I recently attended Boston Ballet’s new production of the old warhorse “Swan Lake,” and enjoyed it despite (or maybe because of?) the fact that I’ve seen the ballet about twenty-five times before, in many difference guises.

I’ve seen companies from the sublime to the not-so-sublime. I’ve seen choreography with the usual sad ending and ones with happy endings. I’ve seen ones where there are Freudian overtones and ones danced by all-male casts. But to me, the very best ones adhere to the tried-and-true “Swan” basics. For the most part (with a few stupid exceptions, at the very beginning and the very end, plus a too-short fourth act) Boston succeeded in doing just that, and it was a beautiful sight to see.

I had a perfect seat, just a few rows up in the mezzanine, the better to perceive the patterns in the “white” acts, the second and the fourth. The music by Tchaikovsky, and the choreography of those particular acts (by Lev Ivanov in the last years of the nineteenth century) are sublime, and merge into one seamless work of art. It sounds hokey to say it, but when that “Swan” corps gets moving fast, in winding circular patterns with arms raised as if in flight, the audience cannot help but be stunned at their transformation into birds (or actually, bird-maidens). The illusion is perfect.

What’s more, Boston’s smoke machine—which begins both acts by suffusing the stage with a romantic mist that is hugely enhanced by a dappled lighting effect—draws involuntary oohs and ahs from the audience. No matter what stage effects you’ve seen before, and how jaded and sophisticated you might be, this hits the spot with its otherworldly glow, and a special touch has the swan corps lying in lovely poses underneath all that smoke and then gradually emerging as it clears.

The Swan Queen I saw the night I attended was Anaé¯s Chalendard. She’s not in the first or even second cast; maybe third or fourth, and I’d never been aware of her before. Maybe not the technically strongest of Queens, she was plenty strong enough, despite a thinness that was extreme even for a ballet dancer. Her Swan Queen managed the neat trick of being simultaneously swan and human about as well as anyone I’ve ever seen (and that’s saying something), and with a very baroque style that was also very French. Her Prince was somewhat of a dullard, but the Prince is a somewhat thankless role anyway that’s very hard to pull off, so I forgave him.

The costumes were extremely ornate but not the least bit garish. Lovely! But I have a quibble: that gold trim on the swans’ costumes is not a good idea. It somewhat dilutes the effect, which should be of pure whiteness.

I highly recommend the production if you’re in the Boston area. Unfortunately, this run is over. But I bet it will be repeated in the future.

As an added bonus, here’s something I’ve posted on this blog before. It’s a photo of neo-neocon, age sixteen, in costume for a role in Act III (Italian variation) of an arts camp production of “Swan Lake.” I also was a swan in the second and fourth acts, but I don’t have a photo of that handy—although I have the pictures somewhere, in some drawer or file or envelope or other.

[NOTE: For a previous post I wrote on the wonderful moment in which Odette, the Swan Queen, is transformed from swan-maiden back to swan, see this.

Here are drawings for some of the costumes and sets. Some behind-the-scenes video here (I can’t seem to figure out how to embed it, so you’ll have to go to the link to watch it). This video shows very brief glimpses of some of the beautiful effects I’ve mentioned.]