Birmingham Royal Ballet's Swan Lake hasn't been seen in London for 10 years, so its current revival at Sadler's Wells offers some diverting contrasts with the now over-familiar production danced by the Royal. The most obvious difference is the look of the staging, with Philip Prowse's massive medieval gothic providing sober relief from the cobwebby fantasies of Yolande Sonnabend's designs for the Royal.
And there are also serious divergences between the two interpretations of Swan Lake's basic text. The Royal's 1987 production was staged in conscious alignment with the spectacularly scaled Petipa/Ivanov original, while Peter Wright's 1981 version for BRB was made in an ambitious attempt to clarify the ballet's dramatic logic within a drastically streamlined cast.
The key to its narrative is emphatically the prince. During the first-act overture, a darkly impressive funeral procession paces out the political significance of the old king's death. And when the widowed queen - tiny Marion Tait in a towering passion of grief - commands Prince Siegfried to marry and take over the throne, the burdens of state hang heavy over the following action. Through a series of minor choreographic edits, Wright places Siegfried at the heart of almost every dance number, carefully tracing his journey from rebellious prince through romantic lover to tragic hero.
Purists might argue with the more brutal musical changes required by this tweaked narrative line, but the real problem is the degree to which it exposes its two lead dancers. So much extra dancing and acting falls to Siegfried (alongside Odette), and there are few performers on stage to distract the eye. This would work with more experienced, charismatic principals, but Andrew Murphy and Leticia Muller didn't have the authority to shoulder the burden. Far more accustomed to BRB's repertory of modern ballets, they seemed adrift in the demands of classical dancing and acting. Murphy looked uncertain whether to play his role as romantic melancholic or wild thing, and opted for tetchy restlessness, while Muller went through the dramatic motions of her role without connecting them with the steps.
As a result, there was a technical and emotional blank at the heart of the ballet, and though it was ringed with a handful of excellent supporting performances - clean, clever dancing from Chi Cao, Nao Sakuma and Ambra Vallo, and some mesmerising mime from Marion Tait - this usually smart company came across as disappointingly inarticulate and bland.
Until September 15. Box office: 020-7863 8000.
