Tamara Rojo has looked a little shaky in some of her performances since taking on the daunting dual role of director and principal dancer at English National Ballet, but she’s back on form and she proves it in a different daunting dual role, as Odette/Odile in this in-the-round production of Swan Lake.
There’s pause-button control in her early white swan scenes as her demure Odette deliciously stretches out her phrases with elegant assuredness. Later you can feel the adrenaline rising in the room as she spins her way through the 32 fouettés, ending with a sweet smirk that seems to say: “Oh that? Easy.”
Matthew Golding hops over from Dutch National Ballet to be Rojo’s Prince Siegfried. It’s a bit of a Tim Nice-But-Dim role and Golding doesn’t discover any hidden depths, but he’s a princely dancer, pretty faultless, and a solid partner.
All around them swirl the fluttering arms of 60 well-co-ordinated swans in this grand 360-degree production, first staged in 1997 by Derek Deane. The action is turned outwards so wherever you sit someone’s dancing right at you, and the scale is impressive, but it does mean this is more about spectacle than storytelling. It’s not a production that hooks into genuine emotion. Well, unless you count the final scene where Odette and Siegfried banish evil by having a Hollywood-style snog. That bit was rather realistic…
Until June 23 (0845 401 5034, royalalberthall.com)
