The grand Russian ballet companies that once perched in London for the summer won’t be returning any time soon, so the Coliseum has looked 2000 miles south of Moscow, inviting the State Ballet of Georgia from Tbilisi. This ferociously trad production of Swan Lake marks their London debut.
Swan Lake can be a slow burner of a ballet, and this opening act is more sedate than most. There’s a pretty painted backdrop in sylvan green; people muster polite grins and toast each other with empty goblets – old school ballet behaviour. On bounds Prince Siegfried (Oleg Lihai) with tilting leaps and hopeful smile. The crux of Swan Lake is often the prince’s search for meaning, craving romance to turn his life about. Lihai, however, plays him as well-meaning but hardly the sharpest arrow in the quiver.
By a frost-shivered lakeside, the prince goes a-hunting and meets Odette, a princess trapped in the body of a swan. Arriving with an otherworldly ripple of her arms, Nino Samadashvili’s Odette is willowy, but resolved – and like willow, she’ll bend but not break. She nestles back in Siegfried’s arms – will he be her safe place?
The ‘black swan’ act is all peril – here comes Odile, a dead ringer for Odette except for the evil gleam in her eye. Samadashvili has a blast as Odile – the swan’s swoon is turned to steel, and she almost gives us a knowing Fleabag-style wink as she deceives prince nice-but-dim. She throws off the notorious fouettées – a fearsome series of lightning turns – with exultant, almost satirical precision.
The conductor Papuna Gvaberidze drives the pulse of Tchaikovsky’s imperishable score: the English National Opera orchestra sounds meltingly tender in the lakeside pas de deux, and goes full pelt in moments of crisis. The score soars with the swans, beautifully played as a tight flock of raised arms and downcast eyes. The haughty big swans give magisterial flurry; the cygnets busy feet and poker faces.
Elsewhere, the dancing is very variable: the royal ball starts soporific, the queen regarding proceedings with icy forbearance until evil Odile and a saucy Spanish quartet raise the temperature. It’s a handsome show, though the villainous Rothbart often sends costume designers off the rails – here, Marcelo Soares wears a startled white plume and a shiny cape that looks cut down from his mum’s tablecloth.
A classic should never feel routine – Tchaikovsky’s ballets deserve to hit the stage with every nerve quivering. “You can’t have too many Swan Lakes,” said my editor when this production was announced. It’s an encouraging thought, but in a year when London has seen both the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet versions, with Matthew Bourne’s landmark take to come, I strongly suspect you can.
London Coliseum, to Sep 8; londoncoliseum.org
