“Swan Lake” is the benchmark of classical ballet. The production has been staged on the world’s greatest stages for more than a century, which is why creating a renewed version is a challenge for any choreographer.
In her interpretation of this title, Mariana Krantcheva preserves the most emblematic scenes of the original production (the white swan scenes from Act II – choreography by Lev Ivanov, and the pas de deux of Odile and Siegfried from Act III – choreography by Marius Petipa). At the same time, she changes the dramaturgy by making Rothbart’s thirst for power the catalyst of the action, creates new choreography for the rest of the ballet, and has the roles of Odette and Odile performed by two different ballerinas, who meet in a quartet with Siegfried and Rothbart in the finale of Act IV.
Dynamism, danceability, and theatricality are the defining features of the new Swan Lake by the Ballet of the Plovdiv Opera.
Again Black and White. Not the color of the skin, but of the feathers; the color of souls; the black as the false white. Probably the most famous pair of swans in the world – not only in ballet but in all of art – Odile and Odette; Tchaikovsky’s first attempt to compose a ballet. For him, a first attempt at a new genre was never merely an experiment – as a rule, it became a model, or at least a standard masterpiece. Witnesses claim that the composer prepared extremely seriously for his first pas on the ballet stage. The preparation included diligent study of ballet scores by the experienced craftsmen Cesare Pugni and Ludwig Minkus, consultations with dancers, and reflections on how to merge the musical and the dance idiom into a unified whole – how sound could become visible, penetrating and animating the dancers’ bodies.
The commission for Swan Lake came from the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. The idea for a plot “from knightly times” was probably Tchaikovsky’s own, with numerous prototypes – swans often and beautifully fly across fairy-tale and fantastic literature. In the year when the composer began work on his ballet, Hans Christian Andersen died, and it is worth never forgetting his eleven wild swan princes or The Ugly Duckling that turned out to be a swan…
The libretto was written by two officials – Vladimir Begichev, inspector of the Moscow theatres, and Vasily Geltzer, a ballet dancer. The premiere took place on March 4, 1877, and passed largely unnoticed, mainly due to the pale and cluttered choreography by Wenzel Reisinger.
The history of Swan Lake productions is a history of radical changes, reinterpretations, improvisations, and fantasies upon Tchaikovsky’s music – usually connected with an emphatic rejection of the previous choreography and scenario. The version by Petipa–Ivanov was soon revised by Alexander Gorsky; Agrippina Vaganova changed the overall concept of the work (she, for example, divided Odile/Odette between two ballerinas—until then they were danced by one—thus emphasizing the duality, the romantic ambiguity of the heroine). Soon after, Asaf Messerer did something similar in 1937, followed by Konstantin Sergeyev… Not to mention the fact that the tragic ending of the original version was replaced in Petipa’s staging – with the kind help of Modest Tchaikovsky – by a happy resolution.
Indeed, every new interpretation of anything is, in itself, an “experiment upon,” but “experiments upon Swan Lake” seem to be more frequent and more fundamental than others. So far we have mentioned only the Russian productions, but let us at least note the ones abroad – by Mikhail Fokine, Serge Lifar, John Neumeier. Nevertheless, the main point of reference remains the Petipa–Ivanov version – whether by following it or distancing oneself from it.
And it seems that the music, the dramaturgy, and the choreography of this score are still searching for their ideal unity…
Dragomir Yossifov
