The ballet Swan Lake exists in perpetuity. About hundred and fifty years after its premiere in 1878, the ballet has been restaged, modified, and adjusted to different cultural currents. Every new production of this legendary ballet puts itself in a dialogue or, at times, in confrontation with its historical versions. The ballet’s story about the struggle of love against doom supported by the poetic power of Tchaikovsky’s music incites the imagination of choreographers, artists, theatre designers, and, not least, the public. New productions emerge every season to confirm that Swan Lake belongs to the unfading classics.

The Swan Lake in Teatro Massimo in Palermo created by Jean-Sébastien Colau, artistic director of ballet company in Palermo, in collaboration with Vicenzo Veneruso, is an act of faith in the continuity of classical tradition. Raised in the School of the Paris Opera, Colau believes that form and rhetoric of classical ballet remain pertinent to many if not all cultural concerns. His experience of dancing as a soloist with several European and North American companies, those include the Paris Opera Ballet and The National Ballet of Canada, provided Colau with important understanding of multiple traditions in which theatre dance produces its dramatic effects.

Hence, his vision of the dance tradition is essentially theatrical, gripping the public visually and emotionally. In this respect, Marius Petipa or Lev Ivanov, Petipa’s right hand in creating the vision of the swans-women’s languishing lines, would concur with Colau’s approach to the Swan Lake of 2026. Creating Swan Lake for the magnificent Teatro Massimo, a powerful stage set in its own rights, Colau was not afraid to be searching his ideas within the traditional structures of the story, such as sorcery, a noble hero, the succession of power as well as drawing contrasts between the colorful court life and the lyrical lakeside scenes. Moreover, he looked for the emotional arc of his Swan Lake directly in Tchaikovsky’s music. Setting up the ballet in the second part of the nineteenth century, closer to Tchaikovsky’s historical time, converted the gothic story of love between the prince and the swan-princess into a late-Romantic tragedy, in which ideals clash with reality.

The Palermo staging did not seek, however, to restore the 1878 sequence of musical episodes, that is virtually irretrievable now, or it followed the order established in the 1894 staging, a canonical version of Swan Lake mounted by Petipa and Ivanov after the composer’s death. It simply allowed Tchaikovsky’s tragic vision of the world be heard again and along with a different setting of the story. The solid and generous support of the orchestra led by Nicola Giuliani let the choreographer and his dancers live it through fully.

The tragic vision of the world found in Tchaikovsky’s music is extended by the scenography designed by Francesco Zito. The traditional painted sets adduce Tchaikovsky’s music with the atmosphere of palatial grandeur, the immensity yet fragility of power, pressures of the hereditary succession in the court scenes and the elegiac mystery in the lake scenes. The silvery tonalities of the lake sets are particularly conducive to the soaring formations of corps-de-ballet making the delectable visual tableaux in the white scenes. Zito’s sets accomplished by means of pictorial illusionism are enhanced by masterful lighting design by Bruno Ciulli. The stage and light design delicately frame the dancing action evolving on stage without excesses of projective technologies so perniciously spread in theatres today. The costumes designed by Cécile Flamand respond harmoniously to the visual setting in each act adding historical touches to the ball costumes. Her classical white tutus in the lake scenes acquired more breathable, fluttering sensations as well.

 Along with Zito, Cécile Flamand’s costumes highlight the chronological placement of the action in the mid-nineteenth century, somewhere around the historical extinction of the old aristocratic order and the dawn of modernity. The ballet begins with a funeral procession of the sovereign of the unnamed principality and ends with the tragic death of the heir along with his beloved. The final tableau depicts the ruling widow anguishing over the two dead bodies and brings a tacit sign of the ending to a family, or even an epoch. The imaginative though elusive associations could be drawn here to the history of Sicily, the mysteries of its lavish palaces, its rich literary tradition, and the silent grandiosity of Teatro Massimo’s architecture. Yet these tacit allusions do not need to be fully explained as ballet’s generic poesis requires something unspoken, even unreasoned sense that dance projects.

Already in 1933, in her restaging of Swan Lake, Agrippina Vaganova along with the librettists of the Kirov ballet shifted the action of Swan Lake from its quasi-Gothic background to the 1830s, the Romantic period. Striving to save the “old” repertoire in new ideological constrains Vaganova astutely sensed that the era of Romantism would link the music more tightly to the convoluted libretto. She also re-made the encounter between Siegfried and Odette in the lake scene into a dancing conversation rather than a mimed story. Vaganova’s version was severely criticized by critics for its excessive realistic detailing, however, her choreography left a significant imprint on the interpretation of the roles of Odette and Odile for future generations of dancers. 

How does Colau’s choreography complement this setting? In the first scene, the celebration of the prince’s birthday, Colau focuses on the character of Siegfried, sculpting a personality from a generic type of noble prince. Colau’s Siegfried is a youth tormented by the death of his father. He broods in isolation over the piano. The elegantly invented mise-en-scène in which Siegfried plays the elegiac Autumn from the piano album The Seasons confirms the grounding in Tchaikovsky’s music, which in many ways defines Siegfried’s angst. In another episode, the same music becomes a sign of true friendship between Siegfried and Benno: one leaves the melody where the other picks it up. It does not matter that Siegfried’s solo might recall how John Cranko turned this melody into the Lensky’s monologue in his ballet Onegin. These references flip back to the same source, that of Tchaikovsky’s sensation of sadness. 

The celebration of Siegfried’s maturity already breathes precariousness. Von Rotbarth, a scheming minister at the court and presumably a sorcerer in his free time, appears at the celebration upsetting the jovial mood of the youth. The duet between von Rothbart, craving for power and wealth, and the widowed queen, a suffering woman under the façade of coldness and propriety, hints to their relationship hidden from the public eye. The atmosphere of the late nineteenth-century court life changes the characters of Odette and Odile to aristocratic women, who come on the stage in ball gowns, later changing into tutus. Benno, Siegried’s friend, a character from the original libretto of 1878 and later left out from many twentieth century versions, is restored to the plot as a loyal and supportive friend to Siegfried. 

As choreographer, Colau prefers neoclassical language in  pas auctions in ball scenes, creating fluid formations, elegant use of high lifts, and appealing to the eye angles in positions. The dancing action is rarely frontal but preferably diagonal and spiraling. The corps de ballet is portrayed as a distinct group of noble youth attending a social event, rather than performing choreographed formations. Benno’s duet with the unnamed lady in waiting becomes a logical substitute for the famous pas de trois composed by Petipa. Choreographic form of this pas de deux becomes complex and dynamic. In terms of narrative, Benno’s happy stance attenuates Siegfried’s loneliness, thus making the latter more prepared to be mesmerized by the unknown lady in the white, whose visit to the ball suddenly rocks his imagination. The lady in black in the second ball scene equally astounds him, confirming to Siegfried’s characterization as a pure Romantic hero who lives by emotions rather than logic.

 Odetta, who appears in the first act, flees the palace as soon as she runs into the sinister Rothbart, whose vile nature reveals itself also in his sexual innuendoes with the queen. Rothbart’s choreographic description, beside his controlling glances at Siegfried and the dancing youths is not remarkable in his solo variations. I should add here that making Rothbart into a dancing character of a psychological scope beyond wickedness is daunting task.

Colau’s choreographic erudition shines particularly in the second act. The scene is set up as a gathering of haute society around the period of the Second Empire, where proprieties, honor and pride disguises voluptuousness and desires. Giving to the brides’ presentation to the court only an episodic role, Colau moves to the characters dances—the Spanish, Hungarian, Napolitan, and Polish, making them new and luminous. In the Spanish and Hungarian sequences presented by female soloists, dancers act as enticing entertainers for the male attendees of the ball. In the Napolitan sequence, the couple swirls the floor in a fiery tarantella that gives this short musical episode distinct spatial exploration. These “foreign” insertions are the entertaining delices, supplied by Minister Rothbart. They bedazzle guests and fuel the excitement towards to the fatal appearance of Odile. Before, however, Colau concocts the whimsy, all-male mazurka where the virile spirits fly along the lines of tailcoats. His balanced merging of the ballroom dances with the neoclassical steps and formations in ball scenes is visually compelling. Balls, however, make only a half of the action in this ballet.

The swan scenes in the Palermo version are unapologetically traditional and lyrical. And as such they take breath away from the audience. Firstly, and foremostly, Colau demonstrates a tactful treatment of the original, that of Lev Ivanov’s dance-image of a woman-swan expressed in languishing arabesques, flaccid long necks with tilted heads, delicate feet steps, and the singing lines of corps de ballet. (The collaboration between Ivanov and Petipa on the iconic staging of Swan Lake in 1895 is a subject to many special studies in dance history that we will leave aside here). The duet of Odette and Siegfrid along with the pas de quatre and duo of swans are mostly preserved in classical version with the slight stage adjustments necessary for the actual production. 
The second critical component of the lake scenes is the excellent work of the corps de ballet dancers perfected by the team of ballet masters led by Agnès Letestu, etoile of the Paris Opera ballet. No question, that Letestu’s artistic experience and her personal sensitivity to performing the lead in Swan Lake contributes to the poetic structure of the “white” scenes, in which corps de ballet is an extension of breath, cries, and whispers of the soloist. And thirdly, the scenography designed by Zito, particularly, the mirroring surface of lake extending the stage and the subdued tonality as if seen in the gas light of the nineteenth century theatre, augments the sensation of the magical, phantasmic, untouchable reality as in the dreamworld. 

In the scene of the ballet, Colau pays particular attention to the visual geometry of corps de ballet’s lines. The quiet resignation of swans expressed in various formations mirrors the despair of Odette and remorse of Siegfried, and most resonantly Tchaikovsky’s vision of the uncontrollable destiny. The longer version of the last scene, one that is often sacrificed for a quicker denouement in many current versions, brings the lingering sensation of the unattainable happiness that lies in the core of Romantic tragedy. No love or remorse could stand against the inextinguishable evil that runs the world for Tchaikovsky. Odette and Siegfrid die from the hand of Rothbart. First, he shoots Odetta with Siegfrid’s bow, then, he throws Seigfried into the stormy lake. The cinematic sweep of the last scene makes the sensation of theatre complete.

The strength of this production of Swan Lake in Palermo builds on the integrity of its theatrical action, faithfulness to the musical dramaturgy, choreographic and visual consistency of production. The team led by Colau was not afraid to find their inspiration in the historical allusions, making them emotionally and visually convincing. More than a significant part of this accomplishment belongs to the dancers of the company who ardently embraced the challenge of immersing in academic choreography. Seeing two different casts (three would be a preference) allowed to appreciate different ranges of interpretation espoused by the current production. Between the two Odettes that I saw, I preferred a lyrical and subtle interpretation of both Odette and Odile by Martina Pasinotti to a technically impeccable yet emotionally reserved dancing by the etoile of the Dutch National Ballet Maya Makhateli. Pasinotti has a potential to enlarge her presence in this role; it feels already she can make it hers fully. Andrea Sarri from Paris Opera Ballet danced Siegfried with both Makhatelli and Pasinotti, but how differently he made this role in two evenings. Giving that technical aspects of the role pose no problems to Sarri, he delved into the process of interpretation becoming a poet listening to every emotion of his Odette with Pasinotti and, in contrast, a courtly proper and inquisitive of his own self with Makhateli. Diego Millesimo (the 22 of January) and Andrea Mocciardino (the 23 of January) made suggestive interpretations of von Rothbart, the role that requires a solid stage experience to project character into each step and technical element. Benno danced by Alessandro Cascioli Diego Mullone the opening night gave his Benno a veritable personality. Simona Filippone and Debora di Giovanni, who was also an excellent soloist in the duo of swans in another cast, powerfully yet differently interpreted the role of Queen Mother, a dancing role in this version.