Later in the week, Berlin State Ballet's Polina Semionova - described as one of the greatest ballerinas of a generation - will take over the lead for just two nights only in this Swan Lake on Friday and Saturday(February 17 and 18). Miki Mizutani as the double lead of Odile and Odette has divine footwork. It's a slow burner with the first two acts setting the scene before joyous moments that brought loud gasps of delight in the third and fourth acts.īirmingham Royal Ballet's production of Swan Lake (Image: ©Photo_ Bill Cooper)ĭramatic effects like the swans emerging from a stage full of thick mist and Black Swan Odile dancing with attitude, twirling ferociously with 32 fouette turns, at the ball are simply mesmerising. There's more melodrama to come as the evil Baron magically transforms his own daughter Odile to look like Odette, but in the famous black tutu, to dupe the Prince into marriage.īirmingham Royal Ballet(BRB) has revived this lavish production by Sir Peter Wright and Galina Samsova and at 2 hours and 50 minutes, you get your money's worth. That's when miserable Prince Siegfried, who's being forced to pick a wife by his pestering mother, stumbles across her while out hunting and falls in love. He only allows them to return to human form in the midnight hours. A princess, Odette, who has been transformed into a swan with her ladies in waiting by villain Baron von Rothbart. Swan Lake is billed as 'ballet’s greatest love story' but it's more of a fantasy epic. Read more: Black Sabbath The Ballet will premiere at Birmingham Hippodrome The staging is spectacular and gets even more so later in Act Three when knights with swords and courtiers waving banners invite us into the gothic castle for a ball. It opens in a Game of Thrones style set with a medieval hall where Prince Siegfried's bearded companions all look like Jon Snow, King in the North. Swan Lake is back at Birmingham Hippodrome until Saturday, February 25, but felt a little darker and more menacing than before. It's a timely reminder that there's long been a cult noir figure with a rock star attitude in ballet in the shape of 'Black Swan', Odile. As news of Birmingham Royal Ballet's Black Sabbath rock dance starts to settle, it's back to the familiar with this age-old classic of Swan Lake.
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