If there’s an abiding image of Derek Deane’s production of Swan Lake for English National Ballet, it’s that of ENB’s swan corps. Lyrical and harmonious, radiant with self-belief, their dancing in Act 2 and Act 4 is the truest element of an uneven production. The cygnets are beat-perfect, making this hackneyed number a real pleasure to watch, while lead swans Jia Zhang and Ksenia Ovsyanick are notably lovely throughout, gliding serenely over some distinctly choppy orchestral playing.
Alina Cojocaru dances the dual role of Odette and Odile opposite Ivan Vasiliev’s Prince Siegfried. Cojocaru is a dancer of great distinction, and her phrasing is as poised and subtle as ever, but Odette eludes her. She is neither quite the sorrowing princess, nor the downy swan, and in the Act 2 pas de deux she gives us careful precision rather than soft-backed surrender. She’s much more compelling as the smoothly sexy Odile, splitting her legs in coolly suggestive jetés à la seconde as Vasiliev lifts her, and whipping off her fouettés with a knowing half-smile.
But the two of them seem to be dancing different ballets. Vasiliev, essentially a character dancer rather than a classical chevalier, has trimmed himself down in the wake of some fairly rough performances with the Mikhailovsky Ballet in New York, and gives an admirably heartfelt account of Siegfried. But his feverish, silent-movie heroics, which give us an idea of what it must have been like to watch the dramatic Soviet dancers of the 1930s, never mesh with Cojocaru’s restrained classicism. Emotionally, the pair are forever at cross-purposes, a confusion that reaches its apogee in Act 4 when, without warning or apparent motive, he races across the stage and hurls himself to his death.
Part of the problem lies with the character of Rothbart, valiantly if incomprehensibly danced by James Streeter. Forever writhing and snarling, he is a kind of villain without portfolio, the nature of whose powers and hold over Odette are never elucidated. This lacuna knocks a major hole in the plot. Why, for example, would he and his thuggish minions be granted admission to the palace ball? Jane Howarth’s Queen, who appears to have been modelled on Glenn Close’s character in Damages, doesn’t look as if she’d stand for gatecrashers, let alone an ill-bred maniac like Rothbart.
There’s also the oddity of the celebrations in Act 1. Peter Farmer’s designs are magical, with costumes in muted green and autumn brown set against ornamental gateways and misty foliage. But why are the courtiers all dressed as Rhineland villagers, as if they’ve strayed from a performance of Giselle? These and other confusions are mitigated by some fine dancing. By the female corps, as we’ve seen, so beautifully prepared by répétiteuse Hua Fang Zhang. By the six princesses, and by Fernando Bufalá, whose splendidly stylish Neapolitan Dance, opposite Crystal Costa, injects some much-needed dash and colour into the ballroom scene. Overall, perhaps best not to ask too many questions, and let yourself be transported by those dreamy swans.
