Even after 30 years, this ballet still gets it Wright

SWAN LAKE, Lowry, Salford

Peter Wright’s (he wasn’t a Sir then) stunning production of this most famous of ballets has been around for over 30 years.

And while many other versions have come and gone in the meantime, this one has not only prevailed but prospered to become more popular than ever.

The reason isn’t too hard to find: few have come anywhere near the combination of strengths exhibited by this Birmingham Royal Ballet production.

Wright gives fine dancers effective choreography and puts them in an epic set that fills the Lowry stage. I swear BRB sets are the only ones that give the impression the halls portrayed have ceilings, so solid do they seem.

I saw the alternate leading duo in last night’s performance, but you wouldn’t have known it. Natasha Oughtred and Jamie Bond are a terrific team.

Her spiky fragility transforms into a sensual fluidity as Odile, and she is perfectly complemented by his effortless jumps and even more effortless lifts. Some pairs in this production can display a little coldness because the production is fairly spare; not these two. They offer tremendous pleasure without actually doing anything far out of the ordinary in terms of technique or virtuosity.

And that’s the story of the night. Wright’s masterstroke with this production was to get virtually everything spot-on, so it could be easily reproducible across the years and different dancers.

Other productions have been flashy and gone out of fashion; some have had dumb interpretations that didn’t deserve longevity, but this endures because it has the winning mix of the simplest form of Petipa’s choreography, effortless dancing, a fine orchestra and a vastly impressive overall look.

So it’s hard not to enjoy every moment — especially that coup de theatre when the swans rise out of the “lake” of dry ice as the fourth act curtain rises. It’s a trick that gets a round of applause every time, and well deserved.




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