Ballet Preljocaj's Swan Lake review – dystopian twist sucks the breath out of you
Ballet Preljocaj's production, which debuted in France in 2020, is something of an exception to the rule. Making its Australian premiere within days of Woodside receiving the federal government's (election-delayed) green light to extend the life and colossal climate impact of its North West Shelf gas project until 2070, and the Woodside boss Meg O'Neill's clumsy attempt to shift responsibility to supposedly Temu-addicted gen Z consumers, this staging from has a bit of a kick to it. A Swan Lake for the ecocide era, if you like.
It's not the first reworking of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov's 1895 classic, of course. Choreographers including Alexei Ratmansky, Matthew Bourne (his famous all-male Swan Lake) and Mats Ek have all ruffled the feathers of this tutu favourite. Here though, Angelin Preljocaj manages to entirely rework the choreography while honouring the narrative spine of the original and some of its structure. He doesn't throw the cygnets out with the lake water.
For music, he draws principally on the Tchaikovsky score (played here in this QPAC exclusive season by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra under the sensitive baton of Johannes Fritzsch) cut with extracts from Tchaikovsky's Second and Fourth Symphonies and dark-toned slabs of electronica and EDM by the French studio 79D.
Fans of the original will not find the story hard to follow. Here, the royal court is dystopian-corporate but the broad sweep of the story still has a young Prince Siegfried (Antoine Dubois on this occasion, alternating the role with Leonardo Cremaschi) chafing against expectation and falling for Odette (Théa Martin/Mirea Delogu), a woman who has been transformed into a swan by the sorcerer Rothbart (Redi Shtylla/Elliot Bussinet).
In this version, Rothbart is a rapacious property developer whose city-building scheme is eagerly supported by Siegfried's wealthy parents, who play a much larger part in the drama than more traditional versions. Siegfried has an exceptionally tender and close relationship with his mother, for example, and his father appears to be in bed (sometimes literally) with Rothbart.
Early on, plans for the transformation of the kingdom are waved around in paper form. A trolley is wheeled on bearing an idealised model of the proposed venture. Neither makes a visceral impact, it must be said. Later, however, huge monochromatic digital projections by Boris Labbé start to loom large, filling the space with images of rising city skylines, stock market trends, excavators and, eventually, an industrial plant with a throbbing life of its own – one that spells a grim death for Odette and her swan kind.
Preljocaj's athletic choreography is full of swagger, strength and sass, and does not incorporate any of Petipa's dreamy original sequences. But, for lovers of Swan Lake, there are plenty of beautiful lines and bird-like movements, particularly in the white swan sections. The women/swans sometimes embody the whole bird stretching their own necks into beautiful arched shapes, and at other times use their arms as swan necks with hands for heads.
The high-impact ensemble routines echo some of the set pieces of the Petipa original, including its court scenes. The Dance of the Little Swans gets a winking update with pelvic wiggles and a sharp weaving of the dancers' arms. Siegfried and Odette deliver an audience-pleasing romantic pas de deux with inventive lifts.
There's no interval between the 'white' and 'black' acts of the story. Swan Lake plays straight-through for two hours and its 26-strong cast don't get much downtime. Preljocaj's choreography looks demanding with its rapid switching between planes, knifing arms and legs and intricate unison work. The women perform barefoot in short, loose dresses; the men wear suits and pumps (with leather trousers for the bad guys). The highly gendered prettiness and prissiness we associate with Swan Lake is rinsed out. Everyone looks strong, athletic and grounded. From the fourth act, a febrile energy starts to take hold, especially when the swans react en masse to Siegfried's betrayal.
The final image is a striking one, as Siegfried searches for the dying Odette among the twitching, writhing bodies of her kind, all poisoned by the obscenely pumping industrial plant that now surrounds them. Rather than leaving you breathless, this bleak ending sucks the air out of you.
Swan Lake is performed in the Lyric Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre until 7 June. Watch the production for free on Digital Stage from 6pm, Friday 13 June to 6pm, Sunday 15 June
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