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Swan's Differing Ways
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15214 |
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THE ARTS
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8 / 1989 |
2,546 Words |
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Gary Parks
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"Odile, where are you?"
That's the question New York dancegoers were asking themselves last spring as they sped back and forth across Lincoln Center's vast plaza. New Yorkers are spoiled. Each year, they get to savor the two greatest American ballet companies--which are two of the best in the world--when they appear alongside one another at the famous performing arts complex on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
Sumptuous and New
During this particular season, attention centered on the sumptuous new production of Swan Lake that danseur-turned-Broadway-star Milkhail Baryshnikov has mounted for American Ballet Theatre, the company he directs. Filled with beautiful performances by dancers from all ranks at ABT, this Swan is lavishly decorated by designer PierLugi Samaritani. Nevertheless, Baryshnikov's Swan is a dramatic shocker. Odile--that infamous black swan who seduces Prince Siegfried, thereby causing his downfall and that of Odette, her white swan twin--has apparently vanished.
There is no mention of Odile in the cast of characters; instead, it is evidently Odette herself, all in white, who entrances the prince in the Act III ballroom scene. The pair of doomed lovers dance the traditional "Black Swan" pas de deux, but the only black birds in these environs are a flock of six corps dancers in the elegiac final act.
While ABT was dancing its Swan Lake at the Metropolitan Opera House, the New York City Ballet was presenting its own version across the way at the New York State Theater. NYCB has never danced a four-act Swan Lake. George Balanchine, the company's creative genius, was more interested in making new ballets than in reviving old ones. Nevertheless, in 1951 he presented his own version of the Tchaikovsky classic.
Vigorous Dancing
Odile never figured in it at all. Balanchine collapsed the four acts into one, eliminating Acts I and III and compressing the two lakeside scenes (the traditional Acts II and IV) together. Never as keen on sentimental stories as he was on vigorous dancing, Balanchine streamlined his Swan. In doing so, he completely eliminated Odile's seduction of the Prince and his subsequent betrayal of Odette, the plot turn that lies at the very heart of the ballet. With the drama of the story de-emphasized, the drama of the dancing--especially newly choreographed sections for the corps de ballet--took precedence.
But Balanchine was not a man ignorant of narrative impact. Several years before he died, the choreographer is said to have ordered four hundred yards of black tarlatan. He never said exactly what all that material was for, but in 1986 this mysterious fabric made its way onto the stage under the guidance of City Ballet's co-directors, Peter Martins, Jerome Robbins, and Lincoln Kirstein. The humble piece goods were transformed. A swan corps that had always been feathered in white emerged into French designer Alain Vaes' glistening ice palace decor wearing low-cut costumes with black tutus. Suddenly, Odette was the only bird at the State Theater wearing white.
Thus the dancegoers' cry quoted at
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