegfried’s bosom friend Benno.
The final moment of this four act production is something to treasure. It is a dance moment although a still one. The magician has died. His corpse is limp. The 26 swan maidens, whom he had cast down onto the ground, look up and out into the waters of the lake where Odette and Siegfried emerge together from the waves, reborn like the rising sun – a new day forevermore!
copyright 2019 by George Jackson
