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Kids

ENB, My First Ballet – Swan Lake online

06 Apr 21 – 10 Apr 22, Available on demand for £4.99. Dur.: 1 hour

English National Ballet’s Swan Lake, specially adapted for the little ones as part of the My First Ballet series, is now available online

By Teresa Guerreiro on 6/4/2021

1 CW reader is interested
Harvey Littlefield as Prince Siegfried, Chloe Keneally as Odette in My First Ballet: Swan Lake.  Photo: Laurent Liotardo
Harvey Littlefield as Prince Siegfried, Chloe Keneally as Odette in My First Ballet: Swan Lake. Photo: Laurent Liotardo
ENB, My First Ballet – Swan Lake online ENB, My First Ballet – Swan Lake online Teresa Guerreiro
My First Ballet: Swan Lake is available on the ENB At Home platform for a fee of £4.99 for a 72-hour rental.
Click here for tickets and access via the website, or use the new ENB App – details here.


Ballet casts its spell on children very early on. Yet parents often wonder whether a typical four-act, three-hour Swan Lake running late into the evening really is the appropriate treat for the little ones.


Mindful of that, English National Ballet (ENB) in association with English National Ballet School has devised a series of special adaptations of the classics with the little ones in mind.


My First Ballet: Swan Lake, recorded during a 2018 performance, is now available to download: bewitched Swan Princess, evil sorcerer, besotted Prince Siegfried, massed ranks of white tutu-ed swans… and all within in one hour.


This version of Swan Lake was choreographed by ENB's ballet master, Antonio Castilla. His approach focuses on the Swan Princess, Odette, following her journey through love to forgiveness


Bearing in mind the need to make the work accessible to very young children, a narrator has been introduced, who picks out the mime and some important story elements.



This is not just My First Ballet: Swan Lake for the audience, though. The dancers, 17- to 19-year-old second-year students from English National Ballet School, get their first opportunity to dance this great classic. Chloe Keneally, who dances Odette in this recording, has since joined ENB as an artist.


There is a happy ending. Rather than plunge together into the lake to die, having been unable to defeat the powerful magic of the evil von Rothbart, Odette and her Prince live happily ever after.


Castilla has, of course, kept the delightful Tchaikovsky score, the white tutus, the dashing prince and the magic of the fairy tale, but made it child-friendly.


All with your little ones in mind!


Age Guidance: 3+


by Teresa Guerreiro

What ENB, My First Ballet – Swan Lake online
Where Peacock Theatre, Portugal Street, London, WC2A 2HT | MAP
When 06 Apr 21 – 10 Apr 22, Available on demand for £4.99. Dur.: 1 hour
Price £4.99
Website https://secure.sadlerswells.com/production/47495



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  • More on Swan Lake

    Swan Lake, with music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, is perhaps the most loved ballet of the classical repertoire.

    All major companies dance it, many based on the 1895 Petipa/Ivanov version staged at for the Russian Imperial Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.

    THE STORY

    The ballet tells the story of Odette, the princess turned into a swan by a curse of the evil magician von Rothbart and fated to remain so, along with her friends, until someone swears her an oath of eternal love.

    Prince Siegfred, the heir to the throne is pressed by his mother to find a bride. He takes refuge from royal duties by going to hunt in the forest. There he meets Odette, falls in love and swears eternal fidelity.

    But von Rothbart is not so easily defeated. He brings his daughter Odille, the Black Swan who happens to be Odette’s evil double, to the Palace. Siegfried is fooled. He swears his love for Odille , thus breaking his oath to Odette and condemning her to remain forever under von Rothbart’s spell.

    In Act IV the lovers choose death rather than an eternity apart; although in some versions over the years, particularly in Soviet Russia, Siegfried fights von Rothbart, wins, breaks the spell and the lovers live happily ever after.

    The ballet is most famous for its white Acts II and IV where the massed ranks of swans dance in perfect unison under a dreamy lakeside moonlight; and for the technical fireworks of the Black Swan pas-de-deux in Act III.

    Over the years, Swan Lake has been the subject of many adaptations, some faithful to the Petipa/Ivanov version; some less so; some creative and engaging; some frankly appalling.

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ENB

My First Ballet: Swan Lake

English National Ballet

English National Ballet School

Antonio Castilla

Cjhloe Keneally

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