A fairy tale tragic and glassy to lose the reason

This famous Swan, before becoming the noble scenes volatile, began his career as a lame duck. Back to basics... In 1875, the Bolshoi in Moscow theatre command to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ballet music, a first for the composer. Two years later, "Lake of swans" see the day, inspired by Nordic legends where the Princess turns into a great white bird. And a mournful Warrior a Lake of tears... A profound melancholy marks this work, which expresses more the sensitivity of Tchaikovsky was well meant. Cleverly, the composer gives a musical colour to each character. But this is total misunderstanding with successful choreographer, Reisinger. As the conductor of the time, it is too difficult partition: in the end, one-third of the composition is trap! How will the Swan to float

"Contrary to conventional wisdom, the creation in 1877 is not a failure without appeal," says the dance historian-journalist René Sirvin." In fact, if critics have been bad, it is primarily because the choreography. The music of Tchaikovsky certainly have surprise, deemed too Symphony, but it is, ultimately, who assured the posterity of the "Lake". "The ballet will be given forty-six times in six years - a pace honourable, even if the success of"La Bayadère", created the same year in St. Petersburg by Marius Petipa with the composer Minkus, Eclipse.

Deadly side

He must wait until 1895 for "Lake of swans" began its (large) real life: Petipa, precisely, French choreographer installed in Russia, takes the book with Lev Ivanov. It considers incoherent booklet, the rework, and asked Tchaikovsky even changes. He will never see the result, dying before the first. Petipa invents the Black Swan, Ivanov imposes his vision of Act II with the large variation of Odette and the dance of the swans. "This Act gives the deadly side of the ballet," summarizes René Sirvin. Add the two facets of a same character, the Nice Odette and Odille bad bird bodes... and you have a masterpiece.

According to Brigitte Lefèvre, Director of the Paris Opera Ballet, "" Lake"in calls to the legend and intelligence." His drama is quite simple and readable. "But above all, his music can be associated with no daily: it refers to the exceptional". In many versions known Ballet, it also respects the partition and Act II. For the rest, everything seems allowed: for example, make dance Odette and Odile - yet a single, although character double - by two dancers. Mats Ek, Swedish choreographer, sees in 1987 skull swans shaved, interpreted by boys and girls. As the English iconoclast Matthew Bourne, there will not by four railways: the "Swan Lake", created in 1995, situates the action to the Court of England with an openly gay Prince. And its Swan of Devil with feathers panties sexy males. A triumph. Even Flemish controversial artist Jan Fabre gives its vision: he opts for the sampling of the music rather than entire and slides some indented images, such as disturbing OWL.

On the merits, it is mainly the role of the Prince who wins in thickness: Rudolf Noureev stated bluntly: "the Prince must appear as a human being who has lived a dramatic experience, and not as a head without brains simply raise the star dancer!" In his version from Petipa and Ivanov for the Opéra de Paris, in 1984 and the directory always has, Siegfried becomes a figure torn between reality and the fantasy world symbolized by the swans.

Attraction out of standard

Bertrand of At also based on the nature of the character "confronted with its anxieties, facing a romantic attraction out of standards". And John Neumeier also gives another magnitude to the Prince in his 1976 replay, "by relying on the legend of Louis II of Bavaria, repressed homosexual", recalled René Sirvin. But that can not be wrong not, it is still this Swan woman that the public wants to see.

The dancer star of the ballet of the Opera of Paris Agnès Letestu a lot of tenderness for the Swan: "There is in the character of sensitive correspondence with contemporary dance." These arms returned to the wings, for example, it is very different from the academic work. "Modernity, according to her,"through precisely the centuries ".

Chills and dizziness

And then this "Lake" is somewhat a personal case, also: "This was my first grand ballet in four acts," she says. And it is this role of Odette-Odile that I have been named star. This ballet made me somewhat. For a performer, the role reserve moments of frisson, when you're alone on stage, a light on you continuing. And in the entries of each Act, one can feel a surge of adrenaline. I am delighted to be dancer to know these moments, which verge on Vertigo.

It be so as soon as Monday the Opera Bastille and Noureev for the first of the resumption of the "Swan Lake". A version that many observers consider the more hard directory. "This is Noureev which imposes this vision of a woman dancing, rather than a disembodied dancer who goes the virtuosos arabesques", still says Brigitte Lefèvre. With its fine drama - there are the happy ends in other reviews-, "Swan Lake" is necessary as the black Ballet jewel. A fairy tale tragic and glassy, to lose the reason.