Creating Swan Lake in-the-round: an oral history

The Idea

Derek Deane, choreographer of Swan Lake in-the-round, Artistic Director of English National Ballet 1993 – 2001.

The idea came from promoter Raymond Gubbay, who invited English National Ballet to go into the Royal Albert Hall. I thought it was a great arena publicity-wise, for the Company. My first impression was that we could not do it on a standard, front on-view stage. Productions usually used a jutted stage, where you perform to half of the Hall, and I wasn’t keen on that. I saw the arena floor, the ‘egg’ as I call it, and I thought this would really work if we were clever enough to do it in the round. So, I made this suggestion, and I immediately said I’ll have to quadruple the swans to really make it work. The Gubbays loved the idea that we could perform to the 5,000 seats of the Hall.

First Impressions

Jim Fletcher, then Senior Press Officer

I joined the company in August 1996, and in the schedule was a thing called “Mega Lac” [“Lac” for “Lac des Cygnes”, the original title of Swan Lake in French]. It took me a couple of weeks to figure out what it was exactly!

Jane Haworth, then Tour Administrator

I had retired from dancing two years before. My first reaction was “How incredible! It might be time to put my pointe shoes back on though – just in case, as we’ll need so many dancers!”

Anna Seidl, then Principal with Dutch National Ballet, and one of the guest dancers performing Odette/Odile

Initially, I was unaware of the magnitude of the production at the Royal Albert Hall. As a regular guest artist with ENB, my focus was primarily on the excitement of returning to London from my home base in Amsterdam and receiving coaching from David Wall and Derek Deane. However, upon arriving and grasping the scale of the event, my immediate reaction was, “Oh my God, there are no wings to hide and exit between entrances during the Black Swan pas de deux!”

Geraldine Tiernan, then Assistant Buyer in the Wardrobe department (now Production Wardrobe Manager)

My first reaction was: “70 swans?! You mean 7-0?” We would have to make a lot of phone calls and visits to suppliers so we could find the fabrics, braids and trimmings to make all the costumes. This was before the internet had reached us, so it was quite a task.

Mapping out the Stage

Derek Deane

I got the dimensions of ‘the egg’, and I got my technical director to make a board for me, to the correct scale. We found out by accident that the one penny piece was the to-scale diameter of a tutu base in those dimensions. So, I got 60 pennies on this board, and I made shapes, moving groups of pennies around. I had to change a lot once I got into the studio, but I essentially shaped it out on this board with all my one penny pieces.

I also had to take into consideration that the length of the egg is four times deeper than a normal proscenium stage. The swans, instead of travelling eight metres, had to travel 30 metres sideways. Instead of travelling seven metres they had to travel 50 metres back. I stuck to what people think of as the Swan Lake choreography, but I had to take into account that it took dancers much, much longer to get to different areas in this huge space.

Paul Lewis, who danced Rothbart on opening night

Derek had some genius ideas. For example, having two groups of cygnets instead of one, doing it in opposite directions and turning around so that they weren’t just doing it to the front. Similarly, in the choreography for the pas de deux, you might worry that some audience members will be looking at the back of the male dancer, lifting the ballerina, but Derek turned it around so you changed direction all the time.

Jim Fletcher

I remember thinking “how are they going to do this?”, because I felt that you needed the illusion of the proscenium for Swan Lake to work. Then, when I saw how Derek Deane was envisaging the patterns of the swans, I started to understand what his vision was. He created a new form that had its own artistic integrity. His approach was almost like Busby Berkeley, with kaleidoscopic shapes, and the drama was closer and more intimate than it would be on a normal stage.

Rehearsals

Louise Halliday, performing as Swan

The sheer size of the stage was overwhelming. Our largest ballet studio at Markova House in Jay Mews, next door to the Royal Albert Hall, was nowhere near big enough so we started plotting the ballet there but moved to a Territorial Army Centre in the City of London for the final three weeks of rehearsals. It was surreal arriving for rehearsals with all our ballet gear amongst all the City folk in their sharp suits.

Roberto Bolle, who danced as Prince Siegfried on opening night

I was supposed to be the third cast, however due to an indisposition of the first cast I was asked to step in and dance on opening night with Altynai Asylmuratova. So, for me the rehearsal period became very difficult and challenging, but at the same time I remember it as an incredible, unforgettable creative experience: it was the first time I had the leading role in a creation. It had never happened to me before.

Jane Haworth

The big challenge was, of course, suddenly having a company of dancers twice the size, plus jugglers and acrobats. There is a lot of running for the swans, so for the placing call the ladies wore trainers, to time all the choreography without extra impact on their lower legs and feet.

Paul Lewis

We knew it was going to be a massive undertaking, but we only started grasping the full scale of it once we were in rehearsals out in the City of London, just seeing the number of people taking class! And later on, the jugglers, acrobats and everyone else. None of us had ever been part of anything quite so enormous before. It was a very exciting time.

Geraldine Tiernan

There was a lot going on – with so much fabric to send out to costume makers around the country, and so many fittings to organise.

At the Hall

Paul Lewis

It wasn’t until we went to the Royal Albert Hall that everybody was able to stand back and really get the effect of how it really looked with all the patterns of the swans.

What they hadn’t really taken into account is that the girls all got used to standing next to this girl, or that girl, and suddenly they were all in there in the Hall, in their tutus and headdresses, everybody looking the same, with the smoke, and it was hard to know who you were meant to stay behind!

Roberto Bolle

Even the rehearsals didn’t prepare me for what a spectacular production this is. I couldn’t imagine what the stage space would be like, because I had never been to the RAH before. When I first saw the 60 swans in there, I was left speechless – pure magic!

Louise Halliday

When we got to the Hall for tech and dress rehearsals none of the development of the dressing rooms had been done (that was in 2004, 7 years later) so the corps de ballet were sharing arena bars as dressing rooms. We had trestle tables with mirrors taped onto them which we shared. It felt more like an army camp than the Royal Albert Hall.

Opening Night

Louise Halliday

Opening nights always have a frisson but this was heightened. There’s never enough rehearsal time but we knew that the precision of the corps de ballet of swans was vital to create the kaleidoscopic visual impact, and we all had to line up with staircases, exit signs and any possible landmark to ensure that we were hitting the right spot. It felt like the eyes of the world were on us.

Jim Fletcher

I remember being in the Stalls with Anthony Findlay from Raymond Gubbay. We looked at each other and I said “I’m so nervous. I don’t know how this is going to work. We don’t know what the reaction is going to be”. And then after Act two, at the interval, we punched the air and thought “This is a winner. This is absolutely beautiful.” On that particular night, there was so much energy and adrenaline: everything worked.

Paul Lewis

As Rothbart, I popped up through the trap door. It was a highlight of my career, you know, having that moment, popping up in front of 5,000 people on opening night, at the Royal Albert Hall! It was a thrill!

Roberto Bolle

I was very worried about not being up to the fantastic opportunity that was presenting itself to me. I was also very unsure because it was only my second time guesting internationally, and I had never danced the Prince in Swan Lake before. I felt a lot of pressure, but at the same time the happiness and satisfaction after the debut were unforgettable.

The Performances

Anna Seidl

There were moments that felt surreal, such as when my partner Boris de Leeuw and I had to navigate down the stairs and cut through the audience to enter the stage for the third act pas de deux. This entrance, synchronised with the beginning chords of the music, created an unusual closeness between the audience and my own sense of intimacy, adding to the complexity of the experience.

After my first performance, I was relieved as the pressure that had been building up over the previous weeks finally was over. It was comforting to hear from my colleagues, including prima ballerina Altynai Asylmuratova, that they had experienced similar feelings. We were all eagerly anticipating our second performance, when the tension had subsided and we could return to being “ourselves” again.

Paul Lewis

The costume for Rothbart was bigger than what I was used to – but it was lighter. The worst thing was trying to run around the stage with it, about 20 times, and then having to run up the stairs to get out through the doors at the top of the Stalls, trying not to trip over – and of course the audience is just a foot away from you!

Jane Haworth

I was cast in Spanish (Act three), and ended up doing the last five shows of Swans in Act four: so I did go back on pointe!

Louise Halliday

We were so close to the audience, we could see the whites of their eyes, and they could see ours. Those on the front rows of the Stalls had seen every bead of sweat, every quiver of muscle. It was electric – one of those rare occasions where you feel that the performers and the audience are so caught up in the moment that they are breathing in unison.

We gave it absolutely everything and by the end of the run we were all absolutely exhausted – we had run many times further than we ever could have imagined, so exposed to the audience, nowhere to hide and with four acts every day.

Paul Allen, Music Administration Manager

We had a big orchestra of 82 that first year, and have continued to have that number of players, to make a big sound in that amazing venue. I have a feeling that this was the first time we wore all black as it was much better for the lighting if we weren’t reflecting the light back into the audience. I remember that that season was a huge success and audiences loved it and have come back to see it again in the years since.

A Special Patron

Jim Fletcher

We organised a photoshoot with Diana, Princess of Wales, who was the Company’s Patron, in the Royal Albert Hall. She knew us well: I would go to her office regularly to drop press cuttings and videos, and she found my Scottish accent hilarious. When we set up the swans around her, kneeling in their swan position, she didn’t like that so much. It made her feel a bit uncomfortable. So instead, we also took pictures where she is sat amongst them. She also did a short interview for local news for us.

Lady Diana attended a gala performance on 3 June. There were a lot of photographers and TV journalists there: it was one of her first public appearances since her divorce had been finalised. She came in that beautiful blue Jacques Azagury dress. We commissioned a photographer to take a photograph of her amongst our guests during the interval. We had agreed that she would give me a nod when she was ready. She was holding a glass, put it on a mantelpiece, and gave me a big wink and the photographer came in. That was my last direct connection to the Princess of Wales.

The reaction

Derek Deane

I thought that Swan Lake in-the-round would be a success because it was different to other productions. It was unique, and I thought there would be a huge amount of public interest in it. Funnily enough, when we first did it, it was almost universally looked down upon by critics as being too commercial.  I took some solace because, you know, when Swan Lake was first performed in the 19th century, it was critiqued so badly – the music and the choreography. People were booing. People were leaving the theatre. Tchaikovsky had a nervous breakdown because of it.

But in our case, the audiences loved it. And, of course, over the years that we have continued to do it, the critics’ reviews have got better, better, better… Some reviewers said that it was better because I had changed it: I haven’t changed a step!

Jim Fletcher

There were lots of chats with some of the press about how this could work. They felt it was impossible! I remember speaking to them on opening night, and one of the critics refused to accept that this was a serious work of art. Long story short, over the next few seasons that the Company performed it, all those critics changed their position. One of them even conceded, in a later review, that he didn’t like it at first, but that it works. And it really does: it is the most incredible thing.

Louise Halliday

This is my most visceral memory: standing on that giant oval stage with 5,000 people in the audience and thundering applause. It was the most goosebump-inducing moment I’d had as a dancer.

Lasting legacy

Derek Deane

I knew at the start when those ticket sales happened, that this could be an ongoing thing, as it has proved to be.

Over the years, I’ve loved working with different people in the roles. They all do the same steps, of course, but the interpretations are so different. In the Hall you really have to rely on your acting as well as your dancing. You must be so expansive at the right time. The dancers who have done it, with their experience, have all done that in very different ways and have moved me greatly. It’s never the same.

Roberto Bolle

Dancing in this production at the Royal Albert Hall is one of the most memorable experiences of my life. It’s an iconic theatre, with a unique stage/scenic space. Derek has created a masterpiece.

Jim Fletcher

The whole experience was a key moment in my professional career. Derek Deane as Artistic Director, Carole McPhee as Chief Executive, my manager Richard Shaw – these were all really positive people, wanting to do new things. I’ll never forget it.

Experience Swan Lake in-the-round at the Royal Albert Hall, 12-23 June 2024 only: book your tickets now.