Swan Lake review

“Plenty of bang for your buck”

ReviewsJun 14, 2024by Siobhan MurphyRoyal Albert Hall, London

The English National Ballet's Swan Lake in-the-round at the Royal Albert Hall. Picture: Tristram Kenton

Grand reworking of the world’s favourite ballet remains a breathtaking spectacle

The sheer logistics of Derek Deane’s go-big-or-go-home, in-the-round production of this ballet favourite boggle the mind. Scores of guest dancers are drafted in to fill the vast space – the pas de trois is turned into a pas de douze and four cygnets into eight, so that every side of the auditorium gets a fair viewing. And, most famously, there are 60 swans for the white acts, fluttering in almost militaristic lines and geometric patterns as the dry ice swirls. You certainly get plenty of bang for your buck.

This is the ninth outing at the Royal Albert Hall for a production first seen there in 1997, and it’s still holding its own. As Gavin Sutherland takes the English National Ballet Philharmonic – perched high above the stage – through its paces, the arena fills with action for Prince Siegfried’s birthday: townsfolk, courtly couples, jugglers, tumblers. The Italian principal Francesco Gabriele Frola is a pensive presence as Siegfried, made decidedly more moody by his mother’s insistence that he choose a wife. There’s a real sense of angst in his first solo, which is quite something to achieve in a production at this scale.

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Swan Lake review

Frola’s swan queen Odette was supposed to be the Brazilian Fernanda Oliveira but, due to injury, she has been replaced by the Mexican junior soloist Ivana Bueno. What a way to make a debut in a role – but at least she’d had in-the-round experience as the lead in ENB’s Cinderella, and she embraces this mighty challenge beautifully.

She’s fast and flighty as the surprised swan queen, and suitably cowed by Fabian Reimair’s evil sorcerer Von Rothbart and his enormous sweeping wings. But she also manages to find moments of slow movement and stillnesses that convey a young woman caught up in a romantic whirl and daring to dream. The massed ranks of tutu-ed swan maidens, tip-tapping their bourrée steps in impressive unison or lined up like human shields to protect their queen, can rather obscure the lead couple’s duet – but Bueno nails her solo on this most exposing of stages.

It gets even better in Act III. As Odile, the black swan doppelganger who tricks Siegfried, Bueno is fiery, disdainful and scheming as she tears into her seduction routine, eyes constantly straying to Von Rothbart. And Frola throws everything at the grand pas de deux – huge leaps, furiously fast manège around an astonishing distance. Come the happy, love-conquers-all ending, you can’t take your eyes off them.

Production Details

Production nameSwan Lake

VenueRoyal Albert Hall

LocationLondon

Starts13/06/2024

Ends23/06/2024

Press night12/06/2024

Running time2hrs 50mins

CreatorDerek Deane

ComposerPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

DirectorDerek Deane

ConductorGavin Sutherland

ChoreographerDerek Deane

Set designerPeter Farmer

Costume designerPeter Farmer

Lighting designerHoward Harrison

Cast includesAdriana Lizardi, Alison McWhinney, Anna-Babette Winkler, Claire Barrett, Daniel McCormick, Eireen Evrard, Emily Suzuki, Fabian Reimair, Georgia Bould, Henry Dowden, Julia Conway, Ken Saruhashi, Michael Coleman, Noam Durand, Precious Adams, Stina Quagebeur, Carolyne Galvao, Erik Woolhouse, Francesco Gabriele Frola, Giorgio Garrett, Matthew Astley, Minju Kang, Rentaro Nakaaki, Rhys Antoni Yeomans, Jung ah Choi, Ivana Bueno, Edvinas Jakonis, Haruhi Otani, Breanna Foad, Alice Bellini, Anna Nevzorova, Emilia Cadorin, Ashley Coupal, Álvaro Grande, Sam Hague, Christopher Patfield, Alex Morton, Ericson Mitchell, Jonathan Finch-Brown, Thomas Razey

Stage managerAlix Nicholson

Deputy stage managerPippa McLauchlan

Assistant stage managerIzzy Thurston, May Curtiss

ProducerEnglish National Ballet