Queensland Performing Arts Centre is celebrating its 40^th anniversary by giving out the presents. Free screenings of Ballet Preljocaj’s contemporary Swan Lake, which had a season just a couple of weeks ago in Brisbane, are available on demand for audiences around Australia and will be shown in regional venues around the state. 

It’s an extremely generous gift.

French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj’s work was last seen in Brisbane nearly a decade ago with his dramatic take on the travails of Snow White. It was super sexy and incredibly elegant. A bit chilly, too, but great theatre, as is Preljocaj’s Swan Lake.

Swan Lake takes Preljocaj into trickier waters, which he acknowledges by comparing making his version to the equivalent of tackling Everest. How do you manage to pay honour to the traditional 1895 version choreographed by Marius Petita and Lev Ivanov while making it anew? How to tap into the soul of the piece, the most revered work in the classical repertoire, while reimagining it for today?

Many have tried and there have been notable successes, among them Matthew Bourne’s tremendous recasting of men as the swans way back in 1995 and still resonant today.

Prelocaj does pretty well. He pulls Swan Lake from the realm of fairytale and drops it into the brutal world of unfettered capitalism, presenting a highly plausible interpretation of what betrayal might look like now. A story of the natural world being destroyed is layered over one of supernatural entrapment.

Preljocaj calls his piece a palimpsest and there couldn’t be a more apt description. It’s like a document written on top of an earlier one, traces of which can still be seen. Scratch away at the surface and you can see bits and pieces of the old ballet glinting through. Preljocaj calls this building “a new city on these ancient foundations”.

The choice of the building metaphor is also apt. The ballet opens with a fleeting view of Odette being abducted by heavies. There is a suggestion that she is a seeker and a dreamer, presumably one opposed to what comes next: the celebration of a large-scale property development in a big city. It is not too fanciful to see her as a Greta Thunberg-style activist.

The hyper-rich are the new royalty, one supposes. In this early, slightly cartoonish scene we understand that Siegfried’s parents are in cahoots with the villain Rothbart to build gargantuan structures of the kind seen though vast, rain-spattered windows. Pristine waterways and birdlife won’t stand a chance, we must infer.

An ultra-chic monochrome design is dominated by huge, wow-factor videos by Boris Labbé that lour over events at the party. They, rather more than Preljocaj’s choreography, illustrate this grim story of the drive for money and prestige at any cost. Party-goers participate in strict unison dances that merge sexy sinuousness with hard-edged gestures that render them anonymous. They look like chic automatons.

Reluctant to be involved, Siegfried (Leonardo Cremaschi in the digital screening) flees to the lake and meets Odette (Isabel Garcia Lopez). Can he be her salvation and therefore that of the natural world? 

The “white” acts – those beside the lake where Siegfried and Odette first meet and later meet their fate – are the heart and soul of the traditional Swan Lake and are here too. In Act II Preljocaj’s choreography doesn’t quite meet the heights of Tchaikovsky’s music – it’s less obviously virtuosic – but is marvellous when set to the electronic interpolations by 79D. The swans are at their dreamiest here, as if hearing Tchaikovsky somewhere deep within the contemporary sounds. 

It goes without saying, too, that Preljocaj is not immune to the enduring allure of four little swans holding hands and dancing daffily.

Perhaps not surprisingly some of Preljocaj’s choreography in Act II feels a touch too reverent, an approach that had its counterpart on opening night (Lyric Theatre, QPAC, May 31) in the elegant but restrained playing from Queensland Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Johannes Fritzsch. The digital version was recorded at a later performance and may give a different impression.

Nevertheless, at the performance I saw there was affecting tenderness in Act II between the couple – Théa Martin and Antoine Dubois were first-cast Odette/Odile and Siegfried – and a persuasive sense of community from the swan corps. Gorgeously dressed in Igor Chapurin’s softly layered, asymmetrical tutus they were given more freedom of movement and individuality than one usually sees in a classical corps.

That allowed the women to blaze in the stunning Act IV lakeside act. Siegfried has been found wanting. There is now no possibility of escape for anyone and no apotheosis. Just fear, destruction and death. Labbé’s monumental video work showed structures collapsing and humanity with them. 

Preljocac didn’t find a coherent reason for the Act III party in which, traditionally, Siegfried is pressed to choose a bride. A box is ticked when Odile turns up to trick Siegfried into believing she is Odette and one assumes she is meant to lure him back into the family’s arms. But it remains just a thought. Preljocaj appears to have relied heavily here on the audience’s collective knowledge of the traditional narrative. What’s onstage is darkly glamorous, excitingly danced and baffling. 

There is, fortunately, the most powerful, passionate, emotive dance of the evening to come. A beautiful, anguished pas de deux for Siegfried and his mother leads into that brief, wonderful fourth act that returns to the captive swans, comforting one another in the face of disaster.

Video on demand Australia-wide from tomorrow at 6pm (Friday June 13, Australian Eastern Standard Time) until 6pm Sunday. 

Over the weekend 17 venues around Queensland will screen the ballet, free of charge to audience members. 

QPAC hosts a free outdoor screening on Melbourne Street Green on June 14 at 7.30pm.

A version of this review appeared in The Australian on June 4.

https://digitalstage.qpac.com.au/p/126-Ballet-Preljocaj-Swan-Lake