The poetic core of Swan Lake is the act two pas de deux, that perfect lost-in-the-forest encounter in which Odette and Siegfried unfold the secrets of their hearts to the exquisite dialogue of Tchaikovsky's cello and violin. It's this duet that defines the tone of the entire stage, and establishes the audience's relationship with it.
Anyone familiar with Derek Deane's in-the-round production, however, will know that this version of the ballet reverses many of its traditional pleasures. Staged on a vast scale, with a corps of 60 swans and a horde of tumbling, juggling extras, this is Swan Lake as spectacle. On its own terms it does deliver some magnificent thrills – the massed patterns of tutued swans, the low drumming of 60 pairs of pointe shoes, bourrée-ing through drifts of dry ice, and the sound of Tchaikovsky's score swelling through the cavernous spaces of the Albert Hall.
In this year's revival the swans are excellently drilled, and a similar care is evident throughout much of the cast; the blithe, sweetly shaped dancing of Nancy Osbaldeston is outstanding. Even if Deane's arena-style choreography veers towards Busby Berkeley mechanics, he is very good at keeping the focus of the dance revolving, so that no section of the circular auditorium is stuck with a back view for too long.
And yet, as the love story conceived by Petipa and Ivanov, this Swan Lake remains dead in the water. So much of the crucial expression is lost: the exchange of small glances, the delicate nuances of touch, the interaction of dancer and music. Some of the time it's because the dancers are facing away from us or are physically blocked from view; in general, it's because the emotion has no proscenium arch to frame and contain it.
On opening night, the problem also lay with the two principals. Matthew Golding, guesting from Dutch National Ballet, has a long arabesque line, an elegantly expansive jump and impeccable arms, but his dancing lacks spontaneous expression, and he is clearly no actor. Tamara Rojo's Odette was oddly unmoving, too, the lyricism and beauty of her dancing too evidently calculated. It was only in the couple's bravura act three that the chemistry between them came alive. Spinning and whirring through astoundingly multiple, embellished turns, they seemed suddenly together, in the moment. In the audience's accompanying roars of excitement, real emotion beat through the Albert Hall for the first time.
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