Ballet Preljocaj in ‘Swan Lake’: The best performances are felt

Lyric Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Center, Melbourne.
31 May 2025.

Swan Lake must be one of the most adapted and interpreted ballets of all time. From its failure to command respect from audiences upon its premiere in 1877 at the Bolshoi for being “unimaginative and altogether unmemorable”, to the often-staged later version, by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, emanated an even wider repertoire of contemporised reinterpretations including Matthew Bourne’s Sadler’s Wells version to Angelin Preljocaj’s version, the latter of which blessed a Brisbane audience at the current QPAC 40^th anniversary season. 

The magic of Swan Lake and the recipe for its multiple re-interpretations lies perhaps in the enormous lyricism and drama of both the story and the popularized Tchaikovsky score and romantic choreography. It is a story of forbidden love and the magical boundary crossing between the human and non-human world.  

Preljocaj says he approaches all of his work with the formula: Text, Pretext, Context. Text is his dance vocabulary, Pretext is the story and Context is what it all relates to in the world right now. The pretext of Swan Lake, as Preljocaj interprets it, allows him to let his choreographic sorcery go wild and take audiences to new places, reimagining the magician who curses Odette to a life as a solitary swan on the lake as a kind of oil tycoon trying to destroy her habitat, and Odette herself as an idealistic environmental activist who wants freedom for her kind and peace for nature. The text then, his remarkably instinctive choreography that he says he has to “feel himself” before he “dresses it on the dancers” is where the interpretation shines. As audience members, we zero-in to the emotions and bodies of the dancers. Preljocaj’s dystopian updating of Swan Lake seems to work pleasingly through all three processes, to invite audiences into a very real, immersive and arresting world – a context – of ecological crisis. 

This dramaturgical tension is borne out from a score that flits surprisingly between the original Tchiakovsky to electronic music, from familiar ballet pas de deux to ensemble raves and a technical set of industrial movies and ghostly projections. The contrast between the nobility and grace of the swans elongement and extensions, accentuated by skyscraper backdrops is stark and William Blakesque, a commentary on the degradation of the environment and humanity in dystopian proportions. The male dancers wear suits and look harried, reminiscent of the “Glass Pieces” ballet, which emulates rush hour in the metropolis. The production is often, though, switching in register, as the ensemble expresses a wide spectrum of human emotion, from the strobe-lit euphoria of night club culture to more solemn moments. 

The human world of Preljocaj’s creation is strewn with friction and conflicting interests. The angularity of the dancers’ movements in these scenes seem to echo the brutalist architecture of the backdrop and the very industrial framing. This can be the vibe for one piece; however, then the dancers can morph to softness at a blink. The pas de deux between young Prince Siegfried (Antoine Dubois) and Odette (Théa Martin/Mirea Delogu) are tender as the traditional version but with a more grounded, sensuous feel. (Preljocaj’s female dancers are on flat not pointe.)

The register then changes again, to humour and and sauciness at the pulsating, eroticised Dance du Quatre Cygnes, with its infamous line of four dancers interlaced and performing tricky pointework swapped out for flat-footed, earthy gyrations. Though with ballet inflections, and graceful lines at times, the swans often have maladroitly strained necks and shoulders and arms extended angularly as a kind of beak. The way Preljocaj uses the French sensibility of clin d’œil, a cheeky wink or allusion towards the original is masterfully entertaining. 

In all, Ballet Preljocaj’s Swan Lake seems to remind us that the best performances are felt, as and have something to say about the human condition, what it is like to live in such a conflict-ridden world. At the opening, after the show, Preljocaj said, “I am not interested just to make beautiful things, that is not art’s job… art has to say something about the world.” His decisive approach to choreography is inspiring, and his commitment to the evocation of the problems that surround us.