“Swan Lake,” the ubiquitous popular production that lures even the skeptic, is a big deal for newcomers to ballet. It’s an equally big deal for ballet diehards, who obsess over differences of detail and feel deeply protective of the ideal “Swan Lake” production that exists only in their dreams. So it is while holding both audiences in mind that I can report with exultation: the feathered caps are gone at San Francisco Ballet.
Artistic DirectorHelgi Tomassonpulled out a surprise for the last presentation of the company’s season — and of his nearly40-year tenure, as he steps down after this run. When the 30 maidens-turned-swans sauté-arabesqued onto the stage Friday, April 29, they did so — gasp! — wearing not the glued-to-the-skull Liza Minnelli-like feather hats we’ve seen here since 2009, but rather the elegant face-framing garlands that achieve a magical meeting point between woman and creature. What may sound like a superficial detail brings pervasive change. The old caps were a clever concept poorly executed, shortening the dancers’ lines and in doing so diminishing the ballet’s classicism. With the headdresses restored, we are freed to fully see the dancing. And oh what fine dancing it was on opening night, a new high-water mark for the company.
Credit is due to Katita Waldo and Tina LeBlanc, ballet masters who shaped the swan corps into a transcendent force. To achieve this is tricky, because what moves the viewer in the second act of “Swan Lake” is uniformity but also poeticism — the exact shading of head, neck and arms. How do you drill in such subtleties? With painstaking, loving care. The results are mesmerizing, what people hope for when they come to the opera house.
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Kamryn鲍德温和梅根阿曼达呃rlich moved with luscious sweep as the two lead Swan Maidens. Isabella DeVivo, Ellen Rose Hummel, Norika Matsuyama and Julia Rowe danced the linked-arms cygnets with purposeful precision, offering delight but never breaking the mood of the tragic love story. (At times, though, the full ensemble’s shoes made the stage sound as squeaky as a NBA playoff game.)
It’s an interesting moment for “Swan Lake.” Two months ago Miami City Ballet gave the U.S. premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s version, informed by his archival research into the 1895 Lev Ivanov/Marius Petipa original, which strips out some contemporary elements and restores other original ones in thought-provoking ways. Tomasson’s production is not anything so adventurous, but it is approachable and thoughtful.
Broadway theater designer Jonathan Fensom’s Jane Austen-era costumes have drawbacks — the pas de trois women in Act One have to dance in empire-waist gowns that hide their lines — but the more realistic dress for the men, with Prince Siegfried in fitted breeches rather than tight spandex, is quite appealing. The projections and the lighting (by the masterful Jennifer Tipton) are the real strength, with day turning gradually to evening as Prince Siegfried leaves the palace dismayed by his mother’s order that he choose a wife at the upcoming ball.
Like nearly every full-length ballet story, this one’s a little weird. The evil Von Rothbart changed Odette into a white swan, that’s simple enough. But after Prince Siegfried falls in love with her, he crashes the prince’s fiancee-selection ball with Odette’s black-clad doppelganger, Odile, who is Von Rothbart’s daughter.
On opening night, Frances Chung made a compact, somewhat angular white swan Odette reminiscent of Natalia Makarova. Her Siegfried, Joseph Walsh, was more the court’s bad boy than a danseur noble (you could picture him riding off in a motorcycle jacket rather than the little military coat he wears torn open for Act Three). The two were especially zesty in the black swan pas de deux, even though, early on, Chung took a small fall from a jump that was supposed to land to the knee. The drama then became more of the Olympic gymnast variety — could she get back on the beam? Chung is a consummate professional, and so she did, with power to spare, taking a fast tempo for her fouette turns and throwing in doubles.
Fortunately in the final lake scene, Tchaikovsky’s score worked its full effect, especially played with such passion under music director Martin West, and character-driven drama prevailed again. What Walsh lacked in pensiveness as Siegfried he made up for in fight, including his convincing brawl with Daniel Deivison-Oliveira’s excellently creepy Von Rothbart.
The technical high points from the Act One pas de trois should not be forgotten: Esteban Hernandez might have the most beautiful double tours to be found in U.S. ballet, Rowe was crisp and buoyant, and DeVivo stretched her gorgeous feet like taffy.
Their spirited performances and the focused energy throughout the ballet are a testament to howTomassonhas tended the classics here — as living, breathing, populist endeavors and not museum pieces. Lew Christensen, the Ballet’s previous artistic director and Prince Siegfried when the San Francisco Ballet danced the first “Swan Lake” in America in 1940, would surely be smiling on Tomasson’s well-earned retirement if he were present today.
San Francisco Ballet:“Swan Lake” continues through Sunday, May 8. $29-$448. War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., S.F. 415-865-2000.www.sfballet.org