Of course Rudolf Nureyev’s performance was one of the best.
@nellybly beat me to it as far as preparation:
Once I was invited backstage right after a ballet, and everyone was indeed pretty damned sweaty. (I can’t imagine who would go back there just to heckle or pick a fight with the dancers! That’s insane, but maybe there is some sort of toxic fandom element.)
Have any of you seen the all-male Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo? I saw them several times, decades ago, and didn’t know they were still performing. If you get a chance, don’t miss them.
Yes, I was wondering if it would be too facetious to suggest another sort of swan;
So how did it go? Do tell!
Wow, what an experience!
We arrived early and, to our surprise, was invited (along with everyone who arrived early) to a talk by one of the choreographers, Robert Binet, and Ben Rudisin, the dancer playing Siegfried in the next performance (i.e. not the one we were about to see). It was very informative and fun. Some of the highlights of what we learned:
- To balance tradition with trying to add contemporary relevance, Siegfried’s birthday includes a gay couple dancing together at the party, more faces than just white, etc… He assured us this would be done in a way that was not distracting (I’m sure to preempt the eye rolls from the woke-averse). I can report he was correct - it was all fine and a nice touch.
- Karen Kain*, the director, wanted the swans to evoke more humanity than swan-inity. One of the ways she did this is to have the dancers not wear tights - bare legs, so we can see the dancers’ human muscles. Interesting.
- Kain added two named characters: Siegfried’s sisters Celia and Elizabeth. This was in honour of Celia Franca, the founder of the Canadian National Ballet who staged its first Swan Lake in 1955, and Betty Oliphant, co-founder of Canada’s National Ballet School. The sisters are listed as such in the program, but I could find no references to the women who inspired their inclusion. We would only have known this by attending early (ETA: it is also mentioned on the web site, from which I filled out some details here I forgot)
- The music accompanying Odile’s pas de deux was an earlier version by Tchaikovsky because, Kain believed it better suited the dramatic direction she was moving towards (see the spoiler below)
NOTE:* If you are around my age living in Canada, even if you know nothing of ballet (like me) you know who Karen Kain is. It was a pleasant surprise to be, so very indirectly, a part of her story.
With that primer, the synopses I had already read, as well as the links you all provided, I was more than prepared to enjoy the evening. Well, except for this: our seats were very close to “nosebleed” territory, so I picked up some fancy looking opera glasses - which I left on the kitchen table. No matter, the view was fine - almost dead centre though a bit farther away than ideal.
Overall the experience far exceeded expectations. The venue was dizzyingly big. We were in ring 5 - the highest elevation. Looking down evoked the magnitude of Hoover dam. Before anything started, the stage was almost completely obscured by a massive pair of wings. When the performance started they were partially separated for the brief prologue (a devastatingly shocking depiction of Rothbart’s capture of Odette - I literally gasped!). The wings were then pulled away for the rest, keeping the tips visible. We learned from the pre-talk this is a symbol of Rothbart’s ever-present evil enveloping the events of the story.
As I suspected, the music alone was worth the price of admission. But hearing it in the context of the story added more than I thought it would. What was formerly a nice tune I heard on my trusty ol’ cassette now has extra meaning and I have extra understanding.
And the dancing! Simply stunning. There were some parts that seemed stretched over time, but for the most part a delight to watch, completely captivating, and a wonder to contemplate. The first time we meet the swans by the lake was a tour de force of patterns, athleticism, synchronicity and precision, colours, power and poetry. Rothbart sported a menacing winged costume with a 16’ articulated wingspan. How he danced in it is amazing, as is how no other dancers were clipped by their at times wild gestures.
There was one thing I was looking for that I didn’t see (and I lay this entirely at my own feet; my own ignorance/naivety). In the movie Black Swan, Natalie Portman’s character was praised by her coach/director for nailing the role of Odette but falling short in her portrayal of Odile. The criticism was along the lines of “your technical proficiency is perfect for Odette, but Odile requires a sultry/sexy ‘letting go’ of form in favour of passion” kinda thing. I thought I’d be able to see such a stylistic difference. Frankly, Odile’s time on the stage was smaller and less significant than I was expecting - not taking anything away from the performer (Odette/Odile was performed by Svetlana Lunkina - who also appeared on all of the promotional material including the massive billboard above the venue’s entrance).
I wish I had more nuanced or detailed insight to share with you about the dancing. I only just learned what a fouetté is (amazing, BTW). One thing I noticed: my cassette listening featured, what I now understand to be, interpretations of the music alone. For example, in the Russian Dance, the violin player on my cassette was more expressive - playing with the rhythm more liberally than the closer-to-the-metronome we heard at the ballet. I presume this is because dancers need an even meter to dance precisely to.
I also see, now, how a ballet works structurally - moments of story telling punctuating diegetic excuses to have a string dance numbers. Is this typical? It retroactively improved my enjoyment of Cats - when the Jellicles performed for Old Deuteronomy (an odd comparison, I know - don’t judge).
As for the ending…
I thought it was “canon” that Odette committed suicide at the climax of the iconic Swan Lake theme - with to the interpretation that she broke the curse on her own terms. I’ve read some variations that Siegfried follows suit, and in other variations you see the pair ascend to a happily-ever-after in the hereafter. During the pre-talk the choreographer did not want to spoil the ending. I’m glad he didn’t because it was truly horrific!
Under Rothbart’s control, the swans attack and kill Siegfried - repeatedly kicking him to death. The scene ends with his lifeless body face down centre stage - kicked one last time as the body limply rolls face up. No heavenly ascension. No happy ending. Odette remains alive and still cursed. Rothbart wins. The brutality of the attack (highly stylized in dance, of course) left me jaw-dropped!
I was surprised by how few stood during the curtain call. Though this was my first ballet, I attend many, many musicals, symphonies (and other works of “classical” music), and sometimes plain old plays (looking forward to this year’s Stratford Festival!) My default response at the end of each is to stand (there have been exceptions) and I thought surely this performance was worthy of a standing O. I stood nonetheless and clapped my hands red.
Very nice description, thanks, and it sounds like a wonderful event!
But yeah, not everybody does standing ovations for every performance, or even every very good performance. I’ve decided that I’m down to about the last ten “critical” standing O’s of my lifetime (of course I’ll still participate in any number of “honorary” standing O’s, for a children’s performance or a farewell performance or to honor some kind of courageous principled act etc. But from now on when I stand to applaud based purely on my opinion of the performance, it will have to be one of the ten best performances I’m ever going to see over the next, oh, 25 to 30 years if I’m lucky).
How do I prepare for my first ballet?
This thread is not what I expected. I was going to suggest that you should take some lessons.
So glad you enjoyed it!
Those pre-performance talks are often enlightening, sounds like the one you caught definitely was.
I’m not Canadian but have heard of Karen Kain; great to know that she’s doing good work behind the scenes now.
Yes, “variations” and “divertissements” (the “string of dance numbers” that you noted) are typical in ballet; some ballets are less story-driven than others. For example, in the 2nd act of The Nutcracker and the final act of Coppelia, not much happens, but the visit to the Land of the Sweets and the wedding of Franz and Swanhilda provide a frame for variations and divertissements.
I have to admit that I teared up just reading about that non-canon ending, so I can imagine how stunned I would have been to see it performed. If I’d been in the theater I might have been too dazed or disappointed to stand for an ovation.
They’re not as dramatic as Swan Lake, but Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker have gorgeous Tchaikovsky music too. Here’s a page you may find interesting: Best ballet music: 12 greatest scores of all time - Classic FM
One ballet that isn’t mentioned much in terms of great music is Don Quixote; the music is lovely, though, and the dancing is spectacular:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fKxzQ8ARTQ&t=155s
Comparable to the balance of recitative and arias in opera, or dialogue and song-and-dance in musicals - though the big numbers do distil/emphasise some key point in the emotional development of the storyline, and if it were all storytelling or all big numbers, it would be something different.
In a game of grass lot touch football many, many years ago, I, who had played tight end in high school, ran a pattern against a chum who did ballet who had never played football before. Ran my pattern, the pass came in like a guided missile, and the defender jumped up from behind me and kicked the ball out of my reach. Brilliant, if not legal in the NFL.
Don’t feel bad. The ballerina I used to date put a whoopin’ on me one time (in jest). I asked her not to tell anyone. 
She had an illustrious career. I knew her when she was a company member of the Florida Ballet. Trained under Ruth C. Petrinovic, she also danced with the Birmingham Ballet and Israel Ballet. She’s performed principal roles including Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Taming of the Shrew and others.
She also taught dance and dance history (Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers), and is a multi-published author of romance novels. She designs jewelry, too.
I’m quite proud to have known her.
No, that’s not me behind her. 
Well, you SAY that…
I had more hair.
Well, you SAY that…okay, I’m done, apologies all around
Wow!!! Thank you for sharing that thoroughly excellent review! I would’ve stood and applauded too!
Ballet is the subject of a comic strip today.
https://joshreads.com/2022/06/mostly-unpleasantly-horny-tuesday/
It made me wonder—do men still wear tuxedos to the ballet, or is that a dated trope?
Hilarious 
I went “business casual”. None of the men I saw was remotely tux-clad (and there were very few men).