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There are many wonderful emotion you could feel seeing a classic ballet, so I hope this can
suggest to you some will to try and see it if you never did before!
THE LAKE OF SWANS
One of the most famous balletis this piece of Tchaikovskji. There are two acts and six scenes.
the first one is the valzer.
There's a gran party at the Royal Palace of Prince Sigfrid, who is meant to choose there his
future wife.
Therefore the piece starts with a valzer, which is capable to tell all about the joy of a party,
and about the pleasure of the peaople attending to be there, while communicating also elegance and
a feeling of self consciousness and self control, expressed by the balance of the notes.
The second scene shows the Prince going to the lake for hunting the swans there. But as soon
as you start to hear the theme, you know something is about to happen.
And indeed a mervellous vision keeps the Prince from using the arrow: a gorgeous lady, dressed
with just swan's feathers steps into the clearing, having over her head the Crown of Queen of Swans.
Is she an happy creature? Or she's suffering instead?
Tchaikovskji uses the tearful shaking oboe sounds for revealing us the answer, accompanied by the harp,
and everyone feels a sudden feeling of melancholy and sadness takin him over.
The gorgeous Lady is not happy for sure, although incredibly royalish and beautiful.
But there's more and more than it, and the horns are there hinting for us at this, like
a powerful question, like a mystery under our eyes.
This is dramathically expressed by the powerful music, and when the whole orchestra
follows the horns, you get that the mystery's really deep and mystic too.
But the third scene seems to contrast with all the drama: it's the delicate, incredibly graceful
Swans Ballet, underlined from a ticklening music with violas and pianos, so pure and cheerful you
almost forget the darkness of the previous one.
But the second act starts and in the fourth scene you realize it wasn't a mistake that darkness,
it wasn't at all: It's the witchcraft unveiled, which is the most tearful piece of the
whole ballet, including the most famous theme of the piece.
Suddenly discovered by the Prince, the Lady Swan tells him her story. She's called Odette, and
a cruel wizard has transformed her in a white swan; only between midnight and one am she can have
her shape of human: she's gonna live this sad condition till she's gonna be purely loved by
a Knight, and taken as wife from him.
Sigfrid, immediatly fallen for her, swear he's gonna marry her and save her.
The way Tchaikovskji has chosen to create the listeneable music magic of a talk between a swan
and an human is to give the main role to harp for the intro, which suggest magic and smells of
ancient potions like in Middle Age;the words of Odette are expressed by the silky sound of the violin,
it starts slowly, then as much as she talks with Sigfrid, the motive gest faster, like she's
gaining faith in her saviour, or like her heart is falling in love too...
Sigfrid's voice has got the sound deeper of the cello,and the two voices melted created a perfect
speech, balanced and mixing like only lovers voices can...
The fifth scene is the Big Dancing at the Royal Palace, where Sigfrid should ask Odette to become his...
But not Odette will get there, it will be Odile, her sosia, who's not anyone else but the
devilish Wizard under fake sembiances .
The Prince though falls under the bad trick and asks Odile to marry him: as soon as he does,
here comes the noisy triumph of the wizard, who like this can keep for himself the true Odette;
Odette who's desperate for the betrayal of Sigfrid, unable to recognize she's not as Odile.
For making us aware of the restless triumph of the wizard, Tchaikovskji has chosen a czarda, a
Hungarian folk dance of 1600.
While everything seems lost, it comes the final scene, the Love Triumph.
We are over the lake, where all the swans try to cheer up the dishearted Odette.
Sigfrid comes breathless to her begging for pardon, but Odette knows that just death will get her
free from the perfidious wizard: so she jumps in the water, but Sigfrid follows her straight.
Comes also the wizard for claiming his victory, but as soon as he realizes the Love of the two
youngest has challenged even afterlife, he dies.
Odette and Sigfrid surface then upon water, hugging one another, while all swans hymn at them
for their infinite happiness.
And in the final music there are many themes, like hints at many joies in the future
for the two lovers, like a composite message of hope and some advices to not take all like it's achieved
neverthless... all old themes, differently, come again, in a triumph where again violin and cello
still declare the reciprocal love...
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