I recently watched an excellent DVD (from Netflix), Great Pas de Deux. It had some marvelous scenes from great performers at their peak.
Although I had not heard of the performance before, there was a scene from Swan Lake with not only the prince being a male dancer, but also Odette and all the swans. Leads were danced by Cooper and Ambler.
I believe myself to be open-minded, but I’ve got to admit that this was a tiny bit difficult to accept at first. Some part of my love of ballet is enjoying the beautiful ballerinas, but I have to admit, these two guys were so damn good that my wife and I were both fascinated. The set was outstanding too.
Has anybody seen this ballet in its entirety, in person or on film? What are your opinions. I don’t know if I could really take the entire story.
'Zat sound like what you saw? Universal threads being synthesized and all? Yeah, I can see where two hours of that might be a bit much.
Male dancers doing the ladies’ parts is nothing new–I refer you to Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. That wonder of the world, Youtube, has a number of clips of them, doing Swan Lake, no less. Lovely stuff.
I’ve seen the male Swan Lake. I quite liked it. Some homoerotic subtext is unavoidable, but there’s nothing overt going on between the prince and the swan. Those swans are overtly, aggressively male, which is closer to what you’ll actually experience if you’re ever up close with a hissing, flapping, pecking swan defending its territory.
That’s it, but what I saw was amazing. Thanks for quoting the review, it was edifying.
Oh yeah, I’ve seen them, and they are hilarious Really good and talented parodies, but the male Swan thing was dead serious. Worth the experiment, I guess.