Swan Lake (Ballet) [1877]

Oh yeah, Tchaikovsky! We've been on kind of a ballet jones for mysterious reasons. ;)
Mostly because we watched Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev, and saw the link to a production of Swan Lake. I liked the music, but I couldn't remember if I'd ever watched it all the way through!
So we watched it. By the way, this mysterious 'we' refers to me and my sister.

One of the things I liked about Romeo and Juliet was that not too much time was spent on dances that did nothing for the plot. There were a few, like at the ball, or in the town square, but most of the time, the plot was very well paced. While I really enjoyed Swan Lake, I have to say that dang. About three quarters of it was just people dancing around and not doing much for the plot.
But hey! This is ballet, and when you go to see a ballet, you want... well, ballet. I'm not a huge dance person myself, so maybe that explains why I got a bit bored during the loooooooooooong stretches that were random dances.

My other issue with this otherwise totally awesome and heartbreaking ballet is pretty minor, but still. So we all know the famous Waltz, right? Well, I was expecting it to play during the ball where Odile is magically disguised as Odette! The Waltz is an amazing piece of music. It's romantic and elegant, but there are moments of great tension and even distress too. So fitting for a scene in which the prince thinks he's confessing his love to his princess, but is actually being tricked! So that's where I thought it was used.
Turns out, it's actually used in Act 1, at Prince Siegfried's birthday party. A scene that isn't really that tense or romantic or any of that juicy stuff. But like I said, that's probably just me. :)

So anyway, the plot is simple. On the night of his birthday, Prince Siegfried is out hunting in the forest and comes across a beautiful swan, who turns into a mournful young woman. This woman is Princess Odette, who was turned into a swan, along with all her friends, by a wicked sorcerer named Rothbart. The only way for the curse to be broken is for her true love to confess their love to her. Of course, she and Siegfried fall in love, and he invites her to a grand ball to celebrate their love. At his ball, he'll ask her to marry him. Rothbart gets wind of this (because he has the lake bugged?) and uses magic to disguise his daughter Odile as Odette. At the ball, Siegfried confesses his love to Odile, and realizes his mistake when it's too late. He rushes to the lake, where he and Odette dance for the last time. Things end with Odette drowning herself in the lake, and Siegfried joining her in death- since I guess sacrificing their lives together is the only way to free the rest of the swans from the curse. Or just because everything must end in suicide with ballet.

So I guess I can see why they had to pad it out with a LOT of dances, but I like it. It's a simple, but heart-wrendingly tragic story.

And the music. Holy Shnikes the music! I mentioned the awesome Waltz, but there's also the lively Coda (to which Odile does her famous spin-ny thing!), the Dance of the Little Swans, and my personal favorite- the music that plays over the finale!

The Verdict: A
Romeo and Juliet is still my favorite ballet, but this one is a very close second! The plot may be simple and stretched out with additional dances, but it packs a hefty emotional punch. The music is amazing, and takes a pretty good story and makes it a magnificent story.

Here are some of my favorite dances and songs. :)

Romeo and Juliet (Ballet) by Sergei Prokofiev [1938]

So we watched this ballet to kind of help us get a good mental image for the pieces we're playing in orchestra, and we ended up getting really attached to it. I mean really, this is a totally awesome ballet.
First off, the music is pretty good. Not all of it is masterpiece-level, but a good much of it is! Stand outs are...
The Dance of Knights; which we just covered in a post! This song is very oppressive, and mainly used as music during a ball at the Capulets, but it also reappears during some very tense fight scenes!
Masks! This song is kinda goofy sounding, and it plays during a fun scene when Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio are sneaking into the Capulet's party! On a darker note, when Mercutio is fatally stabbed fighting Tybalt, a riff from Masks plays, but this time in a somber key.
Before Parting. Omigosh, this piece!! This one has got to be my favorite song in the whole ballet, and plays during Romeo and Juliet's last pas de deux before he has to leave (this is after he kills Tybalt in a duel, and is subsequently banished). The strings sound like a rainfall, and it starts off with a very pretty little flute solo that repeats a few times, each with something slightly different. There is a really pretty viola solo, too! The pas de deux is closely followed by an amazing musical interlude that plays as Juliet makes up her mind to go to Friar Laurence and concoct a plan for her and her husband to stay together. This part is gorgeous, and has some really good brass action. In the suite, Before Parting and this Interlude are in the same track (as well as a later snippet that plays as Juliet contemplates and uses the potion), and it's amazing.
Aaaaanyway, I didn't think that I was a huge ballet fan, but I recently watched this one (obviously) and Swan Lake too, and I've come to really like some things about it. Like how much can be conveyed just through the combination of movement and music. There are is also at least one instance where the staging echoes the Shakespeare dialogue. At least in the staging we saw, I know there are two major choreographies for this ballet, and the one I'm talking about is the newer, more used one. Anyway, the way Mercutio's death was staged was so cool. Romeo and Tybalt end up on separate ends of the stage, with Mercutio in the middle. About to die from his wound, he struggles to keep his balance. He gestures violently towards Romeo, then towards Tybalt- as if to say "A plague 'o both your houses!", and then he collapses, dead. Chills, man. I got chills.
The following fight scene between Romeo and Tybalt was so incredibly tense. Romeo's actor was moving so fast, and swinging his sword with such raw fury and devastation- it was really good.

The Verdict: A
My only complaint with this magnificent adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy is that it ends with the suicide of Juliet, omitting the making of peace between the families. But as my sister pointed out, it would be super hard to do a talky scene like that in ballet pantomime style. So that's not even a huge issue. Prokofiev's score is wonderfully emotional and colorful. Listening to his other music, it seems that his dominant style is kind of wacky, but his quirky, modern style works well with the story and it comes to life. True, not all of the music is the same level of quality (sometimes it gets a bit random and weird), but the score, combined with the amazing choreography make this a really enjoyable ballet.