Among the legions of choreographers who’ve reimagined Swan Lake, the tendency has always been to vamp up the story. Over time the ballet has been flipped from its original gothic setting into Nazi Germany or a Paris ballet studio; it’s been psychologised into an Oedipal love story; it’s been politicised into a fable about homophobia.
By comparison, David Dawson’s new version for Scottish Ballet looks like a model of chastity, as the choreographer attempts to strip away the layers of past productions and reduce the ballet to its emotional and musical essence. All but the main characters have been removed from the plot – there is no scheming queen to bully the weltschmerz-ridden prince into marriage, nor even a Von Rothbart to imprison Odette with his evil spell.
In Dawson’s narrative there is just a moody boy who falls in love with a magical, otherworldly woman – yet who, for reasons that are left unclear, makes the fatal mistake of offering himself to her wicked double.
The design mirrors the minimalism of the plot. John Otto’s set is all abstract greys with a symbolic cross-hatching of vegetation and a sliver of light for the lake. Yumiko Takeshima dresses the human characters in a uniform of T-shirts, trousers and full-skirted frocks, while Odette and her entourage are in white leotards, printed with a vestigial pattern of wings. In theory this sounds a modest enterprise, a Swan Lake with neither grand concept nor grand design. Yet Dawson has actually set himself a monumental challenge, attempting to furnish the two-and-a-quarter-hour ballet with nothing but his own choreography and Tchaikovsky’s score.
On the plus side, he does make lovely steps. There are just eight couples in the opening party scene, along with the handsomely brooding prince Siegfried (Christopher Harrison) and perky Benno (Andrew Peasgood); but Dawson fills up the stage with skidding, swirling dance. The dynamic is contemporary yet there’s something of Ashton and Nijinska in the dipping, twisting body work, the sculpted arms and speedy inversions of line. As much as I revere the original classicism of Petipa and Ivanov, it’s a pleasure to see dance that spurts and sprints its way through Tchaikovsky rather than marshalling itself into perfect symmetries.
The choreography for the swans is even better – a stretched, strange, febrile language of arched backs and spiralling arms – and Sophie Martin’s Odette is superb, both delicate and fierce. But Dawson makes the odd mistake of excising almost all mime and facial expression from Odette’s love duets with the prince, with the result that we remain uninvolved in their story, not only here but for the rest of the ballet. There are some fine moments to come, including Odile’s entrance in act three, swooping diabolically over the prince in the arms of her male escorts. But Dawson never manages to reconnect us with his characters or their emotions. The work he’s created is very pleasing to the eye, but it’s more like Swan Lake the suite than Swan Lake the ballet.
- At Theatre Royal, Glasgow, until 23 April. Box office: 0844-871 7647. Then touring.
