Photo Credit: Mark Frohna
The Swan Lake that Michael Pink and the Milwaukee Ballet dancers, orchestra and crew presented last weekend was certainly as beautiful as anything could ever be. It was also a real testament to Pink’s regard for his dancers and theirs for him and for each other. It was also, on opening night at least, a testament to the way artists and audiences can inspire one another. Uihlein Hall was filled all night with focused energy, intense applause and frequent well-deserved cheers.
The luminous Luz San Miguel gave what will likely be her last performance as the White Swan Odette. She immediately cast her spell on the show since we meet Odette, in a Pink-devised prologue, as a sparkling teenager in love with Prince Siegfried. It’s one of Pink’s smartest revisions to the story because it lets us know Odette before the cruel curse that turns her and her friends into swans. I’m sure San Miguel‘s joy as she flew and spun and rose in Davit Hovhannisyan’s arms was shared by everyone in the theatre. When next we met her as a swan, fragile and strong, frightened and brave, we held our collective breath. We felt the dilemma Siegfried posed for her when he finds her in this form. The astonishing virtuosity of her dancing was almost beside the point.
If San Miguel’s performance epitomized the excellence of this production, every other dancer shared in it. The dance company is the real subject of Swan Lake, its point and pleasure. It was an honor to watch Hovhannisyan dance the huge role of Prince Siegfried. He possesses an onstage gravitas unique among the men and his partnering is sublime. He, San Miguel and Patrick Howell, dreamy in the second act czardas, are Pink’s longest time dancers. Each is irreplaceable but how long will we have them?
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Strong women dancers abound. Marize Fumero brought the house down as the Black Swan. The Swan Corps was perfect, an ultimately triumphant sisterhood. Tim O’Donnell made the evil Rothbart the sinister shadow of your nightmares. Parker Brasser-Vos made Siegfried’s friend his match in skill and charm.
Pink’s exquisitely staged revisions to the story made Rothbart’s ugly rise to power and its costs clear. Conductor Pasquale Laurino and the orchestra made Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s music more affecting in its sighing sadness and cries of alarm than I’ve ever heard it. Jose Varona’s sets and David Grill’s lighting were magnificent.
