Theatre
St. Petersburg Ballet to bring Swan Lake to Melbourne
Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, composed in 1875-76, remains one of the most-loved ballets well over 100 years after it was first performed.
The enchanting story of Odette, a princess who is turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer, will be performed on stage at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre’s Plenary in June 2015 by the world-famous St. Petersburg Ballet. The ballet company is renowned for its incredible performances and the production of Swan Lake will be no exception with incredible dancers, breathtaking costumes and the unmistakable score. When we heard the production was headed our way, we wanted to know more, so we have gone straight to the Director, Konstantin Tachkin, to find out all about the upcoming season of Swan Lake in Melbourne.
Ticketmaster: Thanks for joining us, Konstantin. We are so excited that you are bringing the incredible Swan Lake to Melbourne. Swan Lake is one of the most enduring and best-loved ballets. What is it about Swan Lake that audiences love?
KT: Hello Ticketmaster friends… Greetings from cold and snowy St Petersburg! In my opinion Swan Lake is, as you say in English, ‘the whole package’. Dazzling white tutus, point shoes, gorgeous scenery, a prince and a princess, and all wrapped up in possibly the best ballet music ever written. Tchaikovsky is one of our genius composers. His Swan Lake music is familiar to most audiences. The whole evening is so satisfying that it is impossible not to love this ballet.
TM: What is it about Swan Lake that you love the most – what are your favourite moments?
KT: For me it is the emotion charged adagio in the second scene. This scene is the famous white scene, the one by the lakeside. The ballerina’s role is so emotionally complex at this point that it often brings me to tears. I watch it almost every night that we are dancing this ballet and it never ceases to move me. But I also like the entire Ballroom scene; full of life and drama and with an amazing and quite startling conclusion. This act also optimises the Russian bravura style with lots of tricks or should I more correctly say technical feats! Here you can’t help but gasp at the 32 fouette sequence from our lead ballerina.
TM: The St. Petersburg ballet has just performed Swan Lake in Paris and received rave reviews. What makes this performance of Swan Lake so unique and engaging?
KT: Yes, we do get great reviews in Paris. We go there almost every year and sell thousands of tickets each time. Parisians are great audiences; they see so many ballet companies but still they come to us whenever we are in town. You know, each Ballet Company has its own unique style. My Company is probably lauded for its purity of the Russian style and I guess too for its wonderful corps de ballet.
TM: Can you tell us a little about the incredible dancers in the St. Petersburg Ballet?
KT: Most of our dancers are Vaganova trained. The Vaganova school is the world first ballet school. It’s been around for a long time so it knows how to train great dancers. My dancers carry a tradition that is well over 200 years in the making. And wait until our Prima Ballerina hits the stage in Melbourne; Irina Kolesnikova is a very rare talent. Our boys, our princes and our character dancers are also impressive and the corps de ballet dance as one.
TM: Your involvement with the St. Petersburg Ballet has taken you all over the world. Where are your favourite places to visit?
KT: It’s a bit of a cliché I guess, but we love every city we go to. It’s an enormous privilege to be able to travel the world in a profession you love. Sometimes we don’t get to see much of a city and the enduring memory is of the theatre that we dance in. For instance, last year we played at His Majesty’s Theatre in Perth, what a stunningly beautiful venue. All our dancers still talk about it. It’s over 100 years old and has recently been renovated. It’s like stepping back in time. Of course we love Paris, who wouldn’t? That city is almost as beautiful as our own St Petersburg.
TM: The St. Petersburg ballet has not performed in Melbourne before. Are you excited to visit Melbourne?
KT: Melbourne is a big city! I had no idea that you are over 4.5 million people. So any time one visits a serious big city there is certainly an excitement and a certain nervousness too.
TM: Following the performance of Swan Lake, what is next for the St. Petersburg Ballet?
KT: Ah… Our London Debut! We open at the London Coliseum in August 2015. We finish in Melbourne late June and then I’ll give the dancers a couple of weeks off as we will have been on the road for two months – Johannesburg, Cape Town, Singapore and Perth by the time we finish in Melbourne. Then it’s into serious preparation for London. I can hardly think beyond that but I do know that we are invited back to Taiwan and we’ll also tour in France again in early 2016.
TM: Thank you for joining us. We are very excited for the upcoming season of Swan Lake.
Click here to purchase tickets for the St. Petersburg Ballet’s performance of Swan Lake at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre’s Plenary from June 20-22, 2015.
