Swan Lake 2005
Conejo Civic Ballet Company's Swan Lake 2005 production was performed May 27 and 28, 2005 at the Scherr Forum Theatre, Countrywide Performing Arts Center, Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. We are pleased that both performances were completely sold out. Swan Lake is the first of the three masterpiece ballet scores that Peter Tchaikovsky composed. It was originally performed in Moscow but revived 12 years later in St. Petersburg shortly after Tchaikovsky's death. Marius Petipa and L.I. Ivanov choreographed the revised Swan Lake and it is this choreography that forms the basis of the CCBC production.
The task of adapting Petipa's choreography to the talents of the Conejo Civic Ballet Company's dancers consisting of students at Ballet Arts of varying levels of technique and stage experience, fell on the able shoulders of Helena Pokorny, our Ballet Mistress. Swan Lake is a difficult ballet to produce for a number of reasons. Usually Swan Lake is a large production with miles and miles of Swans. This requires a degree of coordination of movement among a large group of dancers and in our case, on a small stage; difficult enough with professional dancers, but with student dancers, a bit more of a challenge. In addition to this, the choreography has to engage the audience and bring them into the story or they will be bored, defeating the whole purpose of the production. Many people contributed to making this production a stunning success; guest artists, CCBC dancers, volunteers, Stage Manager Brett Weidlich, Ballet Arts instructors who coached the students tirelessly until the dancing was performance-grade, Artist Director Eva Pokorny and Executive Director Robin Twarowski. However, special recognition goes to Helena Pokorny for serving as choreographer and Ballet Mistress for this production.
A synopsis of the story for our production of Swan Lake includes a novel ending. The Petipa ending has Prince Siegfried and Odette united in death as Siegfried willingly dies to break the spell cast over the swans. While this might seem a bit grim to modern day U.S. audiences, it is actually more uplifting then the original Moscow production. Helena's choreography, I think, matches perfectly with the power of Tchaikovsky's finale. Dragged out of her despair, Odette's uncompromising love for Siegfried and self sacrifice destroy the evil magic of Rothbart and release the spell on Odette and the swans. Evil does not triumph in this unforgettable production.
The program for Swan Lake including the cast list and synopsis of the story (a 1MB pdf file).
We have tried to capture some measure of the excitement of this production of Swan Lake in the Storybook slideshow and in the video clips. As is always the case, and especially so for Swan Lake, no amount of multi media material can take the place of actually experiencing a live performance, but for those who were in the audience, I hope the Storybook and video clips can remind you of the totality of the wonderful performances. And for those that did not attend, we hope to give you a small glimpse of this magnificent ballet and the dedicated and talented members of CCBC who worked hard to bring the audience to its feet in applause at closing curtain.
The photo slideshow contains selected photos from both Friday and Saturday performance. All consist of 640x480 pixel images. The link below will launch a new window with the slideshow.
Slideshow
Video Clips
These video clips are encoded in Windows Media Player format (.wmv) and are under 2 MBytes in size. To play the videos you will need a Windows Media Player. You can get the the Windows Media Player here. For those who prefer open source applications, a popular media player is Media Player Classic available at SourceForge.net.
Click the text button on the left to play a video. If you move your mouse pointer over the text button, the text will change to display the file size you will be downloading. All video clips are 320x240 pixels in size and are taken from the May 27th performance of Swan Lake.
Act 1 Sc1: Court celebration, Polonaise.
Act 1 Sc1: Court celebration, Pas de Trios.
Act 1 Sc2: Swan maidens enter a lake in the forest.
Act 1 Sc2: Swan Queen (Odette) arrives to protect the swans.
Act 1 Sc2: The Prince is enchanted with Odette (Pas de Deux).
Act 1 Sc2: The Prince and Odette dance (Pas de Deux).
Act 1 Sc2: The Prince and Odette dance(Pas de Deux).
Act 1 Sc2: Petite Pas de Quatre - Four little swans dance.
Act 2 Sc1: Princesses dance at Palace Ball.
Act 2 Sc1: Spanish Dance.
Act 2 Sc1: Neapolitan dance.
Act 2 Sc1: Mazurka (Polish) dance.
Act 2 Sc1: Prince/Odile Black Swan Pas de Deux.
Act 2 Sc2: At the lake the swans assemble.
Act 2 Sc2: At the lake the swans assemble - 2.
Act 2 Sc2: Swans protect Odette from Rothbart.
Act 2 Sc2: Prince Siegfried tries to console Odette.
Act 2 Sc2: Siegfried battles angry Rothbart over Odette.
Act 2 Sc2: Odette intervenes to save Siegfried from Rothbart's evil.
Act 2 Sc2: Grande Finale.