| Gliding 'Swan' FWDB graceful but never dives into classic's depths 04/08/2001 By Margaret Putnam / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News There are many ways of seeing Swan Lake: as a dramatic tragedy, as the epitome of romantic classicism, as a tone poem.
Fort Worth Dallas Ballet's new version, staged by Bruce Simpson, chose the tone poem. Emotional intensity was minimal; lavish costumes and chiseled perfection in group work dominated the event.
In this Swan Lake, the corps de ballet had the most impact. Not that they ever showed a bit of terror, much less confusion and dismay, but because they danced with seamless precision. No marching band could rival their assembly-line precision. They were uncanny. The 18 cygnets turned on the same nanosecond, they lifted arabesque legs at the same angle, they tilted heads at exactly the same 10 degrees.
Even in the smallest roles, where six swans stood on the far right and six stood on the far left, they would suddenly change positions from one foot to the other, in perfect timing. The choreography – credited to Lev Ivanov (Acts 2 and 4) and Marius Petipa (Acts 1 and 3) – doesn't just use squares, circles and perpendicular angles, but has them change from angle to angle, as smoothly as kaleidoscopes.
Mr. Simpson clearly had a role in the choreography, most notably in the fourth act. It opens on a foggy lakeside, where the swans are bent over, barely visible. They rise and form three groups that meld and transform in lovely patterns.
As for Odette and Siegfried, guest artists from Boston Ballet, they were bland. You could not ask for a more handsome prince or a man with a more regal appearance than Alexei Lapshin. Technically he was fine, having rich, full leaps and slow, easy spins. But his manner was cool and detached, unfriendly to the point of rudeness. When the Queen Mother touches him to choose a wife, he whisks his arm back coldly. That's his only emotion. With Odette, he's well mannered, not fascinated.
Odette, danced by Bettina Sarmiento, was a bigger disappointment. She had all the right gestures, the tremulous arms, the dropped head, the flitting feet. But there was no real emotion showing, as though she dances by rote. The fear, the trembling, the desperation, even the musicality were missing.
Because there was so little drama, the ending hardly mattered. Instead of the usual tragedy – where Odette rushes to the shore, dies, and Siegfried, distraught, follows her and dies too – Mr. Simpson designed a happy ending. Siegfried kills the villainous Von Rothbart, and the couple reunites. Not only does Tchaikovsky's music, grand and powerful and full of desperation, demand a tragic end, so does everything about the plot, where death is inevitable.
Margaret Putnam writes about dance for The Dallas Morning News.
PERFORMANCE INFORMATION
Fort Worth Dallas Ballet performs Swan Lake at 2 p.m. Sunday at Fair Park Music Hall. Tickets $11 to $65. Call 214-341-ARTS or go to www.fwdballet.com. For group sales call 214-739-4300.
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