Nemzeti Táncszínház

In Tchaikovsky’s music, the theme of Odette is ever-present, recurring throughout the performance. The subtle musical nuances of weeping and sadness are eventually transformed into a ray of hope, and in the ballet’s final scene this theme is transformed into a jubilant and celebratory note, for it is this ray of hope that breaks the curse with its celebration of life. In this way, this musical theme is transformed into a philosophical generalisation of the central problem.

Our performance is far from providing such a clear-cut conclusion.

Even the setting itself is unconventional: Odette is a patient in a 19th century psychiatric hospital in Russia. This draws a subtle parallel with Tchaikovsky’s life, which was also marked by fearful secrecy as he struggled with depression on countless occasions, even tempting death. The ethereal White and the passionate Black Swan are projections of his sensitive, neurotic soul, written with a self-healing, therapeutic purpose.

In keeping with this dual perspective, the set is one moment a desolate hospital space, the next a dungeon, and then, in moments, a terrifying and magical landscape for the story to soar. All this is made possible by a special projection method that delineates and defines space on several planes of the set.

The era we want to evoke coincides with the time of the premiere of Swan Lake (1877). The second half of the 19th century is a psychotic period of proliferating mental hospitals, patients ‘possessed’ by animal spirits, and the treatment of mental illnesses by torture and other weird methods.

The point of view of storytelling keeps changing: one minute we are outside observers looking at events objectively, the next we suddenly find ourselves in a vision of Odette. These visions, or the traumas, abuses and losses she suffered in her dark past, are embodied in the Russian fairy tale world, sometimes as a self-healing tool for her, as in the case of Tchaikovsky. The loneliness of the hospital ward can’t prevent her imagination from taking flight. In Odette’s fantasies, she is a swan queen, attending balls and going to and fro in her palace, all the while alternating between her past, present and never-to-be future. While life as a swan is a metaphor for captivity in the classical ballet, in our upcoming production it represents freedom and redemption.

The characters appearing in the dance-thriller are connected to both worlds, being both characters from the original ballet (Odette, Odile, Siegfried, the Prince’s mother, Rothbart, Von Rasposen, and the swan maidens), but also residents or therapists in the psychiatric institution. The Prince’s mother – rigorous head nurse. Von Rasposen - the Prince’s friend, whose attempts to protect his protégé fail. Siegfried – a young doctor who prefers kindness and patience to chains, violence and physical abuse, and who talks to his patients on his walks. Rothbart – the head of the institute, who tries to cure schizophrenia, the epidemic of the century, with remedies such as copious amounts of medication, strapping patients to beds and rinsing their heads with cold water.

He’s got hold of Odette, who has now been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and even a form of it called ‘dissociative identity’. The other inpatients, or, if you like, Odette’s cellmates, are the other seven girls, whose costumes, long-sleeved straitjackets ending in a string like mutilated swan wings, suggest a state of transformation. No longer human, but not yet swans. No longer healthy, but not yet undead. Through them we see every soul-destroying moment of Odette’s past. But then the great rival appears, the girl in black, fresh from the free outside world: She is Odile, a black swan in Odette’s visions, who hinders her soaring and wants to tear her away from her love. She is not, however, a rival who weakens Odette’s status, but the product of her disturbed mind, the other side of her split personality. They are the same person. The beautiful and incurable Odile is at first a truly free person, a rebel against her fate, whom Rothbart has tried to keep sane by the most desperate means. Odette is the end product of his ‘healing’ methods, living in the freedom of visions and hallucinations at ‘Swan Lake’, instead of the reality of her physical captivity.

Odette: Miriam Munno / Diletta Savini

Odilia: Diletta Ranuzzi / Letizia Melchiorre

Siegfried: Francesco Totaro / Vincze Lotár

Rothbart: Czár Gergely / Füzesi Csongor

Nurse: Bocsi Petra / Nyeste Adrienn

Alexander: Kiss Róbert

Assistant doctors: Füzesi Csongor / Czár Gergely, Vincze Lotár / Francesco Totaro

Girls, swans: Nier Janka, Giordana Marzocchi, Desireé Bazzani, Diletta Savini/Miriam Munno, Letizia Melchiorre/Diletta Ranuzzi, Nyeste Adrienn/Bocsi Petra, Chiara Gionti

Music: Pjotr Iljics Csajkovszkij

Light: Dániel Szabó

Costumes: Bianca Imelda Jeremias

Set concept: Tamás Juronics

Set, Scenery : Kázmér Tóth

Animation: János Madarász, Gergő Madarász

Set design: Scabello

Dramaturge: Brigitta Szokolai

‏Assistant : Gergely Czár

Choreography by Tamás Juronics, Gergely Czár and Szeged Contemporary Dance Company

Directed by Tamás Juronics

Company Director: Echéry-Pataki András

Artistic Director: Tamás Juronics

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Program

Black Swan - Szeged Contemporary Dance Company

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