Birmingham Royal Ballet has certainly had great value for money out of this longstanding production. First staged by Peter Wright and Galina Samsova in 1981, Swan Lake has been performed regularly since then and is now on a four-month UK tour.
Its popularity is well deserved. Here is a story well told, with plenty of heart and a welcome sense of balance: the increased focus on Prince Siegfried’s melancholic torment gives the ballet more of a creditable purpose and surely makes it more fun for the male lead to dance.
The drama is vibrant and pointedly theatrical; clutter and flutter is at a minimum; the swans are an enchanting vision in the mist (love that dry ice). The gloriously gothic designs by Philip Prowse are a spectacular marriage of fairytale magic and medieval gloom. The evening opens with a funeral procession and ends with a royal body — a show in perfect symmetry.
The choreography, based on the Petipa-Ivanov heritage and embellished by Wright and Samsova, is both decorous and exciting. Over the course of four acts it provides plenty of opportunities for the full Birmingham company to shine, and shine they do.
There are several casts sharing the honours in this long run. On opening night of the London season we had Céline Gittens in the dual role of Odette/Odile. Her Odette is something special; her dancing is equally frail and beautiful and so completely alluring that it’s no wonder that Siegfried falls instantly in love with her.
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Gittens’s technique is a fabulous combination of control and flamboyance — gorgeous arms, exceptional feet — and she purrs elegantly as she absorbs Odette’s pain into her pliant limbs.
As the wicked temptress Odile, Gittens’s Black Swan moment is not quite wicked enough — more coquette than conqueror — but her sorrow in Act IV’s lakeside scene is absolutely heartbreaking.
As Siegfried, Tyrone Singleton is an admirable partner and a handsome dancer, though his lukewarm acting is easily overpowered by Gittens’s captivating presence. William Bracewell is an appealing Benno (ever the loyal friend) and Marion Tait, as the Queen Mother, and Jonathan Payn, as Baron von Rothbart, do sterling service as the story’s catalysts.
A few quibbles. The lighting was too dark, while the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, conducted by Koen Kessels, didn’t bring the requisite spark to Tchaikovsky’s score on Tuesday night. Don’t let that put you off, though, this is an outstanding evening.
Box office: 020 7863 8000, to Oct 15; touring until Jan 30, 2016