company focus

American Ballet Theatre - 'Swan Lake'
By Harry Matthews - July 1, 2005, Metropolitan Opera House, NYC
ABT is very conscious of its responsibilities as a conservator of ballet history, as it explicitly demonstrated at Friday's performance of "Swan Lake." Who should appear in the mime role of "Wolfgang, tutor to the prince" than living legend Frederic Franklin.
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Australian Ballet - 'Swan Lake': Princess Diana by the Lakeside
By Cassandra - July 20, 2005, London Coliseum, London
For a British audience it's hard not to start thinking of the unhappy fate of Princess Diana, who entered a sham marriage identical to the one depicted here; there is also, nearer to home for Australians, the case of sad Princess Masako of Japan...
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Australian Dance Theatre - 'Birdbrain'
By Lyndsey Winship - March 2, 2005, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
The dancers of Australian Dance Theatre are truly fearless. They think nothing of launching horizontally into the air for fleeting seconds before plummeting to the floor and into a chain reaction of knee-spinning, shoulder-standing, body-flipping moves. This is modern dance as an extreme sport, and the adrenaline-fuelled athleticism comes thick and fast in "Birdbrain," ADT's techno-take on "Swan Lake."
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Bolshoi Ballet - 'Swan Lake'
By Cassandra - July 24, 2004, Royal Opera House, London
It is the Kirov ballet that presents probably the most traditional version of "Swan Lake" to be seen anywhere in the world today and perhaps it is for this reason that the Bolshoi Company feels compelled to do something completely different.
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Bolshoi Ballet - 'Swan Lake': Murky Lake
By Rosie - July 22, 2004, Royal Opera House, London
In 2001 Grigorovich finally mounted the production he'd originally envisaged with the tragic ending intact. I'm afraid I found it very pedestrian and tired looking. It is indeed a dark production, but I found this less to do with emotional impact and more to do with Simon Virsaladze's sets...
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Pennsylvania Ballet - 'Swan Lake': Wheeldon's Premiere is a Triumph
By Lori Ibay - June 4, 2004, Academy of Music, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Set in Paris at the turn of the 20th century, the scene opens on an empty ballet studio as ballerinas wander in, clad in rehearsal clothes, hair hanging loose. As the dancers pull up their hair, tie their shoes, and stretch their legs, they pause for moments at a time, creating Degas-like paintings frozen in real time.
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Boston Ballet - 'Swan Lake': Ripples Upon the Surface
By S.E. Arnold - June 2004, Boston and Philadelphia
Under the baton of Jonathan McPhee, for example, the orchestra of the Boston Ballet delivered the setting of Odette's twilight refuge and its somber mood with barely a ripple. With Stravinsky-ian correctness, McPhee portrayed the smooth and reflective surfaces of a silent and secret lake at dusk.
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Von Krahl Theatre - 'Swan Lake': Deconstructing Petipa
By Holly Messitt - December 13, 2003, Dance Theater Workshop, New York City
The creators of the work, Peeter Jalakas and Saha Pepelyaev, set out to question the ways traditional Russian ballet, and in particular the original "Swan Lake," provided ideological messages about beauty and behavior in the former Soviet Union.
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Pacific Northwest Ballet - Panel Discussion: Dancing Odettte/Odile - Ballet's Greatest Role
By Francis Timlin - September 16, 2003, Phelps Center, Seattle, Washington
Kaori Nakamura indicated that when she was 15 and last performed both Odette and Odile, she was immediately more comfortable with Odile because it involved clear-cut technical challenges while Odette was more ephemeral.
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Kirov Ballet - 'Swan Lake'
By Cassandra - August 7-8, 2003, Royal Opera House, London
Igor Kolb, in my opinion the company's finest classicist, took on the role as the Prince and was near to perfection. If he made a lonely figure in the crowd at the beginning of the first act, he became the loneliest man in the world by the end of it; so complete is his alienation from the rest of the court.
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New York City Ballet - 'Swan Lake'
By Kate Snedeker - May 2, 7-8, 2003, New York State Theater, New York City
On Wednesday night, Maria Kowroski and Charles Askegard moved into the lead roles, their exceptional heights bringing a new regality and elegance to the tragic lovers. Kowroski was a coolly regal Odette, notable for her remarkable extensions, and solid technique.
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Cullberg Ballet - 'Swan Lake'
By Mary Ellen Hunt - October 23, 2002, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
It is no easy thing to re-engineer the arrangement of a ballet that has been so firmly entrenched in the minds of dance-goers, but setting aside any preconceptions, his choreography uses the music brilliantly. Even within his new paradigm though, there are small gestures that hark back to the more familiar versions of Swan Lake.
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Moscow Stanislavsky Ballet - 'Swan Lake'
By Ed Lippman - June 5, 2002, Kodak Theatre, Hollywood, California
Vitaly Bruesenko charges the room with his continuous double tours en l'air ending in deep lunges. The Jester single-handedly breathes life into this act with his playful attitude and by the sheer amount of time he spends dancing.
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