Swan Lake Studies 91-102
91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102.
With Baron von Rothbart we come to the most problematic figure in “Swan Lake”. At a literal narrative level, why has he turned Odette into a swan by day with nighttime return to human form? At a symbolic level, what kind of meaning does he have for us?
One immediate point is that “Rothbart” means “red beard”. Traditionally, Hilarion in “Giselle” wore a red beard: this was seen as a clinching factor as his wholly unattractive nature. (Hilarion has been made more reasonable and attractive during the last eighty years, sometimes excessively so.)
A second immediate point is that Rothbart should never be a dance role: this trivialises the effect of both dance and non-dance elements in this story. A third is that a number of terrible productions reconfigure the whole ballet so that Rothbart becomes Siegfried’s dark but intrusive alter ego, shadowing him as a nemesis, obsessed more with the prince than with the Swan Queen. And a fourth, particularly fatuous, idea is to have Rothbart clutch a swan desirously as if swans were the only species from which he gets his sexual fulfilment.
But a fifth point was perhaps the most brilliant feature of Matthew Bourne’s globally successful 1995 production: there the role of Rothbart, minimised at court, is absent from the lakeside scenes altogether. The issues of destiny and anguish that the Prince and the Swan confront in that production are within themselves. This is comparable to the masterstroke in George Balanchine’s 1974 ending to “Le Baiser de la fée” (added to his 1972 staging of that ballet’S Divertimento), excluding the story’s fée altogether and creating a psychodrama whereby the hero and heroine part (with the corps de ballet of her friends becoming now an imperial agent or symbol) because of the tragic forces in their own minds.
In the original 1877 production - written by V.P.Begichev, an official of the Moscow Bolshoi - Odette’s cruel nemesis was her evil stepmother, never seen onstage in female form: she haunted the lakeside scenes in the form of an owl (in Verdi’s opera “Il Trovatore”, the gypsy Azucena’s dead mother is said to appear in owl form) and who took human form in the ballroom, when “he”, as Baron von Rothbart, brought his daughter Odile, convincingly disguised as Odette, to lure Prince Siegfried to betray Odette. Well, we know about wicked stepmothers....
These photographs show a few of the guises Rothbart has taken by the lakeside since 1895:
91, 92: Alexei Bulgakov, the Rothbart of the 1895 Petipa-Ivanov production;
93, 94: the red-bearded Rothbart of Alexei Ratmansky’s 2016 Zürich historically informed staging of the 1895 Mariinsky production;
95: Rothbart flying as an owl in the 1953 Soviet film of “Swan Lake”;
96 Rothbart now as an owl-shaped human-size figure in the same film production;
97, 98: the Rothbart of the 1959 “Royal Ballet” film of the first lakeside scene with Margot Fonteyn (Odette), Michael Somes (Siegfried), and Bryan Ashbridge (Benno),’with designs by Leslie Hurry;
99: Derek Rencher in 1980, as the Rothbart in a later edition of the Leslie Hurry designs;
100: poor Gary Avis in the Anthony Dowell 1987-2017 Royal Ballet production, where, thanks to Yolanda Sonnabend’s designs, Rothbart seemed less like an owl than a piece of diseased thatch.
Male or female, Rothbart has a geometrically gravitational impact on Lev Ivanov’s choreography for the first lakeside scene: he appears only upstage left - which is why Odette, in her big mime speech, points that way before gesturing of “Evil man” or “sorcerer”. “Rothbart‘s corner”, whether he is seen or not, becomes an active force in the dances: Odette in particular returns to it when in doubt about trusting Siegfried.
Despite Siegfried’s being the only person present in all the four main scenes of “Swan Lake”, he is not at the centre of its music drama. (As Arlene Croce joked in the 1970s: “Exam question: Whistle Siegfried’s Theme from ‘Swan Lake’; demonstrate its chief movement motif.”) It’s Rothbart’s doom upon Odette that’s in the music’s most famous theme. We scarcely need to see him by the lake at all - it’s remarkable how seldom he appears in Ratmansky’s version of the 1895 production - because we feel his fateful effect anyway. And if we read “Swan Lake” as a psychodrama - I don’t know how we can avoid it - Odette’s returns to Rothbart’s corner, her need to protect him from Siegfried’s violence, are part of her confused attachment to the dark protection of the family nest and of enduring, white, virginity. Rothbart is the ballet’s agent of repression; the freedom offered by Siegfried is one she fears as well as desires.
Friday 14 August
Derek Rencher as Rothbart, 1980, Royal Ballet: for me a definitive interpretation
Alexei Bulgakov as Rothbart, 1895, Maryinsky Ballet premiere production of the Petipa-Ivanov “Swan Lake”
Alexei Bulgakov as Rothbart, 1895, Maryinsky premiere of the Drigo-Petipa-Ivanov production of “Swan Lake”
In the 1953 Bolshoi film of “Swan Lake”, Rothbart is at one point shown flying as a bat above the lake.
Rothbart means Redbeard. Here is a redbeard Rothbart in Alexei Ratmansky’s 2016 Zürich Ballet production of “Swan Lake”.
The redbeard Rothbart: Zürich Ballet, 2016, Alexei Ratmansky’s production.
Siegfried, Odette, and Rothbart in Alexei Ratmansky’s 2016 Zürich Ballet production of “Swan Lake”
Royal Ballet “Swan Lake”, 1980. Left to right Anthony Dowell (Prince Siegfried), Natalia Makarova (Odette), Derek Rencher (Baron von Rothbart)
Rothbart as human in the 1953 Bolshoi film of “Swan Lake”
Derek Rencher as Rothbart on his corner rock in “Swan Lake”, Royal Ballet, 1980.
Gary Avis as Baron von Rothbart in the Anthony Dowell 1987-2016 Royal Ballet production of “Swan Lake”, photo probably c.2010.