It’s only fitting that Oklahoma City Ballet will present Swan Lake around Valentine’s Day. The popular classic ballet is also one of the most romantic, with star-crossed lovers who must break a sorcerer’s spell to be together.
The story inspired by old fairy tales has enough magic and shapeshifting that, were it a novel, it could be considered romantasy. But Swan Lake is much more than a ballet for loved-up couples.
“It is a tale of love and betrayal and redemption, and that resonates universally. It’s also about the struggle between good and evil,” said Ryan Jolicoeur-Nye, Oklahoma City Ballet’s artistic director.
Oklahoma City Philharmonic will perform Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s well-known symphony to accompany the ballet. Swan Lake is one of the first ballets with a symphonic score. Jolicoeur-Nye described the music as “powerful, emotional and instantly recognizable.”
Parts of the symphony have been used in movies, cartoons, video games and more. Remember when Beyoncé sang about “Becky with the good hair” in the song “Sorry”? The music box intro to that song is from Swan Lake.
Because of the ballet’s technically challenging choreography, performing it is a rite of passage for ballet dancers. In the movie Black Swan, Natalie Portman’s character has a breakdown while struggling to master choreography for both Odette (the white swan) and Odile (Mila Kunis’s black swan).
Even the costumes may seem familiar to attendees — if they’re Taylor Swift fans. Swift and her backup dancers wore the same costumes in the video for the pop breakthrough hit “Shake It Off.” Oklahoma City Ballet has borrowed the costumes and sets for this production from Ballet West in Salt Lake City.
But while Swan Lake’s practically a pop culture phenomenon, it flopped when the Bolshoi Ballet debuted it in 1877 in Moscow.
“It was completely unsuccessful, partially because the storyline was very convoluted and complicated and it had a tragic ending that at the time was not well received,” said Racheal Nye, who choreographed this restaging. Nye is the director of Oklahoma City Ballet’s Yvonne Chouteau School and Studio Company, named for the late Shawnee and Cherokee ballerina from Oklahoma who achieved international acclaim in the last century Swan Lake as we know it today debuted in 1895, after 18 long years of revisions to the story, symphony and choreography.
Behind the production
It takes a lot of work to make ballet look graceful and easy. Because of the demands Swan Lake puts on dancers, Oklahoma City Ballet selected four casts of dancers to perform its seven shows, which include six shows and one sensory-friendly staging. In each cast, a prima ballerina will perform the dual roles of Odette and Odile, her devious doppelganger.
Those two roles are often performed by one dancer who performs in each act. But because dancing both can be so grueling, some companies cast different dancers as the white and black swans.
The fact that four prima ballerinas will dance the dual roles is a mark of the company’s skill level, according to Jolicoeur-Nye. He compares dancing in the ballet to running a marathon, then going back to start it over again.
Each cast has 24 Swan Corps dancers (other women the sorcerer has cast spells upon) and male corps de ballet dancers, who inject energy into the show with leaps and turns.
Mayu Odaka performed as a little swan in Oklahoma City Ballet’s 2017 production and hoped she’d be able to perform as Odette and Odile one day. Now she is. She said Swan Lake is a ballet every dancer wants to perform in their career.
“It’s a one-of-a-kind beast,” Odaka said. “It’s so hard physically, emotionally, mentally, everything. But in the end, it’s all worth it.”
In the choreography, Odette and Odile share similar dance moves. “It’s how you interpret the movement, which creates the audience understanding of the difference of it,” choreographer Nye said. “It’s really nuanced.”
Odaka conveys the good in Odette and the evil in Odile through facial expressions and slight changes to her head and hand. As Odette, who Odaka describes as gentle and almost fragile, every step has softness to it. Odile’s style is completely different.
“She’s the complete opposite,” Odaka said. “Very explosive, a lot of charisma and just a lot of attack.”
Nye, a self-described bunhead, is the type of teacher and choreographer who collects detailed information about classic ballet, like which dancer or company did something first in what theater and in which year.
She choreographed this production based on the work of 19th-century choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov and by studying versions developed since, deciding which parts to keep and which to adjust. Ballet companies may make adjustments to work better for a company’s dancers or more fully flesh out parts of the story that haven’t been explored before.
“For me, it’s such a wonderful thing to understand where we came from in order to understand where we can take it,” Nye said.
This detailed look at previous versions results in a more authentic restaging than could be achieved by a choreographer who watches a single performance on video, Jolicouer-Nye said. Although the video version may be technically correct, it wouldn’t feel authentic.
“If a young choreographer learns the choreography by watching YouTube, the dancing lacks the essence of authenticity it has when the choreographer’s trained by people who were trained by people who were trained by the people who made it,” he said.
Love story
In Swan Lake, Prince Siegfried and Princess Odette fall in love but face huge obstacles to being together. The main problem is that because of the sorcerer’s spell, Odette is a swan during the day, returning to her human form only at night.
This love story almost ended before it started. When Siegfried goes hunting in the first act, he almost shoots an arrow at Odette in swan form. Just before he can send the arrow flying, the swan transforms into a beautiful maiden princess. For Siegfried at least, it’s love at first sight.
Odette’s initially unsure of her suitor. After all, she’s been through a lot and is only human half the day. She knows she’ll stay under the spell the rest of her life unless strict conditions involving a true love can be met.
It doesn’t help that Odile, who looks like Odette in every way except the color of her costume, schemes to get a marriage proposal from Siegfried, who believes she’s the woman he loves. The truth eventually comes out, and Siegfried seeks out Odette, who has fallen in love with him.
Just as Shakespeare plays are often reinterpreted, Swan Lake has undergone changes to the story and to the choreography, in part due to changing ballet techniques.
Several companies have changed the story to have a happy ending or to emphasize different themes. One version took inspiration from the modern royal love triangle between Princess Diana, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles. (That one didn’t end happily!)
So does the ending of Oklahoma City Ballet’s production take a tragic turn or turn into a happily ever after like those so loved by romantasy readers?
In her ending, Nye revisited the original choreography by Julius Reisinger, in which Odette wore a tiara that protected her from death. She includes the tiara but leaves Odette’s fate open to each audience member’s interpretation.
Nye sees it as a happy ending in which no one dies.
“I feel really strongly that right now in the world, we need a win,” Nye said. “I want a win. I need good to win and triumph.”
Swan Lake runs through Feb. 16 at Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N. Walker Ave. Single tickets are $29-$128. A sensory-friendly performance is 2 p.m. Feb. 15. Visit okcballet.org.
This article appears in The OG Food Issue 2025.