wednesday.

[sunfright]

For some reason I'm just not feeling my usual formatting these days...

I wanna talk to you about Swan Lake.


Like most people, Swan Lake was one of my first introductions to ballet. I think the image of Odette, the white swan, is one of the most recognisable figures from the ballet repertory and no doubt the one most people would be able to place. Funnily enough, I don't remember what version was my first introduction to Swan Lake, I think it might have been the Mariinsky one off YouTube, but it could also have been the Paris Opera Ballet version with Agnés Letestu. Time has muddled the details here.

However, less so in terms of the first Swan Lake I saw live. It was when the Royal Danish Ballet premiered Hübbe's new, grand one in 2015. It was actually the first time I saw Holly in a leading role and she was my first Odette/Odile. She's a better Odile than Odette, never quite in tune with the poetry the white swan needs, but honestly I just think Swan Lake is too dreary for her tastes... Especially the RDB version which is very dark, steampunk-ish and gritty.

The other Odette/Odile I saw that year, by way of a cinema relay, was J'aime Crandall and although underwhelmed upon first viewing, having watched that recording many times since, I actually think she makes an amazing Odette and a good Odile, not quite in equal measure, but good enough to be interesting and engaging to watch. I especially love the amazing royalness of her Odette, reminding me very much of Letestu, actually... She isn't quite as tall and long-limbed, her neck especially doesn't have the length that would make it a "real" swan neck to look at, but she is beautiful anyway.

You can see for yourselves.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Her Odile, likewise, has some amazing details, even if she isn't technically as fluent as some Odiles I've seen.

Watch on YouTube

I think, especially, it's her use of arms that makes my balletomane heart sing. I love a ballerina with great arms.





Speaking of arms, I have one major ballet regret. That is that I never got to see Susanne Grinder in Swan Lake before she retired. I don't remember her being cast in the premiere of Hübbe's version (although she did dance Odette/Odile in the version they did before, it was the role she was promoted on and where I read about her first) and the next season, she was only cast twice, whereas I missed her first night and the second night, she had gotten injured and Ida Praetorius substituted. I have never been so disappointed in my life. I really just wanted to see the ballerina with the perfect arms be a swan on stage.

This season, if Stephanie gets cast as Odette/Odile, I'm definitely going to see that. No matter what.

Swan Lake was also the ballet that got me started writing original fiction again in Danish. Back when the ballet premiered in Denmark, I wrote a whole poetry collection inspired by the image of the black swan. I have it translated into English over here on my writing journal. It's partly about a black temptress figure and partly about mental illness, be warned. It's a dark piece of writing.

Example:

You turn off the television, before the curtain call commences, you hear no one clap. The final act is more short-lived. It’s how it goes. It’s how it is supposed to go. You are surrounded by things, many things, heavy things, things which pull at you and wear you out, you are surrounded by people in white. Their opposites shroud you. The greys do and the nuances of black, but in their whiteness those people hold you back, they make slow progress. The final act is constantly the short-lived one. This is the way it was, this is the way it must remain. This is the way you prefer it.

For some reason, I've never written anything substantial about the white swan, although I love her. Maybe I should do that over winter and have a few poems ready that I could send to Stephanie if she gets cast in the role, as a debut present. I've done that for both Susanne and Holly in the past.

Would be something to work on. In Danish for once.