SWAN LAKE at Covent Garden - Scarlett's swans take off...

This December I will see my fifth production of Matthew Bourne's SWAN LAKE at Sadler's Wells and I am sure I will blub again at the last scene, it gets me every time.  But three years ago, after we had our Paulean conversion to the Royal Ballet, we decided it was time to see a 'classic' production of Tchaikovsky's masterpiece.

In 2016 we saw the visiting Bolshoi production, and what a disappointment that was!  Technically proficient yes, but danced with no sense of emotion or connection to the audience - it felt like they turned up for work and did their job, no more no less.  So the news that the Royal Ballet were going to stage a new production by Liam Scarlett set us off... finally a chance to see it done properly.

The night we went marked the 1,026th performance of SWAN LAKE at Covent Garden and Scarlett's version has replaced Anthony Dowell's production which had lasted in the repertoire for thirty years!  As I have frequently mentioned, it is jaw-dropping how long productions run in the ballet and opera houses of London - can you imagine the idea of the National Theatre only ever staging revivals of productions from the 1980s and 1990s?

But SWAN LAKE goes even further back, because - as is the case with practically all productions - it is based on the version staged by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov for the Imperial Ballet in 1895.  The main body of the ballet is theirs: Petipa's choreography is used for the palace scenes, the famous lake side scene is Ivanov's while Scarlett has devised a new final scene as well as the featured dances for the visiting princesses - apart from the Neapolitan princesses dance which is by Sir Frederick Ashton!  With all these choreographic strands to be woven together, Scarlett has said that his biggest challenge is to make it flow together as if from a single vision - and he succeeded; it was a thrilling production.

With the romantic design by John Macfarlane and moody lighting by David Finn, Scarlett's production swept you up in the swirling drama of Tchaikovsky's monumental score and the oft-told tale of Prince Siegfried who, when ordered to marry by his imperious mother The Queen, falls in love with the beautiful Odette who is under the spell of the wicked magician Von Rothbart who has disguised himself as The Queen's chief courtier.

Odette is transformed from a swan into a woman only at night but Siegfried is tricked at a sumptuous palace ball by the sorcerer into proposing to the mysterious Odile who resembles Odette.  As soon as he does, Odette is doomed to remain a swan forever but can Siegfried save Odette in time?  Of course it ends unhappily but this only makes Tchaikovsky's score all the more powerful and all-encompassing.

The biggest ovation of the evening was for the orchestra, under the baton of Valery Ovsyanikov, which filled the auditorium with the full grandeur of Tchaikovsky's score

Originally we had booked on this particular night to see Steven McRae dance the role of Siegfried but a recent leg injury put paid to that so instead we saw William Bracewell who performed the role well enough but it did not stop me thinking how much more thrilling McRae would have danced the love-lorn prince.  Akane Takada danced the dual role of Odette / Odile, but while her Odette was a graceful, captivating presence I felt she missed out on the seductive danger of Odile.  I will long remember though her slowly rippling arms showing the exact moment that Odette transforms back into the Swan.

Thomas Whitehead added yet another villain to his collection as the hissable Von Rothbart, Kristen McNally was an imposing presence as The Queen while Marcelino Sambé hit all the right notes as Benno, Siegfried's friend, in particular with his dazzling leaps.  SWAN LAKE of course allows the ballerinas of the company to shine and they were glorious as the elegant, ever-watchful swans.

A special mention to the tripping cygnets danced by Isabella Gasparini, Elizabeth Harrod, Meaghan Grace Hinkis and Romany Pajdak, while Itziar Mendizabal was on eye-catching form as the Spanish princess and a special mention to the whirling excitement of Olivia Cowley as the Spanish dancer attended by Reece Clarke, Téo Dubreuil, Fernando Montano and Giacomo Rovero.

I suspect this production will be visited again in years to come; I now look forward to seeing the Matthew Bourne version with new eyes in December at Sadler's Wells.

FRANKENSTEIN at Covent Garden - Frankenstein's at it again... this time on point!

Surely ice-skating is the only area of story-telling that has not been utilized to re-tell Mary Shelley's classic horror novel FRANKENSTEIN.  Since it's publication in 1818 it has been revisited, re-imagined, re-written, re-filmed... all a testament to Shelley's original idea of how man can be brought down through hubris and by his refusal to face the consequences of his actions.

However there is so much going on in her novel that any part of it can be picked on as a way to view the material.  And now it's latest incarnation is in a full-length production by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden and I saw it's 5th performance last week - always nice to be able to say that, with Royal Ballet productions it's usually the 305th!

Liam Scarlett is the Royal Ballet's artist-in-residence and this is his first full-length production for the company and it was marvellous to watch due to Scarlett's firm grasp on the narrative allied to a genuinely thrilling score by American composer Lowell Liebermann.

Scarlett stays mostly true to Shelley's story, dropping the framing device of Victor Frankenstein recounting his tale to the captain of a ship that rescues him and also the abortive creation of a mate for the creature but adds his own new spin as a finale which works within the spirit of the text.

The genesis of the story is almost as famous as the novel itself.  In 1816, aged only 19, Mary Godwin, her lover Percy Shelley and Mary's half-sister Claire Claremont travelled across Europe to visit Claire's lover Lord Byron and his physician John Polidori in the rented Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva.  Bad weather kept them indoors and Byron suggested they all try writing scary stories.  Mary struggled with hers but a later talk about experiments in galvanization gave her the idea of a man attempting to revive a corpse - the fact that she was still grieving for her baby who had died only two months before must have influenced this idea.

The story both reflected and foreshadowed Mary's life which was shrouded with death: her mother Mary Woolstonecraft died a month after giving birth to her, three of her children with Shelley died young, her step-sister Fanny killed herself as did Shelley's abandoned wife Harriet, Shelley drowned at sea in 1822 and Mary herself died aged only 53 in 1851 from a suspected brain tumor.

Liam Scarlett's production also utilizes a moody set design from John Macfarlane and David Finn's exceptional lighting design, along with a mood-setting front cloth of a skull seen in profile which at the start of the second act turned to face the audience - wooo!  As I said it was all marvellous to watch but, on reflection, the most negligible thing about the show was Scarlett's choreography.

I am no balletomane but time and again I found myself wondering how many scenes of prancing maids and servants does the story of FRANKENSTEIN need?  There was also a puzzling tavern routine which sat in between the anatomy lecture-room scenes which did nothing to forward the story and seemed to be there only to give the female members of the corps a chance to whore it up. 

I can appreciate that Liam Scarlett wanted to make the character of Elizabeth more than just a typical horror story heroine but again, when you realize that you are watching yet another interminable pas-de-deux for her and Victor, then you know something is off-kilter.  I must say however that Sarah Lamb as Elizabeth danced the role well, full of grace and humanity.

What made me brew on this so strongly was that the final confrontation between Victor and his Creature must surely be the emotional climax of the show but here it just did not spark - was it because we had the Male Team B of Tristan Dyer as Victor and Ryoichi Hirano as the Creature?  The only thing I could compare it to was the end of Matthew Bourne's SWAN LAKE which, no matter the dancers, always delivers an emotional punch.

There were fine performances from Ethan Bailey as William, Victor's young brother who plays a fatal game of blind-man's-bluff with the Creature in one of the more suspenseful scenes, James Hay was good as Frankenstein's friend Clerval, the always good Itziar Mendizabel did what she could with the minimal opportunities she had as the housekeeper Madame Moritz while her tragic daughter Justine was danced well by Francesca Hayward.

Despite my issues with the choreography I am glad we saw the show and more than enjoyed living through the story - which is more than 8 of the main 10 characters do!  It's few remaining shows are sold out but hopefully it will rejoin the repertoire - maybe in 2018 to mark the novel's 200th anniversary?

In the same week, by some odd stroke of luck, we found we had booked a Horror Triple Bill at the theatre: FRANKENSTEIN, DOCTOR FAUSTUS at the Duke of Yorks and JEKYLL & HYDE at the Old Vic - who came out the winner?  Constant Reader, read on...

GISELLE at Covent Garden - dead on point...

Constant Reader, as you know I have been seeing quite a few ballets at Covent Garden since last year but I had dipped my toe-shoe into ballet before.  That it didn't 'take' as it did last year is odd however I think seeing so many productions choreographed by Matthew Bourne possibly left me more open to accepting more traditional dance.

One of my rare outings before was to see Sylvie Guillem dance GISELLE at Covent Garden in 2001 so how odd to be seeing it again in the same venue, only now with more understanding of the art.

There was no star ballerina this time but as we saw the 571st performance of Peter Wright's production I guess this was the production I saw Guillem dance in.

GISELLE was an immediate success when it was first staged in 1841 and has been constantly staged ever since.  First choreographed by Jean Corrali and Jules Perrot, the choreography seen today is largely based on the work of Marius Petipa - as it seems most of the classical repertoire is - who staged it for the Russian Imperial Ballet at the end of the 19th Century.

Giselle is a country girl in love with a man who is actually Count Albrecht in disguise, he ventures into the countryside to escape his life of privilege and also his fiancee Countess Bathilde.  A jealous woodsman Hilarion discovers the Count's identity and when Albrecht's father, the Duke, and the Countess appear in the village during a hunting trip, he unmasks the pretense.  Seeing Albrecht and the Countess together sends Giselle into a mad frenzy and she stabs herself, dying in her mother's arms. And that's just Act I!

In Act II the grieving Albrecht and Hilarion separately visit Giselle's woodland grave but her spirit has been claimed by the Wilis - stop sniggering at the back - who are the unquiet spirits of maidens who have died due to being jilted before their wedding day.  The Wilis, led by their imperious Queen Myrtha, find Hilarion and drive him to suicide by drowning him in a lake but Giselle finds love transcends death and fights her ghostly sisters over Albrecht.

Peter Wright's production - here staged by Christopher Carr - has been running off and on since 1985 and one can see why as it was a visually stunning production with excellent choreography and, in particular, a fine showcase for the female corps with their appearance as the ghostly Wilis in the second act - a real endurance test that our ladies triumphed at.

All the performers gave good performances: Elizabeth McGorian as Giselle's mother Berthe, Christina Arestis as the regally cold Bathilde and Eric Underwood as the quicksilver master of the Duke's hunt were all eye-catching.

Marianela Nunez was a spirited - no pun intended - Giselle, full of youthful life alive and with a luminous stillness in death while Albrecht was well danced by Vadim Muntagirov.  I also liked the icy and deadly Queen Myrtha as danced by Itziar Mendizabel whose sideways entrances and exits were all stupendous, hovering on point quickly with little discernible movement!

John Macfarlane's set design was very good especially the second act's ghostly forest which seemed to go on forever and Adolphe Adam's score sounded marvellously lush under the baton of Barry Wordsworth.  The production will be screened on 6th April in cinemas and, believe me, you could do a lot worse than see this at your local fleapit.