After Anthony Dowell became director of the Royal Ballet in 1986, one of his first projects was to oversee a new production of Swan Lake. This staging has always been mildly controversial for it comes burdened with a design concept that laces gothic with mescaline. Yet even so, the production seems a good choice to launch Dowell's final season with the company for it sends out such confident signals as to how things have changed during his tenure.
The dancing has indisputably got better. In 1987, when Swan Lake opened, The Royal barely had two ballerinas who could dance the great Odette/Odile role. This autumn it is fielding seven. In 1987 the rank and file of the company were ragged; 13 years later the company perform as if they had a claim to world-class status.
Not that Friday's performance was a landmark event - the first show of a new season is often blunted by nerves. But it was assured and in parts impressive. The four cygnets zipped through their frenetic showstopper with aplomb: Zenaida Yanowsky stuck a note of eerie grandeur as one of the Big Swans and Elizabeth McGorian's Queen hinted at some really interesting damage in her relations with Prince Siegfried. The contemptuous glance she threw at her son's sybaritic friends and the steely calculation with which she assessed Siegfried's potential fiancees were blood-curdling. And best of all was Belinda Hatley in the pas de trois, combining gaiety and elegance in a performance that was pure style.
The major focus was Darcey Bussell, who as Odette/Odile gave one of the oddest but most interesting performances of her career. Technically, her credentials to dance this dual role are a given, yet she seems intent on sacrificing its traditional lyric beauties and scintillating displays for something more willed. Her Odette, during much of act two, is a wild creature, as wary and feral as Fokine's Firebird. In the edgy use of her head, eyes and hands and in the staccato emphases of her phrasing Bussell sometimes bucks the music strangely. Yet all the time she shows Odette resisting Siegfried's love, resisting the pain of feeling human. The moment at which Odette pushes down her uplifted "wings", forcing them to become human arms, has rarely been so potent.
As Odile, Bussell doesn't instantly turn on the sexual glitter, but starts out as a cynical blank barely bothering to respond to Siegfried. Only as she absorbs the advice of the magician Von Rothbart does she gradually start to seduce the prince. Roberto Bolle's Siegfried is in a blander mould than Bussell but he is a tender and focused partner. Bolle is, however, only a guest with the company, and one of the issues Dowell has never managed to resolve is finding Bussell a permanent partner.
In repertory until December 2. Box office: 020-7304 4000.
