Swan Lake Ballet
2026-03-21
I watched Swan Lake at the Ballet on 2026-03-20 with my friend, if we knew there were Asian leads, I think we would have watched the show on the 21st!!
I grew up watching Swan Lake adaptations with Barbie's Swan Lake and the Swan Princess movie. I didn't realize the story wasn't common knowledge as a result. (As a side quest, wanted to see how many people knew the ballet, and then I explained Swan Lake to my coworkers, a different person everyday so I was 5 for 5 who didn't know. Only one person could pin it to Tchaikovsky!).
Plot
How I explained it was that Prince Siegfried had his coming of age party where he doesn't want to get married. His Queen Mother insists. She gifts him a crossbow to brighten his mood and he goes to the forest to hunt something.
He wasn't sure what he comes across but it was a swan turned human as the sun goes down. Odette is the swan. She explains that she is cursed but it can only be broken if someone loves and marries her. He swears the oath because after a night of dancing, he loves her. The sorcerer that curses her, Rothbart, comes in and calls her away and she turns back into a swan.
The next night, he dances at the ball that his mother organized, including invites to four neighboring princesses. Prince Siegfried refuses and sees someone that looks like Odette. Even dances like her, he believes it is her! It is actually Rothbart and his daughter Odile disguised as Odette. The Prince takes Odile's hand in marriage in front of court thinking it's Odette while Odette can only watch as a swan from the window.
The last act is them in sadness, she and the other cygnet women will be swans forever. There are good and bad endings. Obviously the children movies had good endings, but the bad endings are usually the most impactful at the ballet.
My Experience
I bought cheap tickets so there wasn't alive orchestra and we were sitting on the left side of the stage so anything that happens in the middle during the cygnet dances were blocked. I didn't mind though since $50 for my first ballet is a lot better than $150!!
The Odette/Siegfried dancers in the pamphlet showed they had the same last name, which is so interesting! I wonder if they were married! Unfortunately, we did not see their dynamic as Siegfried was played by an understudy.
If we knew, I would have wanted to watch Luna Sasaki and Lang Ma, but we still had the talented Alexandra Anker-Hughes and Caleb Durbin.
This version was choreographed by Benjamin Peche and he done away with the Rothbart role and replaced him with a "best friend" of the prince, Benno, who was jealous of what he had.
Okay that is what it was in theory, but the execution didn't seem that great, maybe due to the Caleb Durbin as the understudy but also the main dancers did not have as much charisma or presence as the corps.
I loved the "material world" acts where it takes place at the castle. It was stunning to have a big collection of dancers in sync. Act I at the coming of age party had the corps partner up and doing lifts for 20-30 minutes. Their posing looked like little birds to mirror the cursed cygnets. They danced in circles and really had fun. I especially liked the part where they paid their respect to the queen mother in quick rounds of bows. It was comical!
The dance here had Benno do a lot of the traditional dances that Siegfried would traditionally perform. I don't know why Benno would be jealous, Siegfried was forlorn the whole night, refusing dances left and right, while Benno danced with two women the entire night. He was also the better looking dancer of the two. I don't think the jealously was sold well. If Benno was was getting refused compared to Siegfried who danced with multiple women, I would see why he would be more jealous. Money, women, looks, and power? Yeah the motivations are clear.
But no we have Benno who is a sorcerer who curses 20+ women into cygnets for no clear reason. Rothbart curses the women to swans, and as a bird of prey, Owl, Hawk, you name it, he can exercise his power and create easy pickings.
The dance in Act II is very pretty. It is where the four cygnet waltz was performed. I think all the ballerinas did a great job portraying their swan forms and transforming into humans and back. It is my favourite part when they do the arm movements. You can see it at about 1 minute in this video. I think the soft tapping as they exit is such a great representation of wing beats.
Act III is my favourite! It features such a fun collection of dances again with the corps. Luna and Lang danced in this section as the invited country dancers and my friend remarked before I could that their stage presence were incredibly impressive. They were wonderful in their respective pieces.
Okay at the ball, they apparently have six princesses, but we had four princesses: Hungary, Spain, Russian, and Mazurka/Polish. I loved their outfits as they walked in, everyone was coordinated in different red accented dresses in distinct styles so that they could look cohesive on stage, but unique enough to stand out. The princesses had the same dress on as their ladies in waiting but with a different colour shade or extra detailing.
My favourite dance was the Spanish dance! I believe the closest variation they performed is Elenora Sevenard's performance. I loved the character and the power it came with the strong leaps. The men also had such night half coats embroidered with roses. My second favourite dance was the Russian dance since they decided to use handkerchiefs over their arm crooks to add a bit more visual flair. This is apparently a 50/50 chance in choreographer choice whether to include the cloth or not going by Youtube's results. Benjamin Peche's choreography choices really helped highlight the corps as they got a lot of the limelight instead of just the soloists.
Benno and Odile come in when the four princesses are lined up to hear the verdict so gasps when she shows up. I really like that Odile's choreography mimics Odette's style. It makes it easy to believe the disguise since they are played by the same woman in this version, just in a black tutu ahahah. The motif of the violin for Odile sounds sharp, just like her movements and ploy, compared to the earnestness of Odette's deep bassoon. Odile's fouettes were very impressive! I counted 21 :) It's when the ballerina spins without her other foot touching the ground. Her momentum is just from the extension of her other foot. Of course this is so bewitching that Siegfried proposes to Odile as Odette looks beyond the window.
Okay and then the last act had some very nice bird formations of the cygnets, big fan of the V and the bird motifs :) Siegfried finds out about Benno's betrayal and seeks out Odette. Consoling her in the large cygnet circle. Benno calls the cygnets under his power including Odette. He has one victory lap where he transforms into a large bird with the cygnets representing his wings. Probably my favourite part for Benno's role.
Siegfried is enraged and starts trying to battle Benno, he aims the crossbow at him, but Benno dodges and actually the bolt kills Odette instead. Excellent, tragic ending EXCEPT BENNO IS GUILTY. UGH if you were guilty, why do anything at all. Why did he only feel guilty hurting one man compared to the legions of women he has cursed? The male centric remorse was a flaw to this ending. I would have loved if Benno was victorious, he brought Siegfried down a peg and still has the magic in his power to spirit away with his cygnets. I can imagine that he needed to amass power to be able to transform or something. But, no, Benno collapsed, crying at the end :(
I think Benno instead of Rothbart leaves a lot to be desired. Rothbart and Odile being his daughter would mean that he is amassing more power. He can have Odile marry royalty so that Rothbart is a defacto king and can use his magic to rule a puppet kingdom. What does Benno get with Siegfried marrying Odile? A whole pile of nothing?? Made no sense to me.
Overall great ballet, I hope to be able to watch more ballet and or more Swan Lake adaptations in the future :)