“It’s a mesmerizing ballet,” said Cervilio Miguel Amador. “Truly magical.” Amador, artistic director of Cincinnati Ballet, is talking about “Swan Lake,” which will hit the Music Hall stage Feb. 13-21.
Besides being “mesmerizing,” “Swan Lake” is wildly popular. This marks the 16th time Cincinnati Ballet has performed “Swan Lake” or portions of it. The audience’s appetite for it seems insatiable.
What’s not to love? The ballet’s score – by Tchaikovsky – is one of his most memorable works. And the plot is a high-drama, goose-bumpy ride that sits somewhere between Shakespearean and soap opera. It’s filled with super-heightened emotions; unrestrained passion, betrayal, evil and even a magic spell or two.
There are other so-called “white ballets,” but “Swan Lake” is in a world all its own.
“I think every professional dancer should have the experience of performing ‘Swan Lake’ at once in her career,” said rehearsal director Dale Shields, who has taken on the formidable task of rehearsing the corps de ballet – the chorus.
I call Shields’ work “formidable” because, unlike many ballets, where the corps is often dismissed as “background,” the women in the “Swan Lake” corps are the dramatic heart of the work.
First, it helps to know a little more about the plot of “Swan Lake.” The women in the corps are swans because of a spell cast on them by a sorcerer named von Rothbart. But they are only swans during the day. At night, they return to human form.
But, as it turns out, life as a swan is dangerous. A group of hunters come to the wood determined to shoot the “swans.” Just as ominous, one of those hunters is a prince who is smitten by a swan princess named Odette. Now, the swans have to deal with hunters and von Rothbart’s jealousy.
This is when the corps de ballet become most important. They create a phalanx to protect Odette. They race in circles, they hurtle back and forth across the stage, they form an impenetrable shield against all the threats that loom up against them. They are, as Amador said, “mesmerizing.”
I don’t want to read too much into this image. After all, the world was a completely different place when “Swan Lake” was premiered in Czarist Russia in 1877. But it’s hard not to feel something akin to the rightful fury of the Me, Too movement when this group of 20 or so women – swans – take on the males who are determined to destroy them. They are no longer maidens living in 19th century Russia. They are strong-minded, all-powerful women willing to protect themselves at all costs.
“It’s very empowering,” said company member Salomé Tregre, who is performing “Swan Lake” for the first time. “You can feel the strength of this group of women when we rely on each other. You have the feeling that we are all-powerful.”
“You can feel the camaraderie,” said Tatiana Melendez, who joined the company in 2023. “Everyone really gets into it. It’s like a sisterhood. You know, a lot of times the corps is forgotten. But with ‘Swan Lake,’ being in the corps is very rewarding.”
But achieving that level of power is not a simple matter. Ballet training is all about developing individual expertise. But for the “Swan Lake” corps to be a potent onstage force, they have to feel like every movement they execute came from some collective decision.
“It’s all about the details,” Shields said. “It’s about the angle of the head, the position of the body, the way they move their arms. They’re supposed to be birds, right? So when their arms move, they have to look like they might fly at any moment. You can’t just flap your arms up and down.”
That’s why Shields spends so much time on those seemingly tiny details. When 18 swans are in a perfectly straight line on the stage, just one dancer whose head is tilted a few degrees higher than the others will throw off the power of the image.
The issue isn’t if these dancers can do it. They are professionals, after all. A common misconception about members of the corps de ballet is that they don’t have the chops to cut it as soloists or principal dancers. The reality is that today’s corps dancers have abilities that far exceed those of dancers of just a couple generations ago, even principal dancers. These corps members may vary wildly in experience, but they all have the requisite talent to do the job.
Shields’ job is to take this group of individuals and shape them into a single organism with its own character and temperament. It’s a painstaking process. But the result is worth every bit of the effort.
Without the dramatic weight provided by the corps, “Swan Lake” would be little more than a hodgepodge of short duets and quartets linking together a flimsy storyline. There’s a reason why they are called the “corps de ballet” – the phrase translates as “body of the ballet.”
Nearly 20 years ago, Victoria Morgan, now Cincinnati Ballet’s artistic director emerita, explained, “If we don’t perform ‘Swan Lake,’ it doesn’t survive, it doesn’t live. And in my opinion, ‘Swan Lake’ ought to live and it ought to be performed. That’s why we do it. And why we will do it again and again and again.”
‘Swan Lake’
When: Feb. 13-21.
Where: Springer Auditorium, Music Hall, 1241 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine.
Tickets: $50-$150.
Information: 513-621-5282; www.cballet.org.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: How the ‘body of the ballet’ makes ‘Swan Lake’ stand out in the flock
Reporting by David Lyman, Special to The Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
