A while back I wrote about the abysmal storyline of the classic ballet Swan Lake. That rant concerned (among other things) the huge chunks of motivation and character development left out of the traditional story, in comparison to the New Adventures version by Matthew Bourne (the one where the swans are all men), which I adore.
I’m coming back to it now because, as part of my 2022 Cultural Directive (meaning, Consume Culture In Forms Other Than Romance Novels), I’ve been watching ballet again. One of the films was a Paris Opera Ballet production of Swan Lake.
The storyline in that production is essentially the same as the one in the Bolshoi production that I’ve seen. I’d have to watch them back-to-back to specify what was different about the choreography, but Rudolf Nureyev had a hand in the Paris staging, and it felt markedly different in the first act (palace shenanigans).
The Paris Opera Ballet production starts with Prince Siegfried (the putative hero) having a premonitory dream about a swan maiden meeting a supernatural doom. It then moves to the prince at some palace affair, continuously dozing off in his throne-like chair while well-dressed people vie for his attention. The only time he actually wakes up and does anything is when Wolfgang (relationship unclear; this dancer also plays the evil magician) touches him.
Yes you read that right. The only time the prince gets up is when this other guy touches him. And they say the Bourne staging is homoerotic!
Classical ballet, choreographically speaking, isn’t really my bag. It’s a distinct art form that happens not to resonate with me. But by ‘classical’ I mean ‘19th century.’ A lot of the traditional ballets, the ones built on folktales and fairy tales, were made then and have persisted more or less unchanged unto the present day.
19th-century romantic storytelling, in my view, has a lot wrong with it. Short version: I like my romances to have happy endings.
Which leads me to the point of this particular ballet chat:
what if Swan Lake were not a tragedy?
Uh … what?
No, but listen! In my version, Siegfried is not a sickly dreamer doomed to a bad end; he’s a would-be scientist. (This could be expressed with a steampunk production design.) Wolfgang is his younger brother; they have a good if sometimes contentious relationship. Wolfgang is now a prankster who instigates some physical comedy throughout the ballet. He gets a lot more to do. (I’m seeing the Scottish Ballet’s Bruno Micchiardi here. In fact, Scottish Ballet? Do this plz.)
Act 1 is not about Siegfried dozing off continually when he should be acting as a co-host (and Act 3 is not about him trying out and rejecting potential brides; a full-grown prince in this earlier-than-1900 period setting would already be engaged/contracted to marry. More on that later); it’s about him doing prince things with a more or less willing heart, urged on by Wolfgang, who can’t get married until Siegfried does.
Yep: it’s a Taming of the Shrew, Kate/Bianca situation. The Queen, in this scenario, is juggling her two sons, Siegfried’s fiancee, and Wolfgang’s insistence that he should be planning his own wedding to this girl right here. The Queen also gets a lot more to do, in other words, which could include a trio with the two younger women.
Given that setup, with Siegfried already engaged, what if the romantic conflict is not swan-maiden-doomed-by-evil-magician but once-I-marry-my-scientific-hobby-ends? BUT what if his fiancee doesn’t mind the science, and they just haven’t talked about it? Because in this time period they don’t actually get a lot of time (or any time) alone for heart-to-heart conversations. This could be illustrated in Act 1, where they keep trying to have a moment and they keep getting interrupted.
SO what if Wolfgang sets up a scenario during the hunt (Act 2) where Siegfried can talk with his fiancee at the lake. Where there are swans. There can then be a real-life pas de deux that becomes a fantasy swan-infused romantic extravaganza. The swans, please note, are off-limits to the hunters. Siegfried has a thing for swans, which could be illustrated with a piece of scenery (tapestry or painting) based on the Swan Princess fairytale.
Act 3 then becomes a wedding ball, not a horse race between random princesses. There could still be some folkloric dances, plus another duet between Siegfried and his lady, plus a duet with Wolfgang and his lady, who are now officially engaged. We could still have the 32 pirouettes, or whatever it is, but it’s not an evil twin of dream maiden thing; it’s a frolicking contest among the ladies (and men) to see who can do the most. Maybe Wolfgang’s girl wins! Maybe Wolfgang does! It could be fun, in other words.
But what about Act 4? Instead of what is essentially a dream sequence/hallucination featuring lots of angsty yearning, ending with the swan maiden swept away to her doom and Siegfried’s death, how about another trip to the lake, but this time it’s everybody? Because Act 4 is all swans all the time (aside from the angsty yearning, which in the classical productions means a lot of Siegfried staring hopelessly offstage instead of macking on his girl).
This could be a wedding breakfast type of celebration in which swan dancers mimic human dancers (or vice versa). Maybe Wolfgang gets caught in a compromising position with his fiancee and they have to get married right away (oh darn) because OMG Outrage & Scandal. Maybe one of the guests takes a drunken shot at one of the swans and Siegfried starts a fight.
There needs to be some drama, to fit the music. But in my version, the ballet concludes with a reprise of the deservedly-classic Swan Lake Waltz, with happy endings all around.