Following the Mariinsky Ballet's season at the Royal Opera House, the company's orchestra sidled over to Kensington to perform one of the highlights of its Covent Garden programme at the Proms – minus the dancers. It's a procedure that would have surprised Tchaikovsky, who delighted in ballet. The fairytale plots he set to music opened up a vein of fantasy that brought out the best in him. There's no shortage of emotional depth in the finest parts of Swan Lake, though even the composer might have admitted that certain sections are there primarily to provide accompaniment to a visual experience rather than to hold attention in their own right.
The Mariinsky (like innumerable other companies) also perform a revised version of the piece – dating from 1895, two years after Tchaikovsky's death – that he was not around to supervise. The task of cutting, pasting and generally arranging the score fell to the lesser composer but ballet specialist Riccardo Drigo. Tchaikovsky experts may deplore the alterations Drigo made, but revoking the Mariinsky's time-honoured edition seems to be a harder task than renaming the company or even the city of which it remains an iconic artistic fixture. There are, of course, extra-musical ramifications to consider.
That said, it was remarkable not just how well the piece stood up to concert hall scrutiny but also how marvellously the Mariinsky Orchestra played it under the company's artistic director, Valery Gergiev, following their gruelling Covent Garden schedule. Fresh and alert throughout the evening, the players were clearly listening to themselves as well as to one another. The balance between orchestral sections was immaculate, the string tone sheeny. There was consistently distinguished solo playing, while Gergiev maintained momentum and poise while ensuring an ongoing dramatic continuity.
