A new production by the Cuban Loipa Araujo, "Una noche en el lago", was performed last May to commemorate San Isidro's feast. This production included excerpts from acts I and IV, and the full acts II and III of Swan Lake

Great expectations. It is amazing to have again Tamara Rojo and Carlos Acosta in the leading roles only one year after their magnificent performance of Romeo and Juliet in the Festival de El Escorial. Madrid's audience responded with anxiety to the call and tickets were sold out in fifteen minutes time.

I personally don't like performances outdoors. Ballet performances indoors are full of advantages that get lost in the open air. No doubt, to dance The Lake on a lake is full of suggestions, but the sense of magic and of privacy that the audience and the dancers have when a performance with the right lighting and the right atrezzo takes place, when furtive and at times suppressive access of dancers to the stage is allowed by theatrical tricks, disperse in parks or sports centres. What would Giselle do with no grave, the Sylphide with no chimney or, in this particular case, Odette's spirit in Sigfried and Odile's engagement celebration, if the theatrical lights and shadows of the stage where not there to cheat the audience?

It is true that the platform and the walkway built on top of the lake of El Retiro evoking the aquatic performances held when king Felipe II reigned were very nice, the setting was splendid. And it is true that the occasion merits more flexibility from the critics: management was a success, the performance gathered hundreds of people, the old saying “There are no ballet fans in Spain" has been overcome. But I have to admit that the production was not the best.

The worse

The lighting: there were low spot lights directed to dancer's legs, of mauve and pink, somehow excessive and loud. TV broadcast on a local channel, Telemadrid: it seemed an amateur job; the director couldn't focus on a particular dancer, dancers run across the stage much more quickly than he had expected. Cameras upstage showing TV audience dancers backs, as if they did not know that ballet was originally designed to be seen from the auditorium. The costumes: after the second revolution on ballet costumes leaded by designers like Franca Squarzafigo or Christian Lacroix ¨The first, that of Diaghilev and his Ballet Ruses at the early decades of twentieth century, the costumes the Russian dancers wore seemed inadequate, poor and un-fashioned.

The reasonable

Ballet of Lithuania Company. It was not bad, but it wasn't good enough. I do personally prefer other schools of dancing, but it is fair to say that Russians perform character dances amazingly, with whole heart. But this is not the case with lyric parts, it seemed that rehearsal lacked. I didn't like the production either. It is not only because the version was abridged; in this case it didn’t matter at all, the story-line was perfectly understandable. But this abridgment affected the aesthetics. For instance, one of the most beautiful dances of act IV that deserves to be performed not only because of the choreography but also because of the music (the swans au tour de la salle, developpé, developpé....), disappeared. And another personal opinion: I rather have the romantic version where either Sigfried alone or Sigfried and Odette die. I don’t like the light and happy version. Do not forget this is a romantic ballet, although of the late Romanticism.

The very best

And the raison d'être of this article: Rojo and Acosta or Acosta and Rojo. The complicity of this couple, the energy they give us, their expressiveness, the continuity of their movement is absolutely magnificent.

With their dancing Petipa's and Ivanov's choreography made sense: the vivid contrast between the white Romanticism of the second act and the academic virtuosity of the third; the never-ending lines of the second act pas de deux and the coupé lines of the third act pas de deux; the privacy of the second act versus the openness of the third. The white and the black.

This ballet requires great versatility of the principal ballerina role. The transfiguration from a sad and captured swan hopeful for a promise of marriage to a treacherous, false and unscrupulous actress in only a moment is not easy. I believe that all is said about Tamara Rojo's abilities. I cannot say more than this: the duality Odette/Odile comes naturally in her. And I know that I cannot say more of her spin (her fouettés, series, single, single, triple!), of her feet, of her never-ending balance; of Acosta's amazing ballon, of his magnificent plié, but in this occasion, I can add, that I saw a new and a wonderful image of Tamara and Carlos when all was over: they went off the stage through the walkway as two old friends, talking about their own problems after a hard working day.

by fotoescena,

©2007Covadonga de Quintana

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