Swan Lake -- San Francisco Ballet Performance Review Rubies, Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes, Fearful Symmetries -- San Francisco Ballet Performance Review
Swan Lake
San
Francisco Ballet Performance
February
23, 2016
This was a superbly presented performance by the San
Francisco Ballet. I was impressed by how
tight and precise the dancing was. The
first act was a little sluggish and consisted mostly of small groups of female
dancers auditioning in succession for the role of wife to the Prince, who in
the end is going to reject all of them.
The first act could have used a little more creativity in the staging
and lighting. It ended up being a little
bland, but the second act was imaginatively staged and beautifully executed. At one point 30 female bodies in snow white
tutus as swans filled the stage in a stirring, graceful spectacle. The quartet that emerged from this group was
especially precise. Tiit Helimets did a very
impressive job with the character of Von Rothbart. The pas de deux by Carlo Di Lanno and Sofiane
Sylve was a vision of elegance. The
third act at the palace was another audition, but did not fall into the same
banality as the first act by virtue of the presence of Odile and Von
Rothbart. There is a beautifully done
pas de deux between Odile and Siegfried where an apparition of Odette appears
at the end. The tension created by Odile
and Von Rothbart deluding the Prince and its exposure at the end gives the
third act some dramatic substance which is absent from the first act. The fourth act at the lakeside echoes the second
act in its visual presentation. The
drama ends in a reiteration of Romeo and
Juliet with the lovers committing a dual suicide together, which in turn
kills Von Rothbart. It is a very compelling,
beautiful realization.
Now let me see if I can figure this thing out. Swan
Lake is a very conservative story. It
is a repudiation of romantic love, that is, the idea that people should choose
their own partners for marriage based on their own preferences, or "love,"
as opposed to doing as their parents, clan, tribe, or society advise or
dictate. More generally, it is a
repudiation of the individual and the individual's freedom to make the
fundamental choices in determining the course of his or her own life. Swan
Lake champions the preeminence of fulfilling one's given social role and
the subordination of sentiment as the defining force in life. One must accept and rise to the
responsibilities foisted on one by society, and as prescribed by one's
elders. Whether the man chooses the
woman based on an ennobling conception of "love," or whether he
chooses her for the baser pleasures of sexual satisfaction, these are opposite
sides of the same coin and are equally doomed to disaster.
It starts out with Princess Odette encountering Von Rothbart
by the lakeside and he turns her into a swan -- a white swan. Who is Von Rothbart and why would anyone
change a girl into a swan? Well, we do
it all the time, actually. I looked up
the symbolic meaning of the swan in folklore and it varies across cultures, but
the swan generally has a positive connotation.
The white swan represents purity, dignity, fluidity, elegance, and grace. Changing a girl into a swan is to elevate
her. It raises her esteem and gives her
an aura of idealization, if not perfection.
However, she is only a swan by day.
By night she reverts back to being a woman. The spell under which she is beholden to
remain a swan by day can only be broken by a man's vow of faithful love and
devotion. In other words, the vow of love, devotion, and faithfulness
breaks the spell of idealization that has transformed the woman into a
beautiful swan. The man will then
realize that he has not married a beautiful swan, but rather just a woman. It is a negative comment on the impact of
love, devotion, and sentiment on a relationship between a man and a woman. The vow of love and devotion destroys the
idealized transformation of the woman into the beautiful, ennobled swan. It
means that men will ultimately be disappointed in the women they love.
In the second act, Von Rothbart shows up at the lakeside
encounter between Siegfried and Odette, just as he does at every encounter
between the two lovers. Who is Von
Rothbart anyway, and what is his connection to Princess Odette? Rothbart (red-beard) is a Jewish name. Giving the villain in the story a Jewish name
probably reflects the anti-Semitism that was widespread in Eastern Europe and
Russia during the 19th century. It is
similar to Shakespeare's use of the Jew Shylock as the villain in the Merchant of Venice. Although the Jewishness of Von Rothbart is
not emphasized in the San Francisco Ballet performance and many people in the
audience probably did not even notice the association. More significantly than his being Jewish, Rothbart
should actually be identified with Siegfried, the Prince. Who else could he be? Rothbart is the aspect of Siegfried's psyche
that transforms the woman into a swan and enables him to fall in love with her. This is why he always appears whenever
Siegfried is in the presence of a Odette.
Incidentally, it should probably be noted that the identity
between the Prince and Von Rothbart excludes an interpretation of the story as
social criticism. In other words the
tragic ending of the story cannot be seen as a rebuke of a society that refuses
to allow young people to marry based on love because Von Rothbart is clearly
the villain and Von Rothbart is the Prince himself. So the story is about the flawed character of
the Prince (an thus, of all men), and not the flawed nature of social
customs. The structured roles defined by
society help rein in the potentially destructive aspects of men's emotional nature
that causes them to misperceive women, overvalue them, and thereby impel men to
step outside the boundaries of class and custom and the authority of elders.
In the third act Rothbart appears with Odile, the black swan,
who is in fact the flip side of Odette. Odile
is the sexualized aspect of Odette, the antithesis of the ideal of purity and
nobility represented by the white swan, and Odile is the one that the Prince
ultimately chooses -- a much healthier choice, actually. In folklore black swans tend to be harbingers
of major change and are often ominous. Black
swans tend to be unsettling. They
portend an upending of the status quo. In
this case, the black swan represents an idealization of the sexualized woman,
the woman as the unfailing source of sexual pleasure and satisfaction. This is also an illusion within the man's
psyche, but of a different character than the ideal of purity and grace
represented by the white swan. Keep in
mind that Odile appears accompanied by Von Rothbart, who is in fact the inner
aspect of the Prince that powers these illusory transformations of the woman. Necessarily the white swan, the pure,
idealized woman, must die when the less noble, sexual woman becomes manifest. And with the death of this ideal, the man's
illusions about women and his tendency to idealize them, embodied by Rothbart, whether
sexually or ennobling, must die also.
Siegfried can only fall in love with a swan, either white or
black. Romantic love depends on this psychological
capability of men to idealize and elevate their estimation of particular women
and the satisfactions they can offer. It
is an altered perception of the
woman. The woman is transformed into a
swan -- of one sort or another. The
other women presented to the Prince were not swans. He could not love them because he could not
see them in the aura of either of these powerful illusions. Maybe this is why the first act was kind of
dull. The Prince needed a woman who was
under a spell, transformed into a beautiful swan. But the spell was not on the woman, it was on
him.
Siegfried is the one under the spell.
It is the spell of his own self deception about who this woman is. It is this tendency of men to idealize and
romanticize women that is personified in the character of Rothbart, and he is portrayed
as evil and a destroyer of both men and women.
It is this villain, this propensity in the hearts of men to see women as
something better than they are, that the story of Swan Lake repudiates.
The moral of the story, as in Romeo and Juliet, is that young love is based on illusions that are
dangerous, futile, and ultimately self destructive, and that young people
should follow the guidance and wishes of their parents in matters of marriage,
rein in their passions, or channel them toward socially appropriate
candidates. We do the same thing today
in our biases against wide age gaps between lovers and against relationships
between adults and very young people. Tchaikovsky himself had a failed
engagement, a brief disastrous marriage, and a decided preference for the same
sex, so he was no great champion of heterosexual love. Tchaikovsky is not rock and roll. It is a very conservative, archaic,
unappealing message for modern American people, but it came out of 19th century
Russia, which was a very traditional, stratified feudal society. It is very ably presented by the San
Francisco Ballet in a beautiful, pleasing spectacle.
Rubies, Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes, Fearful Symmetries
San
Francisco Ballet Performance
February
2, 2016
This was a very enjoyable night at the San Francisco
Ballet. Each of these three ballets succeeded
quite ably as standalone performances and they complemented one another very
well for a balanced, pleasing contrast. Rubies, choreographed by George
Balanchine, is what you think of when you think of ballet. It opens with perhaps ten or a dozen dancers
in dynamic red costumes arrayed in an arc against a black background studded
with small points of light that mimicked jewels or stars. That arresting opening scene brought applause
from the audience. What followed was a visually
gripping virtuosic display of physical skill and polished technique. The music was by Stravinsky and was well
suited to dancing and the ballet followed the music with grace and
elegance. The configurations were
interesting and the use of the space on stage was well thought out. There was a balance between ensemble segments
as well as duets and solo performances. Everything
about this ballet worked superbly well.
It was a thorough delight.
Drink
to me Only With Thine Eyes, choreographed by Mark Morris to music by
Virgil Thomson, started with a solo piano performance by Natal'ya Feygina with
the grand piano sitting in center stage, where it remained throughout the
performance as part of the set. I'm not
sure that was the best place for it. There
was no other set. The music, strictly
solo piano, was performed right on the stage with the dance. The lighting was very simple and the dancers
were clad in these baggy, white sleeping gowns. It made the performance feel a bit like a
rehearsal or a practice session. The
dancing was interesting and complemented the music. It had a very different character from the
earlier ballet, Rubies. I don't have a very good vocabulary for
describing dance so it is hard for me to verbally differentiate the
styles. I would need to see them several
times to be able to do that, but the Mark Morris choreography had a distinctive
character that was interesting to watch.
It was vivacious and spirited. If
they had put a little more thought into the staging and had a little more money
for costumes other than those pajamas, it might have been more visually impressive. But even with these limitations, it was
solid, well constructed, well presented performance. I lay a bouquet at Natal'ya Feygina's feet.
Fearful
Symmetries, choreographed by Liam Scarlett, was strikingly different
in style, and perhaps for that reason, the most interesting of the three. It opened with a solo performance by a female
dancer that made use of unusual movements of the shoulders and upper body. The lights were modernistic and a little
blaring. The music by John Adams was
energetic and upbeat. It had a softness
and a smoothness to it that suited the ballet.
It moved and the dance moved with it.
The dance had vigor and energy. It
was stimulating to watch. The movements
were very different from traditional ballet style. Again, I apologize for my verbal poverty in
being able to describe these movements and styles of dance. There was more use
of the head and shoulders, upper body movements, rolling around and crawling
around on the floor. There was strong
interaction between the sexes. The guys
and girls were touching each other, looking at each other, the guys were
lifting the girls, carrying them, twirling them, throwing them, and some of the
movements were sexually suggestive, which was nice and very unusual in a
ballet. There were several strong solo
performances: the opening segment by the female and a later one by a barechested
male. The different ensemble configurations
used the stage space in interesting ways, and it ended with a distinctly
separate duet section that was very nicely done. I heartily recommend this one. The whole evening was very refreshing and
enjoyable. I'm very glad to have seen
it.