Rare bird

Boston Ballet's Swan Lake is one of the best

by Jeffrey Gantz

SWAN LAKE, Music by Petr Tchaikovsky. Conceived and produced by Bruce Marks. Choreography by Konstantin Sergeyev after Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. Staging by Anna-Marie Holmes. Set and costume design by John Conklin. Presented by Boston Ballet at the Wang Center through May 17.

Twilight, many years ago and far away, a sheltered glade, a still lake, you're crouched hidden along the shore, 32 enormous white swans, each more beautiful than the last, you draw your crossbow and take aim . . .

One hundred and twenty years after it first touched down on stage, Swan Lake remains the ultimate ballet as it bourrées along the narrow footpath between day and night, land and water, man and woman, woman and swan, love and lust, life and afterlife. It has, of course, Tchaikovsky's ultimate ballet score, and some of the most exquisite choreography ever. But the image that lingers, that makes Swan Lake eternal, is Prince Siegfried with his crossbow: as transfixed by the beauty before him as if he'd shot himself, and torn between embracing the object of his desire and murdering it.

The tragedy of this ballet is that it keeps breaking into two where it wants to be one. White swan Odette and black swan Odile are both Siegfried's love (that's why they're danced by the same ballerina); it's the magician Rothbart who's turned her into twins, splitting her between soul and sex. In that sense Siegfried and Rothbart are also twins, one white, one black. Siegfried's crime isn't that he proposes to Odile, it's that he proposes to Odile without Odette. The "story" tells us that he gives way to temptation, to evil; actually he just wants a world -- and a woman -- that's black and white, not only white. There's no happy ending, either: since Siegfried and Odette can't figure out how to accept their dark sides, they have to die to the world.

Boston Ballet cites the New York Times as saying, "Boston Ballet has given America one of its finest versions of Swan Lake." I suspect that review was written during the company's two glasnost productions, in 1990 and 1992, when principals from the Bolshoi and the Kirov -- notably Nina Ananiashvili and Tatyana Terekhova -- guested, but it hardly matters: there can't be many better versions around the world. (Doubters should check out the available competition on video.) The excellence of this production seeps out of the sets, the costumes; it exudes from the pores of the dancers. The company's music director, Jonathan McPhee, is one of the world's smartest Tchaikovsky conductors, and he keys into the ethos of the ballet: black as well as white, woodwinds (so creamy) and brass and percussion, not just strings. (Only two quibbles: the 30-to-40-measure cut in the opening waltz is still jarring, and at the end of act one, doesn't Siegfried's running out to his destiny/doom call for more weight?)

The Watteau-like set design of act one and the St. Petersburg splendor of act three represent the cradle of Siegfried's existence: they comfort, they protect, they block out the world. (But the roiling sky of Siegfried's emotions is always visible, as is Rothbart's distant tower.) Just like his mother, who wants him to marry a nice girl and (I suspect) continue to live with her, in the palace. (Siegfried appears to have no father.) Yet it's his mother who gives him a crossbow for his birthday -- it doesn't take Freud to work out the sexual symbolism. You can see Siegfried breaking out of the charmed circle of his adolescence -- which is why the music at the end of act one is so critical. So is the choreography: didn't Siegfried used to make a big arc? Now he simply runs off stage. It's a big moment; it needs big everything.

Just as what you really need for Swan Lake is a big Odette/Odile and a big Siegfried. Kyra Strasberg's first Swan Lake was worth the wait. She's a large, expressive, sensuous ballerina with the male-melting charm of a Southern belle; her technique isn't flashy, and occasionally it isn't up to speed, but her positions (particularly in arabesque and arabesque penchée) are classic, her presence is charismatic, her amplitude is fabulous, and her phrasing is devastating -- she's a great dancer but a greater artist. Her Odile is a given: sex with class, a combination that has every guy on stage eating out of her hand. The surprise is her Odette: shy but also self-possessed, alarmed but not hysterical, her desire not far beneath the surface -- more woman than bird. Think Ingrid Bergman. When she developpés one leg high out front and stands on unsupported point, she looks so calm, so serene, it's as if she could stand there all day.

I've never seen Strasberg so relaxed with a partner -- which says a lot about Zachary Hench. It's his first Swan Lake as well, and in the opening act he's coltish, gangly, and a little awkward, but with a soft, easy technique, a romantic yearning, and the kind of breeding that takes thoroughbreds to Churchill Downs. He's earnest, spontaneous, passionate, and he makes Strasberg look good while looking good himself. At the outset of act three he's so consumed by Odette that he scarcely glances at the princess-bride candidates; at the outset of act four he's a little withdrawn in his confrontation with Rothbart, but he soon rises to the occasion. This couple are a big Barolo or Brunello that's just starting to breathe; I'd love to see them again in a few years.

Larissa Ponomarenko and Viktor Plotnikov (a real-life couple) are an altogether different proposition: it's like watching Waterford crystal dance. Plotnikov has added elegance and finish to the way he fills out a phrase; his Siegfried, like Hench's, is soft, almost languid, but older and more sophisticated. At his birthday party he seems like one of the guys, and he's gallant to the women; inside he's a poet, a dreamer, who swallows hard when mom says it's time to wed, like Dante when his parents told him to stop thinking of Beatrice and marry Gemma. He tries: at his coming-of-age ball he gives the princess-brides a dutiful looking-over, but Odile's entrance wipes out all resistance. Not that anyone could resist Ponomarenko. She hasn't Strasberg's voluptuousness (which doesn't mean she's not sexy), so for Odile she sharpens her technique (and her claws). Her facial expressions are extraordinary, though she has such delicate features that they don't register from a distance. Her "32" fouettés (I refuse to count -- it's how you do them that matters) look almost embarrassingly easy. Her Odette is skittish and vulnerable, more swan than woman, Pushkin's Tatyana.

Robert Wallace's Siegfried is a man's man who hunts and fishes and races motorcycles; secretly he might be writing short stories. Think skater Elvis Stojko. He's a coiled spring of a dancer who always has an extra turn in reserve. The village girls of act one don't move him; he's not a dreamer, but you see him drawn by a destiny he doesn't understand. At Swan Lake he's out to hunt, not meet his fate, but when he sees Odette his reaction is direct and immediate: her wants her. In his last-act confrontation with Rothbart he's more aggressive than Hench or Plotnikov (both of whom seem paralyzed): he fights for his woman.

And what a woman Jennifer Gelfand has become! Her Odette stretches indulgently, luxuriating in her plumage; she scarcely looks at Wallace and yet her whole body acknowledges his presence, rapturous in the freedom he offers. It's a complex portrayal that will stand up to repeated viewings. She used to show off her technique; now she merely hints at it. Her Odile is more remarkable still: when she dances with Siegfried she's looking at Rothbart and vice versa, so that she plays the two men off against each other. Dazzling piquŽ turns and, of course, triple and quadruple fouettés.

Given that Swan Lake is steeped in the German romanticism of Jean Paul and E.T.A. Hoffmann, the Jester is a necessary figure as the scherzo, the sarcasm. Unfortunately the role has been sentimentalized, stereotyped: he's the comic girl chaser who never gets the girl. The three I saw -- Christopher Budzynski, Reagan Messer, Polo Jin -- aren't as pyrotechnic as this production's manic archetype, Daniel Meja, but they're better controlled and integrated.

I didn't find much of note in the Rothbarts of Devon Carney and Laszlo Berdo (both outstanding character dancers, so maybe I wasn't paying attention), but Paul Thrussell caught my eye, a less demonic magician (think Jonathan Frakes, Star Trek's Will Riker) who loves Odette/Odile but can't hope to win her except by enchantment; with Gelfand and Wallace he contributes materially to the production's most emotionally charged act three. Other highlights: improved ensemble in the corps of swans, though the hops that conclude their initial act-two sequence could be better; the first-act pas de trois of Marjorie Grundvig, Simon Ball, and Tara Hench (Hench a teasing, Audrey Hepburn-like delight); the precise execution of the Four Cygnets (Grundvig, Hench, Christina Elida Salerno, Ayuko Hirota); April Ball and Paul Thrussell in the Danse Hongroise; everybody in the Danse Español (actually, the international dances are exhilarating throughout).

Your pocketbook permitting, this production warrants a second, even a third visit. (Maybe Boston Ballet could offer a discount to those who come back . . . ) First time out you might not notice how Odile's act-three entrance is accompanied by the Swan Lake theme you heard in act two, only tarted up. Or how Rothbart's Swan Lake tower grows to mammoth proportions in act four, reflecting the growth of his power after Siegfried forsakes Odette for Odile. (At the end, though, it cracks and goes up in smoke.) Or how act four is threaded with black swans, signifying Odette's loss of innocence. Was it the Times' Anna Kisselgoff who said this is one of America's best Swan Lakes? Maybe the company should get her back up here. You wouldn't have an easy time finding a Swan Lake this good in New York.