Even at its most fantastical, dance is powerful because its roots are in real life. And ballet’s history links it ineluctably to the politics of its day. The ties between life and art are a complex web. For an example, take last Tuesday at the Royal Opera House, where tsarist Russia’s most enduring classical ballet, Swan Lake, was revived in a production starring the Russian-born Vadim Muntagirov, who has been a leading light of British ballet his entire career.
Before the performance began, he dedicated his performance to the people of Ukraine, a sentiment emphasised when the Royal Ballet’s director, Kevin O’Hare, addressed the audience, expressing the solidarity of the entire company with the people of Ukraine. The Ukrainian national anthem was played. Everyone stood, including – as far as I could see – all the Russians in the house.
The intense emotion rivalled anything we were likely to see on stage, in a production that has its own complicated origins as the final creative contribution to the Royal Ballet of the choreographer Liam Scarlett, who last year took his life at the age of 35 after allegations of sexual misconduct that were never upheld.
It’s not a version of the ballet I much like. It tinkers round the edge of the story to no great effect, and undermines the central theme of the transforming power of love that Siegfried finds when he falls for Odette, a princess condemned by an evil owl man to live as a swan. In Scarlett’s version, owl man Rothbart is also undermining Siegfried at court because he wants to take over the kingdom.
In a much-altered ending – spoiler alert – Odette dies but Siegfried lives. But he never wanted power; the whole point of Swan Lake is that he is prepared to sacrifice everything for an ideal of passion. Making it into a political drama destroys its metaphorical impact.
Which leaves you with the dancing. In the first of many exciting casts, Yasmine Naghdi stepped in at short notice for Marianela Núñez. Naghdi is a wonderful technician, with every step, each inclination of the head and position of the arms placed perfectly. But she is also extraordinarily self-contained; I long for her to be less perfect and more vulnerable, less efficient and more poetic. As Siegfried, Muntagirov was heavenly: expressive, solicitous, and flying across the stage in long, aching lines.
It looks very handsome too, with John Macfarlane’s sumptuous sets conjuring an imperial court and a bleak lake. In this, Swan Lake shares qualities in common with Mark Bruce’s new piece Phantoms, part of a company triple bill, designed by Phil Eddolls to look like a barren desert and lit to perfection by Guy Hoare.
This balletic road movie, for which Bruce provides choreography and music, is full of drama – a racing wolf, a moving car, a full moon – but light on dance. I found its sequences of strange events wore thin quite quickly. Bruce has such divine dancers – Eleanor Duval, Jonathan Goddard, Christopher Thomas, Bryony Harrison and Carina Howard – that I just want to see them in action.
For this reason, I adored the other new work, the 20-minute Folk Tales, to traditional music arranged and performed by Martin Simpson, which tells its hauntingly odd stories in riveting, descriptive movement. The older work, Green Apples, to the music of the White Stripes, pulls off the same feat. It’s a programme of two halves and I more enjoyed the first.
Star ratings (out of five)
Swan Lake ★★★
Phantoms ★★★
• Swan Lake is in rep at the Royal Opera House, London, until 28 May
• Phantoms tours the UK until 26 March
