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Review

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake is his third modern interpretation of a classical ballet for Adventures in Motion Pictures, one of Great Britain's most popular dance companies. This is the complete London West End Show that toured around the world.

In Act 1, the ballet opens in Prince Siegfried's bedroom as he has a nightmare of the sexually intriguing swan above his bed. The next few scenes are of the Prince's life - the parties, his girlfriend and a trip to a Victorian ballet. After the ballet the Prince and his girlfriend have a terrible fight and he follows her to a Soho club. At the club we glimpse a swell flirt with and go home with a sailor - our first indication that this is no ordinary ballet. In Act 2 the Prince lands on a park bench, drunk, sad and alone. He spies some swans and proceeds to enter their lives in a spectacular dance sequence. The lead swan (Cooper) dances an intensely sexual duet with the Prince. They almost kiss, they flirt and chase each other. The other swans dance shirttless and sweaty around the two as the Prince is enticed into the swan's world. The swans, including Cooper, wear frilly pants and no shirts - which emphasize the intense sexuality of the piece. Act 3 there is a to-do at a party where a young man courting the queen looks a lot like the Swan causing an altercation! The Prince is distraught and in Act 4 he becomes quite ill and dies suddenly in his bed - behind the bed the Swan is holding his handsome young Prince as he finds peace at last.

This quote is from an interview with Matthew Bourne:
Q: How has the casting of a male dancer in the role of the Swan changed what is after all one of the great romantic ballet fables? Is this a gay Swan Lake?
A: I certainly would not deny that it can be read in this way, but I would suggest that we have gone for something much simpler and more universal. AMP's Swan Lake is about a man with no love in his life. he is rejected by his unsuitable girlfriend; his mother, the Queen, cannot express affection for her son yet flaunts her young lovers in his presence; and his restricted lifestyle makes it impossible to connect with people without the threat of scandal.

The Swan represents to the Prince everything he wants to be; strong, beautiful, and free. He is a kind of alter ego that reflects the mood or state of mind that the Prince is feeling. Their relationship does, however, have a very powerful erotic charge, and, this is important - the lure of the unknown (we should after all remember that the Act II duet is a dance between a man and a bird!)

In purely physical terms the height of the relationship is when the Swan lifts up the Prince and wraps him in its wings, like a child. This is the single most important image in the whole piece because it is so simple and so universal - the need to be held - and everyone can indentify with it.

 -- Scott Cranin