The St Petersburg Ballet Theatre's "complete and full-length" production of the most famous of all the classical Russian romantic ballets is a visual feast.
Sumptuous velvet in the richest of colours, wonderful, magical embroideries, headdresses, ornamentations and curlicues abound. The sets are towering masterpieces evoking allthe magic of Prince Siegfried's court, the gloomy forest glades of the ill-fated hunting expedition and, of course, the moonlit tragedy of Odette's lake.
In all those production values, you could not ask for more.
And the Auckland Philharmonia, under conductor Vladimir Vais, does full and complete justice to all the familiar favourites of Tchaikovsky's score.
But the dancing?
There were three major falls last night, by two of the leads and one lesser soloist.
It could have been jetlag, but there were other slips and fumbles, too, that all the gilt and glamour somehow accentuated. And while some technically difficult choreography was certainly included and executed, it looked hard.
Sergei Pavnev, as the Joker, was a big exception. He neither hit the deck nor appeared stressed in his virtuoso role. He was a rare font of energy and enthusiasm in a company of 50 dancers for whom acting some life into the story seemed a foreign concept.
Tatiana Serova danced the Odette/Odile role with some intensity, but her prince, Victor Baranov, was so laid-back that he seemed a cold sort of a fish.
Anatoli Katoulski, dressed in a shiny black unitard, crow's wings and face makeup that would have been more at home in Cats, danced Rothbart, "the evil genius," with energy and elevation, but his thinness made him more fey than frightening.
Then this St Petersburg Ballet Theatre give Swan Lake a happy ending!
Prince Siegfried, a veritable Christopher Robin in the first two acts, suddenly finds it in himself to rip off the horrid Rothbart's wing and it is the evil one who flutters into demise - not Odette.
As the lights come up all golden, the cygnets form their final tableau. Yawn.
