The return of Tamara Rojo to the Teatro Real, for the first time as artistic director of the San Francisco Ballet, has allowed the public of the Madrid coliseum to enjoy the king of the classics, ‘Swan Lake’, performed with utmost perfection and captivating everyone the audience, who stood up and applauded the end of this Friday’s performance among braves.
With the performances taking place until October 22, Rojo makes her debut in Spain as director of the company and in which Heigl Tomasson’s choreography, inspired by the original by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, gives new light to the character of Odette.
“It is a great responsibility,” he said in statements to Europa Press on the occasion of this premiere, in which he already stated that the performance in Madrid gave him “peace of mind” as he met “the audience, the theater, the technical and artistic team and the great quality of the orchestra”. In his love affair with Real, Rojo starred in the first and last performance of ‘Giselle’ (2019) and choreographed ‘Raymonda’ (2023), in addition to participating in the ‘Estrellas de la Danza’ gala (2009), among other performances.
Tamara Rojo has been at the head of the San Francisco Ballet since June 2022, when Helgi Tomasson – after 37 years at the head of the company – left the position, closing his last season with the production of ‘Swan Lake’ that will be can be seen now at the Real, in eight performances that began on October 15 and conclude next Tuesday.
The dancers Sasha de Sola, Wona Park, Nikisha Fogo and Jasmine Jimison alternate in the interpretation of the main role Odette/Odile, accompanied by Aaron Robison, Wei Wang, Max Cauthorn and Harrison James, who play Prince Siegfried, and Nathaniel Remez , Jakub Groot and Rubén Cítores who play the evil Von Rothbart.
Released in 2009, Tomasson’s choreography offers a new version of ‘Swan Lake’ that approaches the story from another perspective, bringing the plot closer to new audiences to make the narrative more understandable. This is the case, for example, of the explicit prologue about the figure of Odette and her destiny.
This performance maintains, however, the classical heritage of ballet and respect for the original choreography, with a production that has a minimalist scenic design and sophisticated costumes by Jonathan Fenson who, supported by lighting by Jennifer Tripton and Sven Ortel’s projections, achieve great scenic effectiveness, while expanding the visual limits and assembling the whole in such a way that the story is elegant and contemporary while still reflecting the centuries-old themes and emotions of the work.
‘Swan Lake’ presents a story full of elemental dichotomies, in which even the protagonist is an incarnation of that duality: Odette, the innocent white swan, and Odile, the manipulative black swan, are played by the same dancer. In life and on stage, swans are both beautiful and fierce, and conveying the nuances of the stark contrast between the feminine archetypes of Odette and Odile is one of the greatest artistic challenges for a dancer.
For all these reasons, ‘Swan Lake’ is one of the emblems of the company’s repertoire, accompanied in the pit by the Main Orchestra of the Teatro Real directed by Martin West, musical director of the San Francisco Ballet, with the exception of the days 17 (5:30 p.m.) and 21 October, in which the musical part will be performed by maestro Ming Luke.
The production also includes the participation of young students from the Carmen Amaya Professional Dance Conservatory, selected in Madrid by the North American company.
The world premiere of ‘Swan Lake’, choreographed by Julius Reisinger, took place at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow on March 4, 1877. On February 8, 1895, Petipa-Ivanov’s production premiered at the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg.
Already on September 27, 1940, it was premiered by the San Francisco Ballet with choreography by Willam Christensen at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco.