Romance Defines S.F. ‘Swan’

Though balletomanes remain addicted to the Franco-Russian masterworks of the last century, the recent productions of “Swan Lake” by the great national institutions that used to define classicism (the Royal, the Kirov) have proven so conceptually out of whack that the tradition now seems most alive in stagings by other companies.

Far from perfect, the 1988 Helgi Tomasson “Swan Lake” for San Francisco Ballet never betrays the soul of what Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov created in 1895 as a memorial to Tchaikovsky. Retaining Ivanov’s Act 2, Petipa’s “Black Swan” duet and other antique passages, Tomasson elsewhere fashions new dances to heighten or vary the original’s atmosphere of high-Romantic yearning.

As splendidly danced as ever, his production returned to the Southland on Wednesday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, with conductor Denis de Coteau, the Pacific Symphony and the orchestra-pit acoustics of Segerstrom Hall all helping the music attain maximum freshness and presence (notwithstanding a problematic solo-violin passage or two).

Tomasson’s placement of “Swan Lake” in the 18th century bothered purists eight years ago, but can be defended as a way of contrasting the timeless emotion of the lakeside episodes with the sophisticated but heartless social whirl of the first and third acts. No, Tchaikovsky’s music doesn’t sound 18th century, but neither does his opera “Queen of Spades” or the parts of “Sleeping Beauty” set in that era.

Moreover, the change in period allows designer Jens-Jacob Worsaae to fill the birthday party and ballroom with cascades of floating, iridescent fabrics that serve the music in a more fundamental way, while his set design for the opening scene offers an alluring playoff between man-made beauty and the glory of nature. Setting the ballroom scene in the castle picture-gallery remains his only major miscalculation--the suite of national dances looks bizarre in such an environment--and even David K.H. Elliott’s resourceful lighting can’t help much here.

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Tomasson takes his greatest gamble in the last act, replacing the usual hodgepodge of orchestrated Tchaikovsky piano pieces with the composer’s “Serenade Melancolique” to create a new pas de deux for the doomed lovers. Like much of his choreography, it provides a pileup of steps and images without a satisfying overall shape or through-line.

Nor is Tomasson always purposeful in his deletions of the 1895 mime. “Don’t shoot the swans” remains, though there’s no corps of hunters in his version, but he cuts the revelation that a faithful lover’s vow can break the spell of evil--a premise on which the whole plot depends. (You’ll find it in the program synopsis, not on the stage.)

However, it’s easy to overlook such lapses when Tomasson and his company work so successfully to keep alive the heart of “Swan Lake” and their view of classical dancing. You could wish that the cygnets were smaller and that the women’s corps seemed more uniform in height and body type. But Tomasson and former Kirov luminary Irina Jacobson have schooled everyone to a high standard of execution. And the Wednesday principals (the first of five sets of leads) explored their own individual paths to distinction.

For Elizabeth Loscavio, the dual role of Odette-Odile exploited the usual sweet-and-sour, feathers-versus-steel contrasts in attack, but also the kind of power and control that allowed her to surge through each variation as if taking it in a single breath. Other Swan Queens have been more tragic and more sensitive to the majesty of the arabesque, but few stronger in technique, creamier in lyric style and more vulnerable in appearance.

Opposite her danced the nobly proportioned, consummately intelligent, superbly intense Yuri Posokhov--no virtuoso, perhaps, but a magnificent partner and something rarer: a dancer who believes in his character enough to make the ballet more than a mere vehicle. Who anywhere in recent memory has matched this Siegfried’s longing for freedom, his sense of Odette as a living miracle or the complexity and depth of his emotions in the “Black Swan” duet and final scene?

As Rothbart, Jorge Esquivel commanded attention with fabulous jumps and the same blazing magnetism that made him a star in his native Cuba nearly a quarter-century ago.

Christopher Stowell looked capable but rushed in the Act 1 pas de trois opposite the refined Kristin Long and the drop-dead-perfect Julia Adam. Sherri LeBlanc and, particularly, Ming-Hai Wu made the scattered effects of the Neoplitan duet tolerably engaging and the Spanish trio--Yuan Yuan Tan, Christopher Anderson and Vadim Solomakha--used their remarkable buoyancy to unify their equally unfocused choreography.

* San Francisco Ballet dances “Swan Lake” at 8 tonight and 2 and 8 p.m. on Saturday. Principal casting differs at every performance. Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. $18-$59. (714) 556-ARTS, Ext. 292.