Perhaps the most challenging task for any adaptation of the classic work is how it inherits the essence of the original performance and at the same time transcends the past with something brilliant and new. Swan Lake, the classic of all classics, makes such a task unimaginably difficult and the audience almost impossible to please. As Sir Peter Wright, one of the famous contemporary choreographers for Swan Lake once said, artists and choreographers need "rethinking and reliving"Swan Lake for present day audiences.
Hong Kong Ballet's Swan Lake with additional choreography of John Meehan, Carlo Pacis and Selina Chau has successfully given the audience a memorable theatrical experience: it is faithful to the original story, skillful and graceful in delivery and the chorographical changes made are convincing and meaningful.
In Act I, the original Pas de Trois has been replaced by Pas de Quatre.
Personally, I appreciate this fresh creation. Unlike most Swan Lakes, in which two courtesans dance with only one male friend of Prince Siegfried's in order to cheer him up, this one portrays a more equal position of male and female. As the prince's two friends spin with their lady company, it creates a harmonious scene, symbolizing the happiness and importance of monogamy, which the prince later on pursues and pays a huge price for. The new Waltz by Carlos Pacis succeeds in creating a joyful atmosphere in the courtyard without overdoing it. The Waltz gives warmth to the melancholy prince and its formality captures the kernel of his royal life—glamorous and cheerful from the outside, yet solemn and routine from the inside.
As is generally acknowledged, ballerinas are the soul of a ballet company. Hong Kong Ballet's cygnets are accurate and funny, swans elegant and beautiful, the European princesses aristocratic and proud. One of the dangers of doing classical ballet is that it can very easily become purely technical. The ballerinas successfully avoid such danger by integrating their feelings into every single move they make in the performance. The white swan, portrayed by a very young ballerina Wu Feifei, is particularly impressive - she is in one with the soft, sad and lonely swan queen, and therefore is able to convince the audience of the swan queen's doubt in herself and her lover. Her performance was exquisite, subtle and poignantly beautiful.
My only reservations lie in the sound effect and the end setting. Everyone will have to admit that Tchaikovsky's great scores never fail. They tell powerful stories on their own. The fact that no orchestra played Tchaikovsky live for the performance was disappointing enough for the audience and the sound was not adjusted to the point where people could totally immerse themselves into the music. The last image on stage was not forcefully enchanting to capture the beauty of the romance—the swan queen and the prince's image was not given sufficient lighting behind the veil to show their reunion in another possibly more hopeful world. Instead, their figures were blurred and dim, leaving a negative prospect for the entire performance. Such last touch of the performance leaves much to be desired. Minor the two factors may seem compared to the excellent performance of the ballerinas, for the public, Swan Lake, the quintessence of great ballets, demands perfection in every aspect.
「看舞‧析舞‧論舞——舞蹈賞析及評論寫作計劃」由國際演藝評論家協會（香港分會）和香港舞蹈聯盟合辦及統籌。
本網站內一切內容之版權均屬國際演藝評論家協會（香港分會）及原作者所有，未經本會及/或原作者書面同意，不得轉載。