SOMETIMES it can be so simple. Irina Kolesnikova, star of St Petersburg Ballet Theatre’s touring production of Swan Lake, has made a decision which throws the entire story into high relief. She portrays both Odette, the princess who is magicked into a swan, and Odile, her wicked impersonator, as if they really are birds.

Every ballerina plays with this woman/swan duality — one forlorn, the other predatory — but, unlike others, Kolesnikova never gives the woman the upper hand. Every night, at midnight, Odette is released from her spell, but Kolesnikova’s Odette is never completely freed. Rothbart’s sorcery exerts too strong a draw. Even though Prince Siegfried is falling for Odette, she doesn’t dare to put her trust in this human. Throughout their lakeside courtship she remains as wary as any wild creature. Kolesnikova then ups the ante in the ballroom scene in which Odile and Rothbart trick Siegfried into believing she is Odette, by remaining as much a swan as the creature he had encountered the night before. Here, most ballerinas turn seductively feline.


Kolesnikova’s imperiousness has a ruthless, vicious nature. She’s mesmerising poor Siegfried rather than flirting with him. The result is as exciting and audacious as it is theatrically credible, even in a venue as large as the Albert Hall.


The true (and stunning) payoff comes in the final minute, when, Rothbart defeated, Odette is released from her spell. In a ravishing transformation the swan melts away to be replaced by a joyous woman. Opulent and grand, Kolesnikova is a ballerina of prodigious technical strengths. Her dancing is writ large but never over-emphatic. Everything she does comes from deep inside her.


She is in the midst of a traditional, even old-fashioned, production, with fine, well-schooled dancing from the corps de ballet.