Product: Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake / Mikhalchenko, Vasyuchenko, Vetrov, Zhuraitis, Bolshoi Ballet (1989)
Rating: 3.0
Poor recording and acting
In my opinion, the lighting and zoom in shots were rather substandard on this DVD and it is definitely not my DVD player at fault here. Things looked dark, fuzzy, too small in many of the shots. It is okay but not the best in terms of lighting and recording. It seems that Algis Zhuraitis had been having a vodka the night he danced Seigfried in this Swan Lake production and maybe the camera crew were as well. I did not think very much of the filming or the Prince's delivery of an innocent young man falling in love with an innocent young girl. I like to see great acting in ballet to move me into another world. Prince S. seemed quite fatigued at times while dancing leaps and turns in act 3. He executed the steps reasonably well I guess but it was the lack lustre acting that got me down. Other ballet dancers are really amazing actors and make the audience feel in sympathy. Is it me being too picky or has he got the beginnings of osteoporosis because I felt his shoulders seemed somewhat hunched although his chin was well lifted while dancing? Well nobody is perfect not even the finest on a bad night. Odette was okay - Odettes/Odiles usually are in Swan Lake. I like to see the other characters do something special as well as the Swan Queen. Von Rothbart danced okay but someone in the Bolshoi wardrobe dept.needs to get a more dramatic costume designed for their evil magician because I did not feel a single prickle of fear or loathing for the chap chasing young Seigfreid around the stage. Scary ballet moves were not enough to convince me of the evil that this magician was supposed to represent. He needed a big cloak or scary light effects to set him out as powerful and invincible. The curtain in the middle of the stage in act two was a nuisance and where were the Prince's friends on the hunt with their cross bows? By contrast the Royal Ballet Covent Garden's 1981 production put enormous bat's wings on its Rothbart which looks more impressive and huge.The American Ballet Theatre employed an alter ego for its Rothbart played by Marcelo Gomes to seduce young Odette. There is much that can be done to develop malignant characters image to contrast the helplessness of the innocent characters in ballet and the Bolshoi could do better here I feel. Well, that's about it.