Swan Lake spectacular is the Big Bang of ballet

Spectacular: The English National Ballet's production of Swan Lake is performed in the round at the Royal Albert Hall
10 April 2012

Sixty swans, dozens of extras, hundreds of costumes. dry ice, strobe lighting, trap doors. Derek Deane's super-sized, in-the-round Swan Lake really is a spectacular ballet. Make that a Big Bang of a ballet, a pageant and parade, with huge swathes of movement, jugglers, tumblers, and row upon row of swans.

It was made for the Royal Albert Hall 10 years ago this month. Back then traditionalists, who had only just got over Matthew Bourne's all-male Swan Lake, sniffed at Deane's unashamedly popular approach, his upscaling of the ballet and his jettisoning of the traditional proscenium arch stage. Flinty hearted avant garde-ists thought it all too cheesy for words.

A decade on, and this huge show (for show it is) looks both better and worse than you remember.

The corps of swans, in the oval lake that is the Royal Albert Hall stage, are almost perfectly drilled - remember, many of these will be freelancer dancers and not regular company members. Their seemingly endless multiples induce a dreamlike state, with poetry in the numbers - all those snowy white, downy soft, perfectly tutu'd forms. Their movement is also multi-directional, meaning they look good from wherever you sit, not just from the posh seats in the stalls.

The lakeside Acts II and IV, the so-called "white" Acts, are a true vision; not something you can say about the rest of the ballet. Much of Acts I and III feel hollow, with little in the way of story telling and even less to care about.

A more serious problem is the pair of lead dancers, two guest stars who look like they met yesterday afternoon. Friedemann Vogel from Stuttgart Ballet is a very able dancer, with huge leaps and massive jumps, but he's no actor and not much of a partner.

French-born Sofiane Sylve may dance for the super-respectable New York City Ballet, but her manner is more business executive than Swan Queen.

At times she looked so coolly efficient that I thought her on the verge of a Powerpoint presentation.

The duo left a gaping hole at the heart of the ballet, as did the "happy" ending, something I've always had doubts about. Better casting should improve things. At least we hope it will.

If not, the appeal of this Swan Lake will be lost, as will the core truth of the ballet, which is not the swans, but the promises we make and how easily we break them.

Until 24 June. Information 020 7838 3110 www.royalalberthall.com

English National Ballet: Swan Lake
Royal Albert Hall
Kensington Gore, SW7 2AP

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