Image and Impact
Matthew Bourne’s “Swan Lake”
A New Adventures Production
Opera House
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
January 22, 2020
The image of a swan in ballet is, traditionally, that of a human figure streamlined to the stretching point with arms undulating as if they were wings about to lift off and toes pinpointing the ground. Usually the figure is female. Likely this image predates the initial (late 19th, early 20th Century) “Swan Lake” stagings by Julius Reisinger and by Joseph Hansen in Moscow, by Marius Petipa and/or Lev Ivanov in and near St. Petersburg, and then by Jaroslav Berger (Act 2 only) and (the complete 4 acts) by Berger and Achille Viscusi in Prague. The ballet’s composer, Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky, kept changing and complicating the music. The score had started as one for a simple, amateur production and early on had included singing. Passages by another composer, Ricardo Drigo, were added and later removed sometimes. Tchaikovsky’s ultimate music was very Wagnerian. The staging he seems to have liked the most was that of Act 2 in Prague by Berger. However, most productions today refer back to Petipa and/or Ivanov as their source for drama and choreography.
That, though is not what Matthew Bourne did (in 1995 initially). Not only has Bourne changed the gender of the balletic swan to male, but he re-imagined the body. Our eye is drawn to the dancer’s middle – from below the rib cage, past the waist, to the hips. The waist is often flexed, with the upper torso repeatedly bending forward. It is as if Bourne’s swans were experiencing the bends. The dividing line between the nude upper torso and the befeathered lower torso calls attention to itself. Even though there are jumps and lifts in this swan choreography, it seems grounded, mired in this world. Bourne’s birds are not of the sky.
The story’s principal characters are a put-upon Prince ( Max Westwell) and his domineering Queen mother (Nicole Kabera), plus a vulgar Girlfriend (Katerina Lyndon) for the Prince, a dubious Private Secretary (Jack Jones) as palace watchdog and, of course, the leading Swan (Max Westwell). The principal groups and semi-soloists are the flock of male swans, the performers at the opera house and the guests at the royal ball. All these figures seem to be cartoon characters at first but key ones develop human traits. That is Bourne’s strength as choreographer and dramatist, turning puppets into people. He is far less adroit in creating step patterns. The ballroom dances and even the swan ensembles become lengthy and repetitious for a while.
At this performance, the interaction of Lovell’s Prince and Westwell’s leading Swan was crucial. The Prince is both attracted to and frightened of the the Swan, and it is this conflict growing ever more intense that drives the Prince into delusion and, ultimately, death. The leading Swan’s dilemma is whether to respond to the Prince as prey or as a person. Actually, the leading Swan is counterpart to both the traditional story’s Odile (Black Swan) and to its Rothbart (evil magician). Bourne ultimately gives the action a roller coaster frenzy that clicks with the audience.
Bourne has said that the current production of his “Swan Lake” differs only in details from the 1995 version, but I’m left wondering about the music. It is simply credited to Tchaikovsky. There is no information about which version of his score, and no arranger or orchestrator is listed in the printed program. Nor is the only dancer in toe shoes – for the Moth role at the opera house – identified.
copyright 2020 by George Jackson
