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Article: ABT's Swan Lake: Lessons of the Heart.(American Ballet Theater)
- Article from:
- Dance Magazine
- Article date:
- March 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Dance Magazine, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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DETAILS ARE everything, and little things mean a lot when it comes to ballet.
Take one moment among many at the heart of Swan Lake, Odette's heartbreaking lakeside narration in-Act Two when she reveals to Prince Siegfried that she was not always what she now seems, that she once was a happy young woman.
Even if some of the scene's pantomime is irretrievably lost ... say, Odette's explanation that her mother was a good fairy or the libretto's original intimation that the evil Von Rothbart is really Odette's stepmother ... the dancers must still be given the chance, in the pas d'action as well as in the purely classical scenes, both to mirror ...