Swan Lake

Tiff wanted to see it because of the dress on the poster. I was talked into it because it's Tchaikovsky. We went on the last possible performance of the run here in London of the Australian Ballet's Swan Lake, and it was wonderful. It wasn't the tiny pixies in tutus that I was expecting. The Australians aren't the crème de la crème that the Russians are when it comes to ballet, the dancers are a little bigger, a tad on the clumsy side. But still, the music is hard to beat, and the modern dress production was wonderful. From the opening bars of the score familiar melodies washed over me and I had the distinct sense that I was somehow home in this music.

Olivia Bell as the Baroness stole the show, she exuded grace and poise, and was perfectly cast. The loudest applause though, at the end of the night was for the lead, Rachel Rawlins as Odette. She's the one who gets to wear white, it's her story.

But what a tragedy it all is! Who knew? Lives are crushed and torn apart. There's insanity and melancholy. And it's all like a dream of a silent film. The only other ballet I've ever seen is the Nutcracker, (countless times as it comes around each Christmas). So seeing a different story presented in this way is a bit of a revelation for me. There's something so unpolluted and pure about just music, movement, and expression. There's no words to get in the way. Charlotte Higgins, the arts correspondent for the Guardian, recently praised ballet in one of her articles. She says, "Ballet is about limbs and bones and muscle, about flesh and skin. It is visceral. Ballet is about what it means to be human while the blood pumps through our veins; about the things that are too strange, dense and delicate to be strangulated by human speech or song."

I agree! It's such as expressionistic art form. Dreamlike. There's no translation needed. It's not the heady stuff of Shakespeare's language, or the concentrated passion of opera. Ballet comes at you form a completely different angle, and aims directly at your heart. Somehow you have to listen with your emotions.

So, a few days after the show, with the music still swirling in my head, I took myself off to the library and checked out a stack of CDs by Tchaikovsky. I also picked up a couple by Rimsky-Korsakov. The Russians are coming! Suddenly a door has swung open on a new room in the mansion of my interests, and I'm filled with the inevitable excitement of walking in and exploring.


click here for the Guardian article