The State Ballet of Georgia makes its first visit to England with the most popular ballet in the world. No other ballet is staged so often. No other ballet is more loved. No other ballet has had so many interpretations.
Georgia’s lavish production, edited to two hours and only one interval, is very traditional, even to the mid-act extended bows, which seem particularly old-fashioned.
It is Tchaikovsky’s magnificent and unforgettable haunting music, lyrical and dramatic, and the sheer beauty and symmetry of the corps of white swans moving as one, plus the quartet of cygnets in amazing synch, which has made Swan Lake so popular. The costumes are beautiful.
It comes as a shock to learn that audiences and critics didn’t like the music when the ballet was first performed in 1877, finding it too noisy, too Wagnerian and too symphonic. It was not a success until Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov’s revival in 1895, when Odette and Odile were played by the same ballerina for the first time, a brilliant conceit.
Just as Prince Siegfried is about to shoot a swan with his little crossbow (a 21st birthday present from his mum) she turns into a beautiful princess and he falls in love with her instantly. Nino Samadashvili is Odette, the swan maiden. Oleg Ligai is the prince. They dance admirably but there is no visible chemistry between them.
In this account, we are denied tragedy. Georgian audiences evidently want a happy ending. The couple live happily ever after, despite the machinations of Baron Von Rothbart (Marcelo Soares), the evil sorcerer, and his erotic daughter, Odile. Soares needs a bigger cloak and more to do. Samadashvili’s virtuoso 32 fouettés dazzle and thrill.
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