NYCB Vol. 14 No. 19 - Swan Lake

Photo by Sasha, 1926

Today we open a two week run of Swan Lake at NYCB. Because my @immortaliconsofdance episode this week focuses on Alexandra Danilova, I thought I’d combine the two topics and share some Swan/Danilova content.

“To each of her many and varied roles, Danilova brings experience and intelligence, as well as technique. In the role of the Swan Queen in ‘Swan Lake,’ she is the perfect classic ballerina. There is the personal dignity, the reserve, the poised display of body line which tradition demands of the classic ballerina, but she goes further. In the delineation of the role, one ballerina will accent the swan qualities, another the queen aspects, still another the womanly attributes of the role, but Danilova manages to be all three and in addition to this merger, she somehow succeeds in evoking the air of fantasy and of doomed passion which make ‘Swan Lake’ a theatrical masterpieces and not just another fairy-tale ballet.”

—Walter Terry, NY Herald Tribune, 1946.

Photo by Cecil Beaton