No Escape to the Dream

The curtain rises on Prince Siegfried, asleep and slumped in an armchair. We enter his dream: a mysterious woman dances in the shadows, only to be abruptly seized by a somber, bird-like figure. As the court festivities begin, the prince remains inert, still held within the grip of his vision. This is not the familiar opulent palace of “Swan Lake,” but a minimalist, Gothic-inspired space shaped by lines and shadow. Within the first three minutes, we are unmistakably in Rudolf Nureyev’s world—a world where, as in Classical Greece, originality emerges through subtle, deliberate, and ingenious variation on tradition and form.

Performance

La Scala Ballet: “Swan Lake” by Rudolf Nureyev

Place

Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy, July 15, 2025

Words

Elsa Giovanna Simonetti

La Scala Ballet in “Swan Lake” by Rudolf Nureyev. Photograph by Brescia/Amisano © Teatro alla Scala

At the emotional core of the narrative lies Siegfried and his dream—the entire ballet unfolds as his oneiric vision. The duty of marriage, the burden of power, reality itself: all are cages he cannot accept. His only refuge lies in fleeting fantasies and an otherworldly tension—the fragile terrain of imagination. The dancer is called to embody a Romantic hero for whom the realm of vision offers shelter: melancholic, idealistic, entranced by something he cannot name, reaching for an ideal of absolute beauty. Nureyev, a profoundly cultured artist steeped in ballet history and literature, here seems drawn to the archetypes of tragic myth. One is reminded of Elsa’s awakening in “Lohengrin,” when she realises that the saviour in whom she placed her hopes was a mythical being—forever drawn away by a swan.

Where “Swan Lake” often leans on contrast, Nureyev offers a unified, inward vision—one shaped by the logic of a fractured soul. One act flows into the next through echoes of movement, tonal transitions, and costume motifs. Geometry underpins the entire ballet: circular formations recall Russian folk dances, while the storm-like rushes of the swans are arranged in stark linear patterns. The overall structure unfolds fluidly, in transitions that feel intuitive and organic. The soft pastel costumes by Franca Squarciapino stand in sharp counterpoint to Ezio Frigerio’s stark architectonic set, evoking a sense of suspended time and striking a balance between delicacy and formal abstraction. Even the character dances of Act III are fully integrated into this coherent visual and emotional world. The pastel blues and roses dissolve any fixed national identity: this is no longer a world of folkloric display, but a realm of dream and pure form.

Nureyev first reimagined “Swan Lake” when dancing Siegfried in the 1964 Vienna State Opera production, in his legendary partnership with Margot Fonteyn. The version we see today, however, was created in 1984 for the Paris Opéra, where he served as director of dance from 1983 to 1989. This “Swan Lake” distills his artistic journey—shaped by personal echoes, inner conflict, unspoken desires, and a life marked by displacement and uprootedness. His reading is Freudian: Nureyev turns the focus to the inner self, suggesting that the entire story unfolds as a projection of Siegfried’s psychological turmoil. The bond between Siegfried and his mother is unusually intense, while the sombre, opaque figure of the preceptor Wolfgang exerts a strict, unsettling influence on the prince. He later reappears as Rothbart, Wolfgang’s dark double—persecutory and deathly. Odette and Odile seem less like real women than fractured projections of Siegfried’s divided psyche.

Alice Mariani in “Swan Lake” by Rudolf Nureyev. Photograph by Brescia/Amisano © Teatro alla Scala

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Navrin Turnbull in “Swan Lake” by Rudolf Nureyev. Photograph by Brescia/Amisano © Teatro alla Scala

Alice Mariani succeeded in dividing her luminous presence and articulate technique between the two roles. Her Odette was tender and poetic—a figure of quiet radiance. As Odile, she chose brilliance over menace, and the decision paid off: her clarity and control gave the character striking definition. Her balances were calm and assured, her fouettés precise and musical, and her phrasing shaped the score with elegance and intent. Navrin Turnbull’s Siegfried was noble and focused, distinguished by clean lines and expressive nuance. He embodied the Romantic ideal—spiritually noble and dignified, with a poised stillness that made his vulnerability all the more affecting. Christian Fagetti portrayed both Wolfgang, the prince’s tutor, and Rothbart, the ominous, bird-like figure, with striking vigour. His rapport with Turnbull was finely calibrated—charged with a subtle, dysfunctional intimacy that added emotional depth to every shared moment. As Rothbart, he sent tremors through the stage with superhuman jumps: a spectral force with terrifying wings.

The corps de ballet impressed with buoyant jumps, fast, centred turns, and a vibrant collective energy. The Act I pas de trois was performed with sparkle and finesse by Linda Giubelli, Alessandra Vassal, and Edward Cooper. Cooper’s jumps were particularly striking, and his final manège drew spontaneous applause. If one flaw must be noted, it lies in the Act III character dances: lively, yet at times lacking the refinement and cohesion evident elsewhere. A few passages would have benefited from greater precision—but the brilliance of the choreography, coupled with the overall vitality of the performance, carried them through.

Among the maîtres de ballet, the name of Massimo Murru stands out: a former étoile of Teatro alla Scala, he is often regarded as an heir to Nureyev, having danced Siegfried in Nureyev’s production in 1997 and 2001. Vello Pähn, who worked closely with Nureyev in his youth, conducted the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala in a performance of sweeping passion and expressive nuance. Each instrumental voice emerged with clarity, sustaining an atmosphere at once lyrical and tragic. Together, these contributions underscore the enduring significance of oral and embodied transmission—both within La Scala’s tradition and in the performing arts more broadly.

Christian Fagetti in “Swan Lake” by Rudolf Nureyev. Photograph by Brescia/Amisano © Teatro alla Scala

All of Nureyev’s signature variations were splendidly executed: the polonaise for sixteen male dancers in Act I, followed by the prince’s solo—a kind of movement monologue in which Siegfried gives form to ineffable pain and restless yearning. Alone in the vast palace, under the watchful gaze of his tutor, he gives physical voice to isolation and pensive sadness. Act II opens with a moment of striking psychological resonance: the swans enter in perfect unison, advancing not with the alternating legs of Ivanov’s choreography, but all with the same leg, creating a hypnotic, almost mechanical grace—as if they were a single organism, shaped by the prince’s disturbed imagination. The effect is uncanny and beautiful.

The final scene is the jewel of this production: a tragic pas de trois between Siegfried, Odette, and Rothbart. The dancers conveyed, with intensity and precision, the shifting tensions of love, fear, and resistance. Siegfried protects Odette; she, in turn, shields him, while Rothbart looms as an overwhelming force. The struggle culminates in the prince’s death—a final act of love, or perhaps of release. And so concludes the story of a soul that could not bear the weight of the world, and found its freedom only in leaving it behind.

“Swan Lake,” especially in Nureyev’s reading, feels strikingly current. It continues to fill theatres around the world, with every performance in Milan playing to a full house. Siegfried is a young man paralysed by the demands of adulthood: the responsible choice of a bride, the exercise of kingly power—both imposed by a maternal figure who allows no space for hesitation. Odette and Odile, though sharply opposed in form, are in fact two faces of the same cultural trap: the ethereal princess and the wilful seductress—roles into which women are still too often confined. Nureyev does not romanticise these oppositions; he collapses them into the fractured logic of a dream, where neither ideal offers true freedom—only escape.

Elsa Giovanna Simonetti

Elsa Giovanna Simonetti is a Paris-based philosopher researching ancient thought, divination, and practices of salvation at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. With over a decade of ballet training, she studied History of Dance as part of her Philosophy and Aesthetics degree at the University of Bologna. Alongside her academic work, she writes about dance.

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