Review: ENB, Swan Lake in-the-round ★★★★★

Derek Deane’s inspired in-the-round production of the timeless classic for English National Ballet is Swan Lake writ large. And despite the daunting size of the Royal Albert Hall’s vast arena, the intelligent positioning of an augmented cast and acute awareness of the needs of the audience that surrounds the super-size stage have turned this daring 1997 production into an evergreen hit.

In many ways Swan Lake is a natural for the arena treatment, as it’s made up mostly of busy crowd scenes: Prince Siegfried's birthday festivities and the palace ball in Acts I and III respectively, and the famous lakeside white Acts II and IV. Multiply the cast size – a pas de douze instead of a pas de trois in the Act I divertissements and eight nubile princesses instead of four in Act III, for example – and the stage never risks dwarfing the performers. Add a few hyperactive jugglers and acrobats and Act I truly bursts into life.

Still more dazzling are the sixty identical swans that populate the white Acts II and IV, marshalled into split-second synchronicity to create impeccable, dreamy patterns.


English National Ballet dancers in Derek Deane's Swan Lake in-the-round © Ian Gavan

All this would count for little without strong performances in the central roles of the melancholy prince Siegfried and Odette/Odile, the cursed swan princess and her evil double who deceives Siegfried into betraying his vow to Odette.

On opening night Gareth Haw and Sangeun Lee offered stunning performances to illuminate the love story that underpins the ballet. Now coming to the end of their first year with the company, which they joined from Semperoper Ballet Dresden, this was their debut in ENB’s Swan Lake in-the-round, but their meticulously detailed performance showed absolute awareness of their surroundings, so that nobody in the audience will have felt left out.

Tall and manly with a princely bearing, Royal Ballet-trained Haw is a hugely exciting classical dancer, devouring the vast space with soaring jumps, his mime expansive but never cartoonish. Lee was a heartbreaking Odette, fragile, skittish, very slowly daring to hope; perhaps even more impressive was her Odile; steely, with a hint of mockery in her smile, her manner assertive, her dancing crisp, she left no doubt that she was there to conquer. She did the climactic 32 fouettés effortlessly rotating on her supporting leg so as to face every side of the audience in turn. Theirs is an established partnership, and their chemistry is thrilling


Sangeun Lee as Odette, Gareth Haw as Siegfried in Derek Deane's Swan Lake in-the-round. Photo: Laurent Liotardo
There was engaging, faultless dancing from everybody, corps and soloists alike, though special mention must go to James Streeter’s sinister Rothbart, the evil of his whirling presence all too obvious wherever you sat. His defeat by the sheer force of love after a titanic, edge-of-your-seat struggle at the climax of Act IV proved a satisfying way of sending the audience home happy.

Peter Farmer’s sumptuous designs are immensely attractive, relying on muted colours for courtiers and dancing peasants, and immaculate white for the swans; Howard Harrison’s lighting casts a subtle blue tinge over the white Acts.

English National Ballet Philharmonic under principal guest conductor Gavin Sutherland gave an intense rendition of Tchaikovsky’s score, as if to remind us of the crucial importance of live music in ballet.