Swan Lake Studies 115-118
115, 116, 117, 118. Here are four photographs of (almost) the same important moment in the drama of “Swan Lake”, but they contain many lessons. At this juncture in the action, Benno’s admiration of the swan-maidens has brought his fellow-huntsmen, who are about to shoot.
This raises, first, the issue of how swanlike these “transformed” women look by night, or how confused the huntsmen are. We can only say the ambiguity is crucial to the drama. Within a few minutes, the huntsmen will be partnering the swan-maidens (see photos 20-29 in this series, posted on July 28), in protective ways that may perhaps also suggest collective courtship.
Other members of the swan flock run in to line up before the flock. Siegfried runs in to stay his huntsmen’s hands, but it’s only when Odette runs in to protect her flock and to intercede with Siegfried that Siegfried finally decrees there will be no shooting now. (Some Siegfrieds issue the command before she enters, but that makes her please unnecessary.)
Each of these photographs contains its own separate information; and I have now learnt points I did not know when making earlier posts in this series. 115 (taken by Russell Sedgwick) shows the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1943 with Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann as Queen Odette and Prince Siegfried. (The corps of swan maidens include Julia Farron and Moira Shearer, with Celia Franca as one of two leading lieutenant swans.) 116 shows the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden in July 1980, led by Natalia Makarova and Anthony Dowell as Odette and Siegfried; please note how the women’s stance and “winged” gesture has been dramatically changed. In 117 (the same as 30 and 31 in this series) shows Zenaida Yanowsky (a second or two before Odette’s gesture of intercession) with the Royal Ballet women holding the same stands and gesture as in 116, but with her surrounded by eight kneeling swan children, a startling but poetic effect added in Dowell’s 1987-2017 Royal Ballet production. 118 shows the same moment in Alexei Ratmansky’s 2016 Zürich production - but here the female corps has reverted to much the same stance as in 1942, and there are no swan children.
About the children and their rings: Ratmansky has kindly written to me on Facebook that “The ring of swan girls around Odette that impressed you in Anthony Dowell's production can be found neither in Sergueyev’s notations nor in Jessen’s films - two primary sources for any production that aims to get closer to 1895 original. I wonder if that was Dowell's invention or someone else did it before him? There is an extra notation in Sergueyev’s papers (not in his hand) specifically for the girls; and it is very precise. It mentions Legnani, so it should be pre-1901. It has 12 girls, while the main notation has 8. The girls first enter following Odette (I had them entering before Odette in Zürich as we didn't have enough swans to fill out the music) and, according to notations, they stay in line behind Odette's back as the other swans.
“The only time they surround Odette in a semicircle is the very beginning of the pas de deux - a beautiful, touching moment in my opinion.” (See photographs 36 and 37 in this series.) “Interesting that, at the end of the adagio, the girls reverse that semicircle and surround the hunters (who are upstage center), they stay back to the audience holding hands and back to back to the swans. They are only visible from the rings and this time they guard the privacy of Odette and the Prince.
“‘Swan Lake’’s poetry is complex! One shouldn't look for lifelike plausibility. Why the girls (children), hunters or Benno only appear in the first lakeside scene; why Benno is needed in the most intimate conversation between the lead characters etc: this is all part of choreographic architecture, it has its own poetic logic. And that's why I am against any 'improvement' (like adding a solemn solo for the Prince at the end of Party scene or omitting black swans in Act IV).
“...I would say the inclusion of school girls in ‘Swan Lake’ is, first, very much part of the period practice in the late nineteenth century; second, it adds purity and vulnerability to the character of Odette. It's true that they are very connected to her choreographically.” (Here’s hoping I have the chance before long to ask Dowell about what led him to add those girls/children as he did.)
The changes of the corps’ stance and arms are yet another salutary indication of how the Royal’s way with the Sergueyev dance texts have changed over the years. I don’t object to revisions, but I do like to think of the Royal Ballet as a guardian of its own traditions and of the traditions of the ballet classics. Probably the Kirov/Mariinsky and Bolshoi have made far more changes than the Royal, but that’s not a good excuse. I accept that many companies will want to stage their own “Swan Lakes” rather than always return to the 1895 Petipa/Ivanov version (I like the Nureyev moody solo in the first scene; it’s almost the only Nureyev choreography I’ve ever liked, and I like the note of reflectiveness it gives the only character we see in all the ballet’s four main scenes; and I adore the Ashton ballroom pas de quatre and Neapolitan dance), but I hope Ratmansky’s production and/or others using the 1895-1910 sources will become more widely known, so that the directors of tomorrow at least know what Petipa and Ivanov were doing, rather than assuming the Royal or Kirov or Bolshoi Ballet have possessed the correct version.
This moment for Odette is crucial in the drama. It establishes to Siegfried and the huntsmen that others are part of her strange fate; and it demonstrates that she and her companions now have some reason to try trusting these men. Odette withdraws; Siegfried follows her; Benno and the huntsmen also withdraw, but remain close by. They will all return, for the adagio.
Wednesday 19 August
115 (taken by Russell Sedgwick) shows the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1943 with Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann as Queen Odette and Prince Siegfried. (The corps of swan maidens include Julia Farron and Moira Shearer, with Celia Franca as one of two leading lieutenant swans.)
116. The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden in July 1980, led by Natalia Makarova and Anthony Dowell as Odette and Siegfried; please note how the women’s stance and “winged” gesture has been dramatically changed.
117. Zenaida Yanowsky as Odette, a second or two before Odette’s gesture of intercession, with the Royal Ballet women holding the same stands and gesture as in 116, but with her surrounded by eight kneeling swan children, a startling but poetic effect added in Dowell’s 1987-2017 Royal Ballet production.
118. The same moment in Alexei Ratmansky’s 2016 Zürich production - but here the female corps has reverted to much the same stance as in 1942, and there are no swan children.