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ACT I
The story opens on the day before Prince Siegfried’s 21st birthday, and the Prince and his friend Benno together with others are partying in the Palace courtyard. The Queen arrives and tells the Prince Siegfried that she has organised a Grand Ball for him the following evening, and on that occasion he must choose his bride to be from the invited Princesses. The Prince protests he is not ready to marry but the Queen insists it must be so. Count Von Rothbart, a evil sorcerer, is determined that his daughter Odile shall marry the Prince. He brings her to the party and introduces her to Siegfried. But, although he is taken by her beauty, the Prince has little interest in her, being too distracted by thoughts of the morrow. The Queen, seeing her son's distress, asks Benno to take him hunting to occupy his mind and ease his troubles.
The Prince and Benno set off for the woods with a few retainers. The party come to an enchanted lake where the Prince asks to be left alone for a while to prepare his mind for the decision that he must soon make. The hunting party discover a flock of swans on the lake and move towards them. But the leader of the Swans, Odette, an enchanted princess doomed to spend half her life in human form and half as a swan, assumes her human form and attempts to protect the swans from the hunters. Siegfried then returns and is mesmerised by Odette's beauty and falls instantly in love with her. Odette, whose enchantment may only be broken by the true love of a faithful man, returns his love in the hope of breaking her cursed existence. Siegfried begs Odette to come to the Grand Ball so that he may choose her as his new bride. She agrees and the Prince takes the family ring, which his mother had given him to place upon the finger of his choice of bride, and threads it on a chain which he places around Odette's neck. She in turn presents the Prince with a feather as a memento of her. Then, as dawn breaks, Siegfried leaves Odette to return to the Palace.
After the Prince has departed, the evil Rothbart appears and moves towards Odette. She recoils from him but Rothbart, who was spying on previous events, grabs the ring from around her neck as she turns to flee.
ACT II
The time arrives for the Grand Ball to begin. The Prince sits with the Queen as Benno introduces the Princesses who have come from Italy, Spain, Hungary, Russia and Ireland to try to win Siegfried’s hand in marriage. The PRince awaits the arrival of Odette and becomes increasingly action as she fails to appear.
The court is then surprised by the arrival of Odile. She appears even more beautiful than before and the Prince is intoxicated by her. As he dances with Odile the Prince begins to forget his promise to Odette and drops the feather she gave him. Odette arrives at the Palace just as Siegfried is professing his love for Odile. She tries to go to the Prince but it blocked by Rothbart's supporters. Rothbart then produces the ring he took from Odette and encourages the Prince to place it upon Odile's finger. Odette, having slipped past Rothbart's supporters approaches and sees the ring on Odile's finger. She flees the palace in tears. Siegfried, as if coming out of a spell, then realises the terrible mistake he has made. Rothbart is jubilant, whilst Benno tries to console the distraught Prince.
At the enchanted lake Odette is heartbroken, and the swans attempt to comfort her. Siegfried arrives and begs her forgiveness for his folly. Odette embraces him and tells him that she will love him forever, although she might now never be freed from her curse. Odile then arrives at the lake and, seeing their true love for each other, repents of her part in her fathers evil plan. She frees Siegfried from his promise and hands the ring to Odette.
Rothbart, angered that his scheme has failed, challenges the Prince to a duel, telling Siefried that the only way to free Odette from his (Rothbart's) curse is to kill him. The Prince fights with Rothbart and, although he is wounded, defeats the evil sorcerer and kills him. The spell is broken, Odette may live the remainder of her life in human form together with her beloved Prince.
This Swan Lake is an action extravaganza with enough skating thrills to keep you on the edge of your seat throughout. Visually, it was a treat also. The opening set consisted of a three dimensional backdrop representing the snowy outside courtyard of the palace. Other sets consisted mostly of painted backdrops with occasional front props. Most effective of these was the enchanted lake scene, where the cleverly painted trees and pinpricks of starlight shining through from behind gave a real impression of depth in a misty forest. The costumes were sumptuous and bewildering in variety. The Victorian style outfits of the opening courtyard scene being particularly impressive.
From the opening moment when the three Palace servants came flying in from the wings spinning on their knees the action for the most part was fast paced with lots of dizzying spins, jumps and throws. A lot of the movements, particularly the arm gestures were balletic in nature and there even a few moments of pure ballet with dancers performing on pointe in ballet shoes on the ice! Particular highlights were the first meeting between the Prince and Odette where Odette is attached to a wire so that she flies through the air while she dances with the Prince - Odette is, after all, a swan. This technique was repeated with three couples as part of the ballroom scene but, whilst impressive, looked a little incongruous on that occasion. Another highlight was the opening to the second act on a darkened stage with Rothbart's black swans with illuminated faces and one pair performing on stilted skates.
In a departure from the usual ballet interpretation, the roles of Odette and Odile are completely seperated and danced by two seperate performers. The Prince is not duped by mistaken identity, he is simply seduced into betraying his true love. Likewise, Tchaikovsky's original score is much cut and altered, and although all the best passages are still there it has to be said that at times it became a little discordant included a few unrecogniseable passages that seemed completely out of place.
Stanislav Evdokimov skates with authority as Prince Siegfried and showed impressive strength supporting his partner single handed above his head at full extension. Olga Sharutenko made a beautiful and graceful Odette skating with exhilarating speed and agility. Maria Orlova meanwhile was a fiery Odile skating with sinuous grace that left little wonder that the Price could fall for her. Artem Ievdokimov's Rothbart was a menacing character strutting arrogantly around the stage between bouts of formidable athleticism, performing stunning flips and somersaults. Such was the power of his performance that you could not help but like him as he threatened to steal the show. Alexei Minin as Benno demonstrated some dazzling footwork and although he fell on two of his more difficult leaps his playful energy made his performance greatly appreciated by the audience. In the last of the principal roles Yulia Gavrilova made a beautiful and very elegant (if somewhat young looking) Queen. With a company made up entirely of ice-dance and figure-skating medal winners a consistent level of prowess was maintained throughout the remaining roles.
Exhilarating action set to Tchaikovsky's magnificent music, combining romantic ballet with the daring speed and athleticism of ice skating. Ballet purists might throw up their hands in horror at the idea of seperating Odette and Odile and the unsubtle tinkering with the original musical score but, such thoughts aside, this is certain to remain a great crowd pleaser.