Taiwanese choreographer Allen Yu (余能盛) set himself a massive undertaking for his annual Chamber Ballet Taipei (台北室內芭蕾舞團) production this year — restaging Swan Lake (天鵝湖).
The tale of the enchanted swan princess is a make-it-or-break-it production for a company because of the unity of line required of the corps de ballet, the famous variations for the leading lady and because, outside of The Nutcracker, it is probably the best-known classical ballet even among non-ballet goers.
Swan Lake was first performed by the Bolshoi Ballet in 1877 to a score composed by Peter Tchaikovsky and choreography by Julius Reisinger, but the best-known versions of the ballet are based on the 1895 revival choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov for the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg to a score that was revised by the theater’s conductor, Riccardo Drigo. Choreographers have been tinkering with and revising the ballet ever since.
Photo Courtesy of Chamber Ballet Taipei
The Austria-based Yu said staging Swan Lake would not have been his first choice for this summer’s production.
“At the end of last year I didn’t think I would choose this, but the public and our sponsors asked me to do it. So I pushed myself,” he said in a telephone interview on Monday.
He finished revising the music in February, but did most of the choreography once he arrived back in Taiwan on July 1.
Yu’s version of Swan Lake has four acts, plus an introduction to explain how Odette was changed from a princess into a swan by the sorcerer Von Rothbart. He said he also changed a lot of the choreography, partially for dramatic reasons and partially to adapt it to the size of the company and the technical level of the dancers.
In addition, Yu added an extra princess in Act I — a cousin who Prince Siegfried is pressured to marry — to explain why the prince wants to rush off to go hunting.
“I have respect for Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanson, so I didn’t change Act II very much, I kept most of the white ballet,” Yu said.
“I went back to the original story … and like the Russian versions, I have a happy ending. Otherwise, after Act III people find the ballet really boring. I have made it really tense,” he said.
He said the Western versions of the ballet, where Odette dies in the end — usually by throwing herself into the lake because, having been betrayed by the prince, she was condemned to remain a swan — did not make much sense to him.
“She’s a swan, she can swim, so how can she die?” he said.
Yu said he decided to have Odette help save the prince when he is almost defeated in the climactic battle with Von Rothbart.
“It is more logical, better for the 21st century,” he said.
Swan Lake is the biggest production he has done for the Chamber Ballet Taipei. The company was expanded to 46 dancers, 10 more than he used for Giselle in 2011, and as guest stars, he brought back Cristina Dijmaru and Bordan Stefan Canila, soloists with the Bucharest National Opera Ballet, who starred in last year’s Romance — The Music and The Destiny of Tchaikovsky (羅曼史 ～ 柴可夫斯基的音樂與人生). Yu also invited their colleague, Valentin Stoica, who is only 25, but already making a name for himself, to dance Siegfried to Dijmaru’s Odette/Odile.
Yu is still a bit bothered by his flock of swans, noting that most companies try to use dancers of a uniform shape and size. Given the slim pickings for ballerinas in Taiwan, he couldn’t be that choosy.
“There are 26 girls … they are all different sizes, but they all have good feet. I had to choreograph to cover their weak points,” he said.
Yu’s Swan Lake had its premiere in Greater Kaohsiung on Aug 3, the first time the company has performed there, before moving on to his hometown of Greater Tainan last weekend and in Greater Taichung earlier this week.
The troupe finishes up its tour at Taipei’s Metropolitan Hall this weekend, accompanied by the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra (國立臺灣交響樂團), which will be conducted by Dirk Kaftan, whom Yu worked with for many years at the Graz Opera House in Austria.
Yu said audience reaction so far has been very positive, with people saying they liked the added tension.
“I tried to make it not boring,” he said.
What: Swan Lake
When: Tomorrow and Saturday at 7:30pm, Sunday at 3pm
Where: Metropolitan Hall (城市舞台), 25, Bade Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市八德路三段 25號)
Admission: NT$400 to NT$1,500; available at NTCH box offices, online at www.artsticket.com.tw and at 7-Eleven ibon kiosks
It has been 26 years since Nicholas Gould hosted his last Issues and Opinions radio show for ICRT a recording studio on Roosevelt Road. He remembers the familiar ‘whoosh’ as the door to the soundproof room closes and recognizes the carpet, but the recording equipment is gone, with half of the space being used for storage. Gould is filled with nostalgia as he greets his guests, two financial writers who are here to discuss Taiwan’s post-COVID-19 economy for his new podcast, Taiwan Matters. Gould had been thinking of revisiting his old career for a while, but being allowed access to
The 22nd Taipei Arts Festival (臺北藝術節) opens tonight with three productions, a slightly scaled-down pandemic version that seeks to keep its tradition of big ideas, challenging programs and international connections alive and moving forward in an increasingly uncertain world. The theme of this year’s festival is “Super@#S%?” — as good a term as any when descriptives and superlatives seem not only inadequate, but somewhat irrelevant in a world where so many people cannot imagine being able to return to theaters, either as performers or audience members — they are too worried about having a job and their health. Technically, however, it is
Shuanglianpi (雙連埤) is both a Hakka outpost and a place of great ecological interest. The conjoined body of water from which it gets its name is the centerpiece of the 17.16-hectare Shuanglianpi Wildlife Refuge (雙連埤野生動物保護區). No waterways of significance fill or drain this scenic lake in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山鄉). During the 1895 to 1945 period of Japanese rule, the colonial authorities — struggling to secure Taiwan’s foothills — encouraged Han people to settle in areas adjacent to indigenous communities. Around 1910, a 49-year-old Hakka pioneer called Tsou Cheng-sheng (鄒成生) from what’s now Taoyuan decided to begin farming at
Wild Sparrow (野雀之詩) is simple and extremely slow paced, told through the eyes of Han (Kao Yu-hsia, 高於夏), an introspective, shy grade schooler who lives with his great-grandmother in the verdant countryside. Han has a fascination with sparrows, which are either flying high in the sky or trapped in cages and nets, providing a constant metaphor throughout the film. In the most ironic scene, a man catches the birds just to charge people to set them free again, taking advantage of Buddhists who engage in the ritual of “releasing” animals from captivity. Han takes a badly injured sparrow home and
RSS