Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake / American Ballet Theatre, Murphy, Corella

This is a truly magnificent version of Swan Lake, because of the stunning quality of the dancing, and the uniqueness of the production. Gillian Murphy and Angel Corella dance with complete technical perfection in their roles as Odette/Odile and Prince Siegfried. More importantly, they act as well as they dance. That's often missing in ballet today, as technique is now worshiped at the expense of making an audience feel that the roles they are playing are of real people. Frankly, I have not seen anyone dance this ballet so well since I saw Fonteyn and Nureyev dance Swan Lake live in the 1960s. Young dancers can learn a lot watching this performance about the subtleties that make ballet a great art form.Murphy's Odette is beautiful, delicate, and heartbreakingly tragic. She dances with an almost unearthly grace and fluidity. Corella's Siegfried is strong and sensitive, with absolutely fantastic turns, leaps, and awe inspiring lifts. His dancing is lyrical and passionate, a tough combination to pull off. He is very intense in his acting. You really believe they love each other, and would die for that love. The expressions on both their faces are amazing, and something you don't see very often in today's ballet dancers. Their technique is flawless, and I especially like the fact that Murphy doesn't hyper-extend herself. Instead, she takes great care to always display an exquisite line for her Odette. She puts the role of the Swan Queen before herself, rather than egotistically show boating her flexibility like so many ballerinas do. Her Odile is fabulous, wickedly beautiful with virtuoso pirouettes. Marcelo Gomes is the best Von Rothbart I have ever seen. He is an outstanding dancer, exhibiting a degree of control and beauty of line in slow passages that is remarkable. His acting is also superb. He is magnificent in the role, displaying a seductive evil that I have never seen before on stage.Some reviewers have criticized the last Act as being too short, and I agree. However, I liked the additions to the prologue, and the larger part given to Von Rothbart. The sets and costumes were excellent. This production of Swan Lake is a little unconventional, but I liked it very much. The only thing that is bad about this DVD is the insertion of a narrator and interviews between the Acts. That would have been better shown as separate features. But, one can always fast forward through those parts. Overall, this DVD should be in everyone's ballet collection because the dancing is just so unbelievably good.

I am very pleased with this offering of "Swan Lake." The effort the performers make at telling the story is commendable. For example, Rothbart sways his arms and the enchanted swans obey and begin to circle about. The audio is bright and dramatic. This was by far my favorite performance that I could find on the internet. Now, one feature on the Amazon offering for this DVD purchase made me hesitant to buy it. I took a chance and bought it anyway and learned that this Amazon feature was mistaken or misleading. So, I wanted to warn other prospective buyers. Here is the problem with the Amazon's presentation. They offer a clip of the performance for the buyer's review. Alas, though, this clip is NOT from the DVD they are selling! It may be another performance by the principal Gillian Murphy with the American Ballet Theatre, but it is not the one that is offered for purchase. Siegfried and Rothbart and different people. However, on YouTube there is a proper 10-minute video of four clips from the performance being sold by Amazon. Search for "Swan Lake Little Swans." Then pick the video offered by "keef1212" with 5.1 million views. It was posted 10 years ago. These four clips sold me on the performance I that wanted and it is indeed the very performance sold here on Amazon! I hope this helps the prospective customer. I am a very satisfied with my purchase.

I am in total amazement of how wonderful this ballet is. I have watched it over and over. The music, the precision. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I am new to the whole ballet scene, but i thoroughly enjoyed this version of Swan Lake. I saw Swan Lake done by ABT in 2000 and loved it so much, that I started fervently looking for a DVD version of it, but had a hard time finding a recent copy. I have the VHS '87 or '92 version(I don't remember what year it was) and I thought it was great. The lead dancers were wonderful, but I thought the story lacked something and the corp dancers seemed out of sync quite often. The dancing of Corella and Murphy are outstanding! Unlike some other reviews, I think Murphy portrayed Odette and odile wonderfully. I think she played the black swan part better than the gently odette, but both parts were great. She is a phenomenal dancer. Corella did seem to have some weird facial expressions, but I think it is only noticed because of the close ups in HDTV that otherwise would probably gone unnoticed with lesser technology.Because I am new to ballet, I didn't really mind the somewhat cut IV act. I have watched the old version twice and the new version twice also and I do think they could have at least kept the part where the Prince is searching for his beloved. It took a little away from the love story and his heartache at betraying his love.I absolutely LOVE the prologue where you see how Odette could possibly be fooled by the evil sorcerer. It's not in the original score, but I think it adds a lot to the story and really sets the stage for the whole story.for the very experienced ballet watcher, you might be slightly disappointed by the cuts, however the dancing more than makes up for it. For those who are not so experienced, I think this is a must have.

The American Ballet Theater Company puts on a very fine version of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Everything from the music, the costumes, sets and the production are top rate. The dancing is supurb! When our primeir ballarina does the 72 pirouettes, she'll take your breath away! It is hosted by Caroline Kennedy at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. This adds just that "little extra" that makes this a very enjoyable evening of dance. I believe you'll be very pleased with this purchase.

Como buena fanática del ballet, siempre me ha gustado ver distintas versiones sobre este clásico y descubrir "qué" esencia han querido otorgarle.De buenas a primera, no guardaba mucho entusiasmo por esta producción. De aquel entonces el vídeo estaba subido a Youtube, y en las sugerencias me salían otras recomendaciones sobre actuaciones del Bolshoi y del Mariinsky que parecían más atractivas. Sin embargo, decidí darle una segunda oportunidad pues quería saber cual era el final escogido (cabe recordar que cada "Lago" guarda un final completamente distinto al anterior, al igual que la representación de ciertas danzas y momentos clave).Pensé que seguía un ritmo aburrido (a excepción del prólogo que añaden con el principio de la obertura, dando a conocer cómo terminó Odette convertida en cisne), la escenografía tampoco me terminaba por entusiasmar, mas el cuerpo del baile me quitó esa impresión y ésta termino por desaparecer cuando las figuras principales aparecieron sobre las tablas.Con la entrada en escena del inquieto y bonachón Benno (Herman Cornejo) seguida por la elegantísima aparición de Sigfrido (Ángel Corella), descubrí que había hecho bien en no dejar este ballet de lado. Como es de esperar del ABT, todos sus bailarines están a la altura esperada para dejar al público boquiabierto. Corella siempre fue un bailarín excelente, muy virtuoso, además de que ganó un Emmy por su interpretación en esta acutación. Odette (Gillian Murphy) es una bailarina totalmente consagrada, conocedora del aire trágico y tristón que acompaña a la pobre princesa cisne, víctima del maleficio de Von Rothbart (Isaac Stappas y Marcelo Gomes).Pese a que Murphy ha comentando en varias ocasiones la gran química con Ethan Stiefel (ya retirado de las tablas en 2012, junto a Corella) y Marcelo Gomes (quien continua siendo primera figura en el ABT), es inevitable observar que también con Corella guarda una gran química en la puesta en escena.Por lo tanto ¿merece la pena esta versión? SÍ, la merece.

Just as one finds a DVD or VHS of a production of a classical ballet that seems that it HAS TO BE definitive, along come other releases with perhaps equally sublime performances. How to choose, for example and for starters, among current and vintage male dancers such as Carlos Acosta, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Ángel Corella, Gus van Heerden, Roberto Bolle, Rudolf Nureyev, Erik Bruhn, Edward Vallella, Kevin Haigen, Sergei Polunin, and so, so many others whom it is an injustice not to enumerate, but who, indeed, fortunately for ballet audiences now and in decades past, are so numerous. (I would have listed, for example, in that short list, Yuri Soloviev, a titan among them, but there is, regrettably, too little commercial video documentation of his career; the same also applies, alas, to many other similarly unfortunate cases of great dancers whose work has lacked sufficient documention on film or video.)The American Ballet Theatre's production, copyrighted 2005, which this DVD records, of Tchaikowsky's "Swan Lake" (Thirteen/WNET New York ID-1987-WNDVD), distributed by Image Entertainment) is a version of the tale and of its choreography (Kevin McKenzie having adapted a bit what Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov had devised for the long standard version) which concludes tragically (but transcendently) rather than have the mortally happy ending sometimes encountered. The slow introduction of Tchaikowsky's score, not the usual practice, is danced, in order to provide some of the backstory of the tale. The ballet as seen here is finely and beautifully costumed and staged, exhibiting NONE of the Neo-trash excesses that designers and their colleagues all too often devise nowadays to spoil their own, Tchaikowsky's, and Petipa's work.The casting of the production is, indeed, particularly blessed on the male side. Herman Cornejo, as Price Siegfried's friend, Benno, is so spectacular in technic and easy grace, with amazing leaps and other feats of acrobatic skill, that he comes close at times to upstaging even Ángel Corella, one of the great male classical dancers of our day (writing this in 2014), who portrays the Prince. What a treat to have two such consummately superb dancers in the male contingent of this production! Then there is Marcelo Gomes as the human Rothbart (the demonic counterpart of von Rothbart's character being Isaac Stappas). Gomes only merits mention after the others because his role does not abound so many of the star turns that Corella and Cornejo have in so much greater profusion and possibilities, but Gomes, for his part, has an insolent intensity and voraciously pansexual stage presence that seize the viewer's attention when he is "front and centre".As for Ángel Corella, in his vigourously youthful-looking mid-30s when this American Ballet Theatre "Swan Lake" was filmed on tour in, or on visit to, Washington, D.C., his dancing has a skill and smoothly lithe grace and lyricism of movement, even when lifting and hauling ballerinas without even the slightest trace of effort; when Corella raises the ballerina over his head, manoeuvring her into vertical position upside down above him, one has to admire the man's sheer strength, especially when not even a single muscular twitch, spasm, or tremor is evident, so gracefully does he accomplish this sort of thing (doing so as well, for that matter, as the more obviously ruggèd Carlos Acosta accomplishes such feats so phenomenally well in that dancer's own performances)! Beholding the sheer beauty of Corella's every motion is almost enough to make one weep for joy. Corella overwhelmingly merits his status as such a great star. He acts out the drama with sensitivity and emotion, too (even if by far the most convincing, and certainly most beguiling, moods of his virile stage presence are those of joy and romantic ardour).Gillian Murphy, who plays the dual (and very contrasting) roles of Odette and Odile, is a ballerina of graceful strength, athletic prowess, and sensibility. She contrasts wonderfully the prevailingly elegiac spirit that pervades Odette's part, and, by contrast, she makes the most of Odile's manipulatively sensual and cynically brittle posing and dazzling virtuosity. It is quite an accomplishment to portray each side of female personae which contrast so starkly as this. The corps de ballet, all of its men and ladies alike, are a joy to behold and the orchestra's playing is admirable in every way.I hope to acquire yet other DVDs of "Swan Lake" as well as to keep this American Ballet Theatre edition. I am not an expert or scholar of dance, but I am a fairly well informed fan, I think, with numerous dancers as friends over the years (and parents whose ballroom and folk dancing skills were of an high order) who have helped me to appreciate what such terpsichorean-type thespians do on stage. Being on the verge of my 71st birthday, now stiff and increasingly enfeebled by old age that is engulfing me, I all the more rejoice in the prowess and athletic exuberance of dance of any physically demanding kind (from jitterbug and break dance right up to classical ballet). Even if I never were to acquire another DVD of "Swan Lake", I would feel satisfactorily assured and totally content to have just this one.

Gute Bild- und Tonqualität, musikalisch ansprechend, tänzerisch erstklassig. Beeindruckende Solisten. Eine sehr schöne Inszenierung und Aufführung - mal aus einem anderen Land als Russland oder Weißrussland.

ロパートキナの白鳥を持っているのですが、こちらの黒鳥のラストシーンも見てみたくて購入しました。　ロパートキナの表現力やそのDVDとは違いますが、本当にくるくると良く回るので、素晴らしい黒鳥でした！ただ、解釈が黒鳥と王子が完璧なカップルに見えてしまったので、ロシアのもののほうが正統派という感じでしょうか・・・。

Hi, This is a very good production of Swan Lake. The dancing is 1st class throughout. Odette/Odile was superb as was Seigfreid. Both "Rothbart" and his "Lakeside Monster" alter ego were very well done. The switch between the two "Rothbarts" being particularly well done I had to look twice to see it clearly.I like the Bolchoi version where the five Princesses dance in their relative nationalities . This make sense of the story line to me. ABT have only four princesses so no "Russian" dance. Rothbart uses Russian dance music for his little solo dance and nicely done it is too. His occupancy of the throne seat being well choregraphed and beautifully executed.I noticed in this performance that the Princesses also sat by the throne during the four remaining national dances. I liked that idea.I particularly enjoyed the many violin solos They were played in an exemplary manner. Terrific. The orchestra -not huge - plays well throughout. I feel that the sound was somtimes a little bit dull in the Kennedy centre due to having unflattering acoustic properties i.w. More echo but not too much would have improved matters. The Mariinsky theatre has better acoustic and a superb orchestra to take advantage of it. This version is recommendable as a good SwanLake but you need a genuine multi region DVD or Multi region BluRay player. This however is an easy fix.BFJ