“Swan Lake” is such a pretty name for a ballet. It sounds like the perfect place to cavort with friends and find the love of your life, graceful white birds gliding by and the moon working its magic. But beware. Those waters can turn as ominously dark as a raven’s wing — or the upflung cape of an evil wizard ready to spoil your festivity.
Enchantment and calamity will indeed color the storyline when Miami City Ballet (MCB) reveals this panorama from the perspective of choreographer Alexei Ratmansky. His tending to the work’s 19th-century roots first bore heirloom fruit in 2016 with the Zurich Ballet before our local company took charge of the North American premiere in 2022. Now the production that opened in Miami at the Arsht Center last week travels to Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center and West Palm Beach’s Kravis Center.
“Swan Lake” unfolds fantastic elements with a palpitating heart, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s score hastening the action and heightening emotion. Royal protocol demands Prince Siegfried choose a mate, but first he goes bird hunting with his pals in the forest. As he aims, Cupid’s arrow pierces him. A mysterious maiden has emerged lakeside, and he’s smitten. Odette embodies feminine charms, and yet — what’s that ethereal quality about her? Every time she flutters by, she seems poised to take wing. And a bevy of similar beauties flock around her with companionable buoyancy.
Odette is a shape-shifter, from woman to swan, under sorcerer Rothbart’s spell, only to be broken when a swain pledges true love to her — Siegfried to the rescue. Still, man is weak and sorcery strong when Odile, Rothbart’s secret agent and Odette doppelgänger, seduces the prince at a ball. Doom will cloud the lake but not before we see some of the most gorgeous dancing in ballet ever and — very telling in this version — lots of poignant pantomime, lovingly restored.
To power this, MCB dancers have put in long studio hours for months. In-house rehearsal directors, eagle-eyed guardians of steps and overall style, kept things on track until Ratmansky, with wife Tatiana in assistance, took over. Under their tutelage, Dawn Atkins, a newcomer to “Swan Lake,” has approached her dual roles of Odette/Odile attuned to every physical detail and the insights of history.
“‘Swan Lake’ has so many moving parts,” says Atkins. “It’s quite challenging. All those layers call for a different kind of preparation.”
Keen on polishing technique and the demands of acting — the highs and lows of a tragic heroine on the path she must brave — she adds, “What’s so striking about Ratmansky’s version is how it tugs at the heartstrings.”
The ballet’s background has been discussed in the studio, but Atkins says, “I’ve taken it upon myself to do a lot of reading and watching a lot of videos to get to my own interpretation.” It’s let her offer more to the choreographer to best fulfill his vision.
Indeed, Ratmansky’s vision — what he salvaged from archives and how he applied his own magisterial touches — created a buzz upon the premiere of his “Swan Lake” here two years ago.
The original 1877 Moscow production, despite Tchaikovsky’s big score, failed to score big. But in 1895, the composer already dead, a revival took place at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, with the music and scenario tweaked and new choreography by the great Marius Petipa and his assistant, Lev Ivanov (for the epochal lakeside action). That sent this much-traveled ballet off on a glorious trajectory, though additions and adaptations have been imposed along the way.
Having delved deep into Stepanov notation, a system created in Imperial Russia to record choreography, and other archival materials, Ratmansky wanted to home in closer to the Petipa/Ivanov intent for his “Swan Lake.” He revived discarded technical elements — differently angled legs here, more demi-pointe footwork there — and hairstyles and costumes that hark back to the original era. Tender flesh reigns here over feathers, and the vintage glow brings revelations.
Working with Ratmansky to inhabit this setting can be transformative. As Atkins attests, “He wants me to emphasize establishing positions and use transitions simply as that. He’s trying to create more inflections in my dancing. For dramatic interpretation, he stresses how important it is to keep the pantomime interesting, saying I need to become each word — for example, ‘love’ or ‘evil.’ This allows the storytelling to come alive and not just be gestures.”
While Atkins fits the profile of first-time Swan Queens who, without fossilized notions, wholeheartedly take to Ratmansky’s construct, Stanislav Olshanskyi, her Prince Siegfried, brings a long personal acquaintance with this classic. This will be his seventh version of “Swan Lake” and he admits, “Some of the variations are still very difficult to do. So you need to be really smart how you rehearse.”
Olshanskyi is putting the man before the fairy-tale prince. “He’s just a human being exploring life and looking for something as we all are, for happiness and basically himself. I always say I’m not trying to act. I’m living in this world.”
Foremost for him is the introductory love scene with Odette — historically aligned here, unlike other versions, since Siegfried’s friend Benno is also in attendance — and his seduction by Odile, her typical plumage shed for a party-princess demeanor.
Olshanskyi and Atkins have developed a special rapport dancing together this season. “That helps us very much because we have trust and a possibility to learn from each other’s way of being on stage, to the point where we can predict what the other is going to do,” he says.
Brooks Landegger, another Siegfried, like Atkins new to his role (the gifted Taylor Naturkas debuts with him as Odette/Odile), finds inspiration in his colleagues.
“I had the opportunity to watch Dawn and Stas rehearse, and it was very impactful,” he says, and the addition of Benno to the scene (the steadfast Damian Zamorano) made it “extraordinarily touching.”
Playing Siegfried is quite a quest for Landegger. But he draws from dramatic know-how, having toured in the Broadway musical “Billy Elliot” and earned a standout performance for his lead in MCB’s “Romeo and Juliet.” He links his right-on course to guidance from his earlier teachers and MCB’s artistic team.
“There have been such generous voices around me every day,” he says.
Among cast members with established “Swan Lake” credentials, Samantha Hope Galler — alongside Renan Cerdeiro in their second go-round at MCB — is focusing on fortifying the narrative through pacing, real-life experiences, and pantomime as natural as conversation. This balances Odette’s fragility with her swan-clan protectiveness and adds sparkle to Odile’s sneakiness (acting out mischief, Galler concedes, is great fun).
Happy to report her husband’s the love of her life, Galler also confesses she’s no stranger to heartbreak — a source of her authenticity in this ballet. Now the schoolgirl who once swooned over “Swan Lake” music at bedtime is about to realize her best ballerina dream at show time.
“My goal is to bring real emotional connection at a deep level,” she says. “That’s what this is all about. I hope audiences at the end will have to take out their tissues.”
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Miami City Ballet’s “Swan Lake”
WHEN/WHERE:
- Friday, April 26, through Sunday, April 28, at Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale
- Friday, May 10, through Sunday, May 12, at Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, 701 Okeechobee Blvd.,West Palm Beach
COST: $40-$329; varies by venue
INFORMATION: 305-929-7010;
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