Customer Reviews

Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Valery Gergiev conducts Swan Lake for the forces of the Kirov, now once again called the Mariinsky Ballet. A new generation of talented dancers carries on the great tradition of the house, recorded in high resolution video and audio. During the overture we are treated to closeups of the instrumentalists who will accompany the onstage action. It is great to see them for once.
When the famous curtain goes up, a dolly shot gives a sweeping sense of the stage; so far so good. The opening scene belongs to the jester, who first intruded upon the court of Prince Siegfried here on this stage nearly sixty years ago. With the brilliant clarity of blu-ray picture one longs to look the jester in the eye (one imagines that a young Putin looked like this), but he does not stay in one place long enough for the camera to get a good shot of him. In fact, it soon becomes clear that the production is afflicted by too many cameras. It is great that the Kirov could afford seven camera set-ups but the editor must think he is Orson Welles or Dziga Vertov. During the jester's entry he makes a five-fold pirouette, broken up into three different camera shots. What's the point?
I have compared this video with the 1990 film of the same production on the same stage. Three cameras seem to tell the story better than seven. One small detail shows the difference. After the Prince finishes his drink he tosses the goblet to the jester, who catches it deftly in 1990. Watch as one might, one cannot tell how the Prince gets rid of his cup on the blu-ray video. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
Kudos, then, to the conductor, orchestra, principal dancers, corps de ballet, sound engineers and producers of the blu-ray. As for the video editor, may he be banished to the frozen lake, not to return until he discovers a point of view. Any point of view would do.

I feel that I have to write this review because this is one of the most beautiful Blu-ray discs I have seen, both for technical reasons and because of the very high quality of performance and production served up by the Mariinsky Ballet. Let it be noted that this review is for the average ballet-goer, by one who has attended many ballets live in the theater, including Swan Lake at least twice, as well as watching on TV & video, but who is not schooled in the technical intricacies of this art. This review also incorporates the impressions of a professional classical musician with whom I watched this disc.

Our overall impression was that this was dancing of very high caliber; it certainly seemed to us to be executed with precision and elegance. I was especially interested in the way Act I, Scene 2, at the lake, was conceived. Much of this scene took place at an unusually slow tempo--not only much slower than we are used to in concert performances of the music alone, but also in comparison to most ballet performances. This imparted a serene, dreamy, contemplative, and mesmerizing aspect that I thought was very effective; and to see this is one of many justifications for viewing this disc. I did feel, however, that once the action began to pick up toward the end of the scene that the tempos dragged a bit, draining some of the excitement we usually feel at that point.

Conductor Gergiev certainly did not hesitate to hit the accelerator at other points in the ballet, although there were also a few other instances of more-leisurely-than-usual tempos. I noticed that most of these relaxed sequences occurred during Odette/Odile's solos, and I hope that this does not imply a technical limitation on the part of the prima ballerina Ulyana Lopatkina. More likely, I suspect, the ballet director and conductor (assuming they agreed with each other) had a concept of the character in which part of her allure was bound up in the spellbinding beauty of languorous movement. One could consider the tempo changes as almost a leitmotif for Odette. I also appreciated the fact that these swings from very slow to quite fast added an extra element of variety; and while extreme in some ways, they were gradual and sensitively measured, appropriate to the story line, and not simply thrown in for sensationalist effect. On the other hand, Tchaikovsky and Petipa themselves provided a lot of spectacle that could be considered gratuitous--all those wonderful show-off national dances in Act 2, for example. Here the pace is noticeably quickened, providing plenty of the requisite pulse-quickening we all expect. Act III was paced with urgency and power--I was actually choked up by the end.

Lopatkina was lovely, danced beautifully, and acted well enough. Danila Korsuntsev, dancing Prince Siegfried, was almost ideal, quintessentially princely, handsome, and the right combination of masculinity and beauty, as would be expected of pampered royalty. His acting was better in the smiling and swooning departments than it was in delivering anguish.

As to the look and sound of this production as delivered on Blu-ray, I can only say that it almost single-disc-edly justifies going out and buying a large-screen HDTV. The staging is traditional - thank goodness - and fairly lavish, with gorgeous costumes. The scenes by the lake have an appropriately blue cast; but the palace in Act 2 is very warmly lit and overcomes the tendency of TVs to lean toward the cool side. Camera work is fine.

Sonically, the surround sound is used subtly, being noticeable only in the applause. The overall sound quality is almost ideal. I have heard more spectacular sound on a few discs, and a few in which there was more sheen on the massed violins; but the stereo separation and apparent distance (not too close, not too far, and just reverberant enough) were well chosen, giving the effect of being in the audience only about ten rows from the orchestra pit. While there is a well-blended orchestral sound-stage, individual instruments are still heard with admirable clarity.

A lover of fine arts and the best of technology should put this disc near the top of his or her wish list.

...the video editor messed up and should be fired. Sometimes it feels like MTV because he is always switching between all those cameras. Is he trying to keep us from enjoying the dance??

This has become my favourite Swan Lake in the blu ray format.

In this production, they have managed to create absolute opulence with minimum fuss about the sets. The dances, dancers, costumes, videograpy and the whole approach to the work is just about near perfect. Unlike one of the reviewers, I am quite comfortable with many cameras.

Yes, Lopatkina does look anorexic, but her technique and elegance is magnificent.

I prefer this production to the much vaunted Paris Ballet with Letestu. They too have done with minimal sets, but these look drab and dull and recognizable as unchanged in every act with different backdrops(I have both). The corps de ballet is just as good in both, and Letestu is just as impressive to watch (in fact visually, she makes better viewing than Lopatkina), but Danila Korsuntsev makes a far better prince than Martinez in the Paris production.

The first act in this production makes a world of difference between this and the Paris version, which is dull by comparison, in fact the whole of the Paris production has a depressive aura about it throughout which makes it a bit of a drag.
Gergiev in this production, does a better job with the orchestra too, which is recorded beautifully.

Lesser said about the 'glittering' Royal Ballet the better, in comparison to both these...

I would choose this production over all the others as of date.

The Swan Lake production by the Mariinsky (formerly Kirov) Ballet is fantastic. The video transfer to Blu-ray brings the quality to an even higher level. This is by far the best ballet video I have seen among Blu-ray and DVD formats.

Performance : 5
Video Quality: 5

I am still looking for a Svetlana Zakharova performance on a Blu-ray disc.

I purchased this blue ray and have been very impressed. The dancing is superb, as to be expected considering the source. You would be hard pressed to find better visual quality, and the music is impeccable. My only complaint is that this version of Swan Lake has a 'happy ending'. The music and story dictate tragedy. It should have been played out with a double suicide, and it wasn't.

A beautiful presentation of the most classic ballet of all, in the theatre where it was born! Very nice extras with british ballerina Darcey Bussell telling the story of the ballet and showing the difficulties of many of its parts. For the sound enthusiasts: don't get too excited about the DTS Master Audio feature, because you'll only hear hand clappings from the surround speakers anyway.