Saturday, 11 January 2014
Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake
Swan Lake at Sadler's Wells, December 2013
Having read about this ballet (it was first performed almost 10 years ago in 1995) and watched a programme on Matthew Bourne, I was thrilled to actually see a performance in London, at Sadler's Wells recently. It is magnificent! A fresh and contemporary interpretation.
I found the parody of romantic/classical ballet, a vignette included in the ‘Prince’s tip to the theater with ‘the girlfriend’, most amusing. It made an apt point, ballet, when it is performed with artifice becomes an empty ritual that is devoid of real human feeling and meaning, visually attractive with no substance. This can be true for all art forms, painting can be superficially pleasing, but a true work of art will resonate, strike a chord, make you see something in a different way. Matthew Bourne has breathed new life into the ritual that was Swan Lake and given it new life and meaning. Brilliant!
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