The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Ballet Philippines (BP) is ending its 47th season, called “Wings,” with its seventh restaging of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece Swan Lake at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ (CCP) Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo (Main Theater) from February 24 to March 5.
First mounted by Moscow’s renowned Bolshoi Ballet on March 4, 1877, and said to be based on German and Russian folktales, Swan Lake tells the story of the cursed Princess Odette, who transforms into a swan during the day and returns to her human form at night, and the idealistic Prince Siegfried, who’s pressured to find a bride. They meet at the titular lake and fall in love, but that love ultimately turns tragic when the evil sorcerer Von Rothbart and his witch-daughter Odile conspire against them.
“Swan Lake is regarded as the summit of achievement…for every major classical ballet company,” Ballet Philippines Artistic Director Paul Alexander Morales said. “Nowadays, so many versions and interpretations of the ballet are available online, so audiences will likely have their own ideas of what Swan Lake is and what it should be like. It is our challenge to come up with an entirely new experience of this ballet.”
Bringing Odette and Siegfried to life are three pairs of dancers: BP principal dancer Denise Parungao and company member Garry Corpuz; soloists Jemima Reyes and Victor Maguad, in their first lead roles in a classical ballet; and award-winning guest artists Candice Adea, formerly of the Hong Kong Ballet and BalletMet, and Joseph Phillips of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, who shall perform at the ballet’s international gala on February 25.
They join an exclusive group of performers who portrayed those roles in BP’s previous stagings of Swan Lake in 1980, 1982, 1985, 1989, 1991, and 1994. They include Maniya Barredo, Kelly Cass, Toni Lopez Gonzalez, Valentina Kozlova, Yoko Morishita, Guo Peihui, Cecile Sicangco, Ester Rimpos, Anna Villadolid, Medhi Bahiri, Fernando Bujones, Wes Chapman, Nonoy Froilan, Serge Lavoie, Robert Medina, Brando Miranda, and Zhang Weiqiang.
Filipino ballet icon Froilan is restaging Swan Lake using the now-definitive choreography of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov that was first unveiled in their 1895 production of the ballet at the Mariinsky Theater. The Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO) will perform Tchaikovsky’s music, with conductor Yoshikazu Fukumura leading them during the ballet’s gala performances on February 24 and 25, and March 3. TMM
Performances of Swan Lake are February 24 and March 3 at 8 p.m., February 25 and March 4 at 2 and 7 p.m., and February 26 and March 5 at 3 p.m. For tickets, call Ticketworld at (632) 891-9999. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/balletphilippines.