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Friday 5 December 2008

Chinese wonders

National Ballet of China: Swan Lake
Royal Opera House

Peter Farmer’s sumptuously luscious romantic sets and costumes put Swan Lake back in those fairytale Middle Ages where it was originally set, and the action is restored mostly in line with the standard Russian/Soviet version, even though minor, intelligent changes occur. The first and most evident one is the repositioning of Odette’s solo in the first lakeside scene. Her dance, which through time had been arbitrarily moved towards the end of that same scene, bestows new dramatic consistency on the whole story; it is through this solo that the Swan Queen wins the heart of the Prince, who then joins her in the celebrated ‘White Swan’ duet. The other significant change occurs in the final act. It is a well-known fact that the last act — the dramaturgically weakest one — has been the most interpolated and rechoreographed section of the old work, with often detrimental results — Ezra Pound once claimed that his vision of hell was to have to watch Swan Lake’s last act over and over again. Makarova seems to have extrapolated all the good ideas from some of the most successful existing last acts and added some stunning choreography. The result is a last act that delivers and flows dramatically towards the tragic ending.

But most of the well-deserved success of this production must be ascribed to the dancers. Even the dreariest and silliest fairy tale — let’s face it, it is a silly story — becomes great theatre in the hands, legs and feet of great artists. And the members of the National Ballet of China are all great artists, from the principals — Wang Qimin, Hao Bin, Yu Bo, Huang Zhen and Li Ning, on the opening night — to the last corps de ballet member. There is no doubt that the company benefits from state-of-the-art schooling and training, as demonstrated by the superb neatness that characterised the whole performance. It was a pleasure to see such fluid use of heads, legs and arms, flawless legatos and that brilliantly fast footwork that seems to have completely disappeared in the West these days. Yet it was just the super technical rendition that made me love every moment of this production, for the dancers stood out for their incandescent dramatic interpretation, through which they turned the quirky plot into a perfectly believable drama. According to the press materials, Swan Lake has long become a favourite in China. It certainly shows.

More articles from: Giannandrea Poesio | this section

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