English National Ballet’s Swan Lake is danced with soulful precision — review

Swan is back on the menu this winter with revivals of the 1895 Tchaikovsky favourite by English National and Birmingham Royal Ballets. ENB began its sellout run at the Coliseum last weekend with Derek Deane’s satisfying, thoroughbred 2000 production.

Deane grew up by the lake — he first saw the ballet as a Royal Ballet student in 1971. A year later he was dancing in that very production and steadily worked his way from peasant to Prince. During his eight-year directorship of ENB he made two versions of his own, starting in 1997 with a bold, 70-swan extravaganza created for the Royal Albert Hall, followed three years later by this smaller, more conventional staging.

Over-familiarity can sometimes give the director the urge to mess with the story but Deane trusts to an unashamedly traditional setting (designed by Peter Farmer) and a no-nonsense scenario which uses the overture to explain how Princess Odette was enslaved. Purists might sniff at such spoon-feeding but pragmatists recognise that not everyone was weaned on ballet’s bedtime stories.

Deane has an unerring gift for pattern-making and his lakeside ensembles are meticulously plotted, odd swans magicked on and off stage to ensure that the sums come right. The ENB corps de ballet of 24, still going strong after a 31-performance run of The Nutcracker, danced with soulful precision, each fresh flurry crystallising as smoothly and inevitably as a snowflake.

The peasant and national dances were taken at a vertiginous lick by the ENB orchestra. This thrilling turn of speed was almost Russian in character (the Kirov’s Viktor Fedotov frisky baton routinely shaved 10 minutes from the running time when guesting at Covent Garden). Sadly, much of the ENB Philharmonic’s fine playing was drowned out by an audience bent on yakking throughout the overtures. There must be something one could do to discourage this: a more dramatic use of the house lights? A stern tap on the conductor’s lectern? Cattle prods?

The company is currently between managers (artistic director designate Aaron S Watkin is contractually bound to Dresden’s Semperoper Ballett until August), but there were strong performances at all levels. Thursday’s act one pas de trois was zestily danced by Julia Conway, Katja Khaniukova and the spring-driven Erik Woolhouse. Rhys Antoni Yeomans made light work of Frederick Ashton’s witty, Bournonvillean Neapolitan duet, as did Victor Prigent at Sunday’s matinee. Thursday’s opening starred Emma Hawes and Prince-next-door Aitor Arrieta, an elegant if unexciting partnership. The only real passion on display was from James Streeter’s dominant Von Rothbart, “conducting” the skein of swans with his massive wings and looming over Odette with a sickening sense of ownership.

By Sunday afternoon the mood had intensified, with Francesco Gabriele Frola partnering Ukrainian guest Iana Salenko. Frola powered through his bravura variations, tight double tours and arcing jetés registering brightly through the murk of act three’s crepuscular lighting. Salenko, 40 next birthday, relished the Manichaean role of Odette/Odile: heavy with melancholy as the Swan Queen; fizzing with malice as her mysterious doppelgänger; every arabesque taut with possibilities.

★★★★☆

To January 22, londoncoliseum.org