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Uneven "Swan Lake" in San Francisco

"Swan Lake"
San Francisco Ballet
War Memorial Opera House
San Francisco
January 28, 2006

by Paul Parish
copyright ©2006 by Paul Parish
                             

"Swan Lake" opened on a rainy Saturday night to a full house, with standees several rows deep. When the final curtain came down, half the audience stood to applaud Gonzalo Garcia's debut in the role of the Prince and Tina LeBlanc's fascinating and deeply moving performance as the Swan Queen. The corps of swans had moved beautifully, and if the national dances hadn't been so unfocussed and the would-be brides so dull and the new lift in the Black Swan so unnecessary, there would have been little to quarrel with aside from some terrible mistakes amongst the trumpets. But had it been at its best, ours is not a great "Swan Lake" — it is pretty, rather than beautiful, elegant rather than noble, sad, rather than tragic.

When Helgi Tomasson's "Swan Lake" was new, back in 1988, the production was widely hailed as clear evidence of lift-off — San Francisco Ballet had clearly turned a corner, reasserted classical values, and become a more musical and elegant company. But there were aspects of "Swan Lake" that were still missing. The problems with the production have not disappeared, and they are such that even the greatest performances can not completely over-ride.

We did have two great performances on opening night, from Damian Smith as von Rothbart and from, thank God, the ballerina, Tina LeBlanc, who gave in the second act one of the most beautifully detailed and poignant readings of the great adagio I've ever seen. She made it a ballet about the back rather than about the legs; her arabesques and attitudes had a huge emotional range that drew on the proverbial sense that the back is the locus of suffering. And one believed she had wings. They all did. The big swans, especially Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun, were the most beautiful I have ever seen. Indeed, the lakeside second act is beautifully conserved in this production.

But the overall mise-en-scene is confusing and confused. Tomasson has re-set the story, inexplicably, in the luxurious era of Fragonard and Casanova, in the Age of Sensibility, 18th century France. Issues of seduction and betrayal abound in that era, of course, but they have completely different overtones from the medieval-chivalric period Tchaikovsky had in mind, when under the influence of Wagner's Ring he was composing the music. In particular, the theme of sorcery requires Gothic trappings to rise to grandeur, and the lovers' fidelity requires a darker, more ominous background against which to shine.

The result is to trivialize and sentimentalize the emotional registers, and convert a tragedy into a sweet sad shocking amour-fou — or it would if the finale weren't set beside the lake, which re-asserts enough of a Gothic atmosphere that you can half-forget the Black Swan weirdness.  

It should be allowed, however, that there is not a first-rate tragic "Swan Lake" to be seen in America, and that Tomasson's is certainly less perverse than ABT's and less dislocated than Martins's for New York City Ballet. Only Ashton's establishes a tragic drive and uses dances for the corps to evoke the whole community's involvement in a tragedy.

Tomasson has banished almost all of the corps dances from the second lakeside scene in favor of a second white swan pas de deux, which he's set to Tchaikovsky's Serenade Melancholique. It is a sad echo, like a little replica carved in sugar.

Garcia did have one tremendous moment at the end when he shielded Odette against von Rothbart's attack. He had danced heroically in the Black Swan — double cabrioles at unbelievable elevation and travelled as if they'd been assemble battu ouverte de vole. All the Black Swan tricks went off great. LeBlanc finished her fouettes with a triple going so fast she couldn't quite nail her sous-sus, but nobody minded. In the coda her final diagonal of glissade/releve ciseaux were extremely beautiful, like Sibley's.

The other really beautiful performance was by Rachel Viselli in the first-act pas de trois. She brought a floating musicality to the role that gave a timeless grandeur to her part of the evening. She had an unconscious sympathy with the protagonists that seemed really in keeping with the quality of "Swan Lake" as I came to know it when Sibley and Dowell danced it long ago and made me think I'd seen the promised end. That "Swan Lake" had the power of" Hamlet" or "King Lear" and made a believer out of me and is the standard by which I judge all others.


Choreography by Helgi Tomasson, after Petipa and Ivanov
Assisted by Irina Jacobson
Additional Principal Coaching, Lola de Avila
Scenery and costumes by Jens-Jacob Worsaae
Lighting Designed by David K. H. Elliott
Conducted by Martin West

Volume 4, No. 4
January 30, 2006

copyright ©2006 Paul Parish
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last updated on January 30, 2006