Graeme Murphy's "Swan Lake" with Australian Ballet will delight and astound many, even perhaps some purists!

Ballet lovers are all familiar with the traditional or classical Swan Lake story, one of the most beautifully choreographed ballets danced to Tchaikovsky's wondrous music.  The principal dancer typically dances both the roles of the white (Odette) and black (Odile) swan, a challenging coveted double role which is the dream role of many an aspiring dancer.


Graeme Murphy's retelling of the Swan Lake story takes a huge leap to a modern era where there there is an Odette but no Odile, no sorcerer Count Rothbart, but a married Countess Rothbart who is still in love with the Prince now to be married to Odette.  Where the traditional classical ballet tells of a young prince in search of his perfect ideal love, the young 20th century prince appears first as an emotionally-detached and somewhat caddish and flawed man in the process of being married to a beautiful young woman while apparently still very much involved with his older married lover (Countess Rothbart).  This ballet, commissioned in 2002 and has been performed for 12 years now, although for the first time in Los Angeles in only the second time Australian Ballet has performed in Chandler Pavillion in 50 years.  It is inspired unabashedly by the love triangle Princess Diana was in and whose marriage was famously self-described about being a little crowded with three people in it.  But there is no need to think of Princess Diana and the love triangle she was in when you see this modern-era Swan Lake Ballet, as you will fully empathize with the new bride who discovers in her wedding celebration that her new husband and his lover are still very much together.  The first act is full of pas de trois sequences where the Prince is besieged by the attentions of both women, but the young fragile bride is so overcome with sadness and jealousy and a sense of doom in this marriage.  She becomes emotionally erratic as she makes inappropriate overtures to nearly all the male guests (when she feels rejected by the Prince) and pushes together the lovers in public acknowledgment of their ongoing affair, horrifying everyone.  The first act ends explosively with Odette, with her fouettes and multiple leaps symbolically representing her falling into a psychosis, before being whisked away to the sanatorium, after attempting to throw herself into the lake.

The second act begins quietly with Odette still in her psychosis mode at the window overlooking a lake cared for by nuns in their anonymously huge nun hats.  As Odette dreams of being free as a white dancing swan with a bevy of swan companions, the otherworldly scenes from the tilted lake begins and where the beautifully choreographed sequences performed by the corps de ballet, including the classic cygnet dance, most resemble the classical ballet performances even though these corps de ballet sequences are also innovatively different in its various formations.

There is no evil sorcerer in Graeme Murphy's production and the sole evil character is the Countess Rothbart who, in the third act in an black gown evening ball, is upstaged by a beautiful confident recovered Odette in her white dress as she re-enters the social scene and, this time, the Prince becomes obviously enamored by a nonchalant Odette.  There are no triumphant 32 fouettes here by the black clad Countess who realizes she is really losing the Prince now to Odette and desperately calls the sanatorium staff to come and re-commit Odette.  Escaping the nuns and doctors, Odette runs away, and next appears in the final act by the lake again.  Odette and all the swan companions are black swans and the Prince follows her.  They dance the final pas de deux which starts with an explosive grand jete leap and she is caught by the prince into a sustained lift.  Foregoing the famous dying swan sequences, the ballet ends with Odette vanishing dramatically into the tilted lake.

Comparisons to classic performances to the various versions of Swan Lake by different ballet companies are inevitable by purists who will be upset by the loss of critical elements such as the black swan character, Odile, and the re-arranging of the music to fit the new choreography.  Only the Hungarian national dance remains as part of the wedding celebration in this reimagining of Swan Lake in the modern setting.  The costuming and staging of Graeme Murphy's Swan Lake is spectacular and his choreography is truly exciting with far more explosive leaps and dramatic lifts and more different partnering techniques than I have seen in other ballets.  Like Matthew Bourne's re-imagining of Sleeping Beauty, Graeme Murphy's Swan Lake has become our new favorite and Australian Ballet company dancers are lucky to be able to dance this very different Swan Lake. Australian Ballet is clearly a first rate ballet company that tours extensively and has a strong core of physically-talented and emotionally-expressive principal dancers, soloists, and corps de ballet dancers.  Their Swan Lake will astound and delight you even if you are somewhat of a purist because this new choreography and story narrative is executed so well that is now a new classic that all ballet enthusiasts should see and include in their "ballet-viewing repertoire"!

Australian Ballet performs Swan Lake with a live orchestra at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion in Los Angeles until Sunday, October 12, with a matinee on Saturday.  There are two intermissions in this 4-Act ballet, but you would never realize how quickly time flies with this fast-paced and radically different Swan Lake ballet.  Tickets are available at:

 http://www.musiccenter.org/reserve/index.aspx?performanceNumber=2546

The full program is at: http://www.musiccenter.org/documents/2014-15/Swan-Lake/
and the final casting list is:

http://www.musiccenter.org/Documents/2014-15/Casting-Swan-Lake.pdf

To fully appreciate this ballet story line in its original classic form, and especially if you are bringing younger children to this ballet, here are two study guides with different levels of complexity and two slightly different story narratives.

http://www.obt.org/outreach_links/SPS_SwanLake_StudyGuide.pdf 

http://calperformances.org/learn/k-12/pdf/2005/Study_Guide_SwanLake.pdf

http://www.sistemaproducciones.com/eng/images/stories/repertorio/descargas/swanlake.pdf

http://www.bolshoi.ru/en/performances/36/libretto/

See some preview youtube clips here, including a good six minutes from various acts of the ballet, at:

http://calperformances.org/performances/2014-15/dance/australian-ballet-swan-lake.php?tab=3#TabbedPanels1

On World Ballet Day, we were fortunate to see the rehearsal for Swan Lake live-streamed and you can see segments of this from 20:30 minutes to 39:00 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q49pGO08Ko

If you just want to listen to the beautiful Tchaikovsky score in 8 parts, without visual distractions, you can hear it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S76CGGPqI3s&list=PL09942EDACAA2D4BB

To watch the Kirov (now Mariinski) Ballet's version of classical Swan Lake online, here is a full version of almost 2 hours where you can see the traditional choreography, including the various national dances and the dying swan.  To see it live in Los Angeles, catch Los Angeles Ballet perform this ballet next at UCLA on October 17 and 19, which I will also review in this blog.

For a peek at Matthew Bourne's irreverent all-male Swan Lake choreography, see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUqfdDEYFLQ

If you simply cannot come and watch any of the remaining performances by Australian Ballet, do rent or buy this version of Swan Lake at amazon.com for download or instant viewing:

  

http://www.amazon.com/Swan-Lake-The-Australian-Ballet/dp/B00GXQF5P0

The Music Center provided this press photo.

At the Broad Stage, see South African Isango Ensemble re-styling of Mozart's Magic Flute within its cultural context

Imagine a conductor barefoot on stage while conducting (without a score) 4 marimbas and drums on either side of him off the main center of stage and the orchestra is really part of the stage as singers and musicians are constantly sharing space and alternating roles or sing from the orchestra "pit."  For the most part, you don't see the conductor who may be playing another instrument from the side.  The music flows very organically with the acting, dancing and singing you see on center stage.

Imagine choral members, also barefoot, who can not only sing, dance intricate steps with animated facial expressions, play musical accompaniment and act multiple characters throughout the performance.

Imagine actors/singers coming off the sloping-downward stage along the side aisles and singing and performing as an audience relating to what is on stage.

Imagine a few performers assembling on the top "bridge" platform and tinkling with a metal rod on differently- and graduatingly-filled clear glass bottles held by strings to produce the magical sounding bell sounds.

Isango Ensemble turns western classical conventions of opera on its head and must have unsettled a few heads in the audience.  But for some of us, kicking off our shoes and fully moving to the music and story as it unfolds - with all the emotions the arias and choral voices evoke - seems perfectly natural.  This is not a performance that one needs to sit straight back and hold still for.  Indeed, a silently appreciative audience that applauds after each major aria may even seem a bit underwhelming in a performance that seems to invite more vocal audience responses if we were not in a formal stage environment.  This is the type of company who would probably love it if everyone could move to its dancing and music.  If this performance were held in its cultural homeland - and you can imagine how this performance could have been staged outdoors with some modifications to its minimalist staging -, I cannot imagine people sitting still :)  It reminded me of Matthew Bourne telling his audience that to please clap whenever they feel like it because the dancers really love and thrive on the energy of the audience response in his retelling of Sleeping Beauty by his New Adventures company where he too reinterprets traditional ballets into highly accessible and memorable contemporary "ballets" credited with bringing new audiences to ballet in the UK.   The same could be said of this thoroughly "unstuffy" and vibrantly joyous reinterpretation of the Magic Flute in engaging a broader audience and especially a younger audience for whom a traditional opera might indeed be too much to sit through :)

Just in case one needs a reminder of the basic story line of this two-act Mozart's opera originally intended to have spoken dialogue as well, here is a link that has the original plot summary.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/356710/The-Magic-Flute

For the younger set, or those who want a simpler story line, here is a fun animated plot summary youtube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-laVXO0IYKY

The smaller venue and the intimate feel of Broad Stage is perfect for this vibrantly colorful and raucously joyful production of Mozart's Magic Flute by Isango Ensemble.  There is no substitute for being in the audience in a life performance, but one gets a sense of this production through these youtube videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2am6PD7rbw for an official preview video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIdEIEhd2wQ for some behind the scenes and interview with director Mark Dornford-May.

Sung in a combination of languages including English and South African tongues, the arias remain in the original German. Some singers are stronger performers than others as this ensemble works with a variety of performers at different stages of professional development, but it is the combination of individual, choral and background voices, and all the dancing to the wonderfully mellow and never jarring musical score that sets this production apart and will be enjoyed by the whole family.

I would encourage families to see this even if this is their first opera experience.  Or especially for a first opera performance for younger children.

Unlike in traditional classical operas, where the lyrics or English translation is on a side screen or above the singers, this production provided a full plot summary and all translations and the full libretto.  At the Broad Stage on opening night, these were not handed to every patron but left available in the lobby.  I would suggest getting there earlier and reading through the 20-page program notes and lyrics and translation.  Since it is not always easier to hear all the words even when they are sung in English, a pre-reading and discussion with younger ones would be extremely helpful to help them follow the story.  The entire performance is almost two and a half hours with a 15-minute intermission.

If you have the opportunity and time to do so, always listen to the entire opera on CD or at least the main arias before you watch it being performed.  Here are two youtube videos of the famous aria sung by the Queen of the Night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ODfuMMyss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqBwe9BCj4A

Isango Ensemble's Mozart's Magic Flute is a delightful change from any Magic Flute performances you have ever seen, so try to catch it while it is being performed in Santa Monica's Broad Stage. And you will remember this production long after you have seen it :)  For me, it is probably the most enjoyable, but then again, I am a cultural anthropologist who enjoys cultural translations :)

The last performance is on October 12, and tickets can be purchased here:

 http://www.thebroadstage.com/magic_flute/
Photo of the Queen of the Night comes from this link.

Parking is free in its lot.