I thought I didn't know Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. But, like all truly great cultural phenomena, it had disseminated itself through the cultureweb so thoroughly that I felt completely familiar with it.
Performed in the round, from our nosebleed seats we had a stunning view of the action. The full floor of the Royal Albert Hall is used - there's so much going on that it become hard to take it all in. The gods'-eye-view makes it feel a little like Virtual Reality - turn your head the wrong way for an instant and you'll miss a beautiful moment.
And it is beautiful. 60 swans fluttering about the stage, an infinite pirouette of dazzling white against the gloomy backdrop. An outrageous flash of gold as Rothbart swoops through the dry-ice leaving dancing tornadoes in his wake.
The music is, as mentioned, intimately familiar. Even if you only know it from the Loony Tunes cartoons, you'll be captivated.
The corps de ballet are astonishing - piling out of the wings in an endless procession of… well… wings! It is a stunning show.
Rather sensibly, the three hour performance is split with two generous intervals of 20 minutes. Got to make those ice-cream sales!
One thought on “Theatre Review: Swan Lake in-the-round”
@Edent it's worth looking up the all-male-swans production by Matthew Bourne. It was one of the first queer high-culture things I remember (it was 1995) and is a gorgeous production. I'm pretty sure it's available on streaming; I might even still have the DVD here somewhere
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