Comparison video recordings:
Evelyn Hart, Peter Schaufuss, London
Festival Ballet, Danish Radio SO, Graham
Bond. [Chor. Makarova/Petipa/Ashton]
(110 minutes) ArtHaus Musik 100 438
Natalia Makarova, Anthony Dowell, Royal
Ballet, Sadler’s Wells Orchestra, Ashley
Lawrence, [Chor. Petipa/Ivanov/Ashton/Nureyev]
(128 minutes) Pioneer Artists Laserdisc
PA 02 018. Also available on NTSC Region
1 only Kultur DVD D-1408.
Comparison sound recordings:
Antal Dorati, Minnesota SO. (112 minutes)
[ADD mono] Mercury Living Presence 2-CD
289 462 950-2
Maurice Abravanel, Utah SO. (115 minutes)
[ADD] Silverline DVD Audio 288235-9
André Previn, LSO, EMI (156 minutes!)
[ADD] EMI 5 73624-2.
When someone congratulated
Tchaikovsky on the success of his Nutcracker
ballet, he reportedly replied angrily,
"I gave them a masterpiece in Swan
Lake, but all they want from me
is fluff." In 1876, the year of the
Ring’s Bayreuth premier, Tchaikovsky
had Wagner on his mind, and he wrote
his own story of Siegfried but in the
familiar Russian fairy tale mould of
the young man bewitched on his wedding
night. Although it consists of separate
dance movements, the work begins in
B minor, ends in B Major, and all the
themes are linked together to produce
a Dance Symphony in a sense similar
to Wagner’s Vocal Symphonies.
It was probably the
political context which caused the astonishing
count of 89 curtain calls at the opening
night of this 1964 Vienna production,
Nureyev’s first public appearance after
his defection. But it must be admitted
that when Nureyev and/or Fonteyn are
on the stage, nothing else is noticeable,
an experience unlike any other ballet
video I’ve ever seen. Fonteyn’s performance
calls to mind descriptions of great
ballerinas of the past in the swan role,
yet here she is in the flesh before
us. The first frame of this video is
a close-up of Nureyev’s face and you
can see that he has the most prominent
cheek bones, longest eyelashes, biggest
reddest lips, and coolest eye shadow
of any other person on stage. When the
camera pulls back, you see he also wears
the tightest tights and the most meticulously
form-fitted chemise. It seems that there
are more solos for him in this version
of Act I than in the others, or maybe
they’re just more memorable. When Fonteyn
joins him in Act II you forget they’re
dancers and think they’re pantomime
actors, they tell so powerfully the
story of the bold hero and the frightened
maiden gradually succumbing to his charms.
Then when Fonteyn appears as Odile in
Act III you wonder how Siegfried could
be fooled because everything about her
is different. Not just her facial expression,
but her whole body language and style
of dancing has changed. For the evil
Rothbart’s appearance in this scene,
it appears that an actor chosen for
his massive square physique, a wrestler’s
body, is chosen to pantomime him, since
he has actually no dancing to do. For
Rothbart’s dancing scenes, we see a
slimmer dancer in the usual very elaborate
costume, probably too difficult to remove
and refit in time to begin Act IV.
This version has the
most unhappy ending of all. The usual
ending has the lovers committing suicide
together and flying up to heaven on
the back of a great swan while Rothbart
collapses and dies, and I’ve seen it
staged just that way. The Ashton version
has a real brawl on stage between Siegfried
and Rothbart over the Swan Queen. The
lovers defy Rothbart and run off while
the little swans gang up on the stricken
Rothbart and tear him to pieces. When
the lovers appear on the swan boat it’s
not clear whether they are in this world
or the next; you can believe what you
want. In this Nureyev version, the stage
is realistically filled with water,
huge billowing waves of blue, purple,
and black fabric. Siegfried, after a
piteous, horrifying struggle against
the waves, finally dies alone watching
his beloved swimming away following
the triumphant Rothbart. I guess Nureyev
was used to a world where evil always
wins.
Much of the choreography
is new for much of this version and
the corps have difficulty at times;
even though, according to the notes,
this recording was made two years to
the day after the premier, more rehearsal
for such a radical production would
likely have improved things. Or perhaps
the corps realise nobody’s going to
notice anything they do and they just
didn’t put themselves out. Sets and
costumes are great, but not a lot better
than the other video versions. The sound
is extremely clear and wide range, and
there is little difference to be noted
between the dts surround and the pcm
stereo heard through a surround decoder.
But the conducting, while perfectly
effective as accompaniment, is lacklustre.
You wouldn’t want the sound track from
this production to be your only recording
of the music. Apparently the sound was
recorded at a dress rehearsal ten days
before the performance, and then the
film was edited to this sound track;
there is just the barest trace of stage
noise now and then, but no audience
sounds or applause at all. There are
no curtain calls on this disk. If what
you were hoping for is a journalistic
record of that historic night, this
is not it.
The picture is very
clear. It looks like live high resolution
video, but the notes claim it was filmed,
and at rare times one can see a grain
or two of salt and pepper on the screen
typical of even the best filming. Although
a single filming date is given, one
can deduce that at least two performances
(or rehearsals) were filmed, and probably
a third to set up for close-ups and
other camera angles, which are many
and imaginative. Video direction is
generally good; you’re usually, but
not always, looking where you want to
be looking. For instance, after meeting
Odile, Siegfried apparently follows
her off stage to wait for their duet.
In real life, if the Prince and Princess
together disappeared from everyone’s
sight for ten minutes unchaperoned,
then they’d have to get married. To
summarise, this is a great, but not
good Swan Lake. A must-have for
the incredible dancing by the stars,
but otherwise not the best.
The Hart/Schaufuss
video version is overall the best, even
though the two principals come nowhere
near the skill of Nureyev and Fonteyn.
But the sense of ensemble, the drama,
the musical performance, and the resemblance
to a traditional version, this version
is superior. Schaufuss dances Siegfried
in complement to his friend Benno, a
sort of Narcissus and Goldmund pair,
where Benno is all fun and life and
Siegfried all agonised, lonely, sensitivity.
Here the water effects are created with
laser back projection which don’t quite
come across on the flat screen, but
must have been very effective stereoscopically
in the theatre. For the video, these
effects are enhanced with montage. If
you must have just one video version,
buy this one, but try to borrow the
Vienna version to see it at least once.
Every university and dance school library
should have it.
The Makarova/Dowell/Ashton/Royal
Ballet version is, at this writing,
available only on an NTSC Region 1 DVD
from Kultur. The musical track is the
best of all, the dancing of the corps
probably a bit more precise and graceful
than the Viennese; the choreography
includes a first act solo for Siegfried
devised by Nureyev and the Ashton finale
as described above. The production is
nearly monochrome in design and attempts
by the engineers to enhance the colour
result in odd balances. However once
you adjust for realistic flesh tones,
you get used to the subtlety of hue.
This is also a fine version with a satisfying
ending.
The Dorati audio only
recording is Tchaikovsky’s original
1876 score complete, so it should be
the best one for appreciating Tchaikovsky’s
innovation in musical form, although
it features rough, astringent sound
and a "serviceable" performance on a
par with Lanchbery’s. The Abravanel
recording features a superb performance
and excellent authentic surround sound
which will sound best if you have a
DVD-Audio player but can be played at
slightly lower fidelity on any DVD player.
The Previn version, with excellent performance
and sound quality (it was released on
SQ quadraphonic disks and may some day
appear as a surround sound DVD-Audio
or SACD), includes some additional music
Tchaikovsky wrote (or was adapted by
others from music Tchaikovsky wrote
for other occasions) for subsequent
productions accounting for its nearly
44 minutes of additional music; however,
no one, least of all Tchaikovsky, ever
expected all this music to be used in
one production. All other versions make
some sort of selection from among what
is available, which accounts for the
varying lengths.
Paul Shoemaker
Details
of the new DVD releases of the Deutsche
Grammophon Unitel range
Mitglieder des balletts der Wiener Staatsoper
DEUTSCHE
GRAMMOPHON UNITEL 073 4044[115.00]
