Sunday Independent, South Africa
By Robyn Sassen
Swan Lake on Ice is spectacular in prowess and cliche, a magical love story in which good and bad is easily recognised and the power of good prevails.
Swan Lake on Ice is composed by Pyotr IIyich Tchaikovsky and choreographed by Tony Mercer with set by Eamon D'Arcy, costumes by Albina Gabueva, lighting by Gavan Swift and musical arrangement by Tim Ducan.
The combination of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake with the spectacular novelty of an ice show is like Walt Disney in triple tone - Tchaikovsky's music alone is schmaltzy and popular enough, the ballet has all the bland and fluffy parts that make up an easy-to-read tale of good and evil, love and magic. But the ice is the cherry on top. This show is one of those spectacular achievements that leaves you with a glut of saccharine that flavours your smile as you leave.
It's an undeniably beautiful and flawless production, from the ice dancing and the sets to the spectacular surprises that animate this story of half-human, halfswan and the hold of love as well as the hold of curses. The work is marred, how
ever, by mechanical dancing which often dilutes the strength of its scenes - everything is spot on in its precision and accuracy, but there is a soullessness about some of the dancers' interpretations which leaves one feeling dry.
But, the infectious and delightful stage presence of Andrei Penkine overrides this. In the role of Benno, the loyal friend of Prince Siegfried, who's there with him through thick and thin and never gets the girl or the credit, Penkine injects personality, blood and flesh into his character, which is palpable even from across the vast sea of audience in the Teatro.
Coupled with extraordinary ability on the ice, he holds the show together with his asides and anecdotes, even though they are purely balletic; the language of human gesture is universal.
The one pas de deux that stands out in terms of its exciting drama and extraordinary balance of opposites is the confrontation between Odette, the swan (Sharutenko), and Rothbart, the evil magician (Klykov). The two spar for their lives with passion and difficult, violent and beautiful-to-watch choreography. Costumes generally break with traditional practices, drawing from the Romanov period in Russian history, which dates back to the turn of the 19th century and is specific to the time in which Tchaikovsky composed.
They're also modernised; there's a sense of 1920s western dress in the swans' costumes, which gives them an added quality of the ephemeral. The baddies in the tale are generally more interesting costume wise, and the two black swans on stilts with lights attached to their costumes enhance the sense of mystique dramatically in the swans' underworld.
Swan Lake is a difficult work to engage with critically for two reasons. First, because it is so clichéd, it begs to be spoofed; there are several scenes that for me have already been deliciously corrupted beyond redemption by dancers in drag and other subversive takes on the music.
Second, because it is so clichéd, mainstream audiences view it with a kind of religious awe; it represents Beauty and Culture with capital letters. And you will always find the uneducated audience members clapping at irregular intervals throughout the show either in response to steps they deem to be particularly pretty or difficult, (always reminding me of applauding at a horse show), or because of pauses in the music, which they deem to be pauses for applause, but they never are.
That said, in this production, adulation is appropriate: the producers have not stinted on the magic and the massive project of this show will sweep you away on the promise of a swan feather.