Death for love in magic finale

Photos: Attila Nagy

Swans: eternally beautiful, graceful and elegant, and yet with one beat of their dramatic wings they can break your bones. When a swan turns vicious, it is time to run. I couldn’t help thinking about this throughout the performance of “Swan Lake”.

Divided into four acts, “Swan Lake” opens with Prince Siegfried about to take the throne as the Royal Court prepares for his 18th birthday, but first of all he has to choose a wife. His mother presents him with a symbolic ring that is worn by the heir to the throne.
Troubled by the end of his carefree existence and worried for his future, he sets off to the woods with his friend Alexander and a crossbow. In the woods,
they are afraid when they see a huge sinister bird by the lake that is the evil magician Von Rothbart.
It is in this twilight world where Siegfried sees a vision of pure beauty in Odette the Swan Queen who rises from the lake. Siegfried feels he has found what he was looking for; that emptiness is now replaced by a calm knowledge that this is his true place with these beautiful, delicate creatures.
In Act 3 every prospective bride for Siegfried is rejected. He cannot forget the purity he has seen at the lakeside. The knight Von Rothbart arrives along with his daughter Odile who is the Black Swan. The Prince is mesmerised by her sensual seductive dancing and secretly hopes that Odile and Odette the Swan Queen are the same girl. He offers his ring to her and realises, too late, this is a betrayal of the pure Swan Queen Odette.
Odile/the Black Swan and Von Rothbart disappear in a flash of sparks, and Prince Siegfried is left distraught in his realisation that black magic is at work and he has betrayed his beautiful white Swan Queen.
Rudi Van Dantzig’s choreography strives to give real personalities to the dancers; he wanted to avoid ballet being a museum piece and bring it alive for the modern audience. He chose to move away from the story of a girl morphing into a swan and bring characters full of emotion into the classical ballet.
He achieves this with Prince Siegfried, who is searching for ideals that do not exist in his opulent world. Siegried is presented as a dreamer, which ultimately seals his fate. Pursuing his dreams leads to his death. Van Dantzig manages to preserve the classical dance techniques of the original ballet by Petipa and Ivanov while at the same time giving a new life to the choreography.
Shoko Nakamura’s Odette/Odile and Iurii Kekalo’s Siegried duets have an otherworldly beauty but there is always a sense that Siegfied’s mystical Swan Queen is not tangible; she moves through his arms graceful but eternally elusive as though he is trying to possess the spirit of a wonderful sweet ghost.
I was left feeling there was something missing from this ballet after Act 3 and I could not place it. Like a lost lover from years ago, I felt an emptiness in my soul. The music was elegant, the dancing and costumes and dramatic expression flawless but where was the magic?
In Act 4 the missing magic appears; slicing like a strange electricity across the stage and through the auditorium. This final act was so divinely beautiful and dramatic it turned the feeling into one of seeing something exceptional.
Yes, and the prince will die for love. What would I do without tragedy? He has found something so beautfiul and ethereal in the Swan Queen he cannot be with any of the lovely yet mortal girls paraded through the palace. He wants the ultimate even if it means playing with death.
He returns to the lake to find a grieving Odette with her swan maidens. She forgives him for his betrayal but Von Rothbart fights the Prince to make him leave the lakeside, leading to Siegfried drowning. Alexander finds his friend’s body in the lake, a sacrifice to love and remote ideals.
This final act with the conflict between the terrifying bird/Von Rothbart and Siegfried at the lake is where the music of Tchaikovsky is at its most powerful, where the dancing from the swan maidens and the main protagonists reaches new heights of greatness. Siegfried is losing his life for his Swan Queen. As he drowns in the lake, silken drapes flow across him, giving the effect of water flowing across the stage.
Siegfried could not live in this world once he had tasted the elusive magic and grace of the swans at their twilight lake. He could no more reach it than the stars that, however close they appear in the night sky, will always elude us. So we chase after our ultimate dreams, the shooting stars in the blackness. Reality sits below; dull and flat and lifeless.
As I left the Opera House glowing gold in the night sky, a papery new moon hung lazy and low above the building, appearing as though a stage backdrop. Like Siegfried, I want to stretch out my arms for that beautiful untouchable crescent even if it kills me.