Ballet de Santiago Swan Lake

Ballet de Santiago Swan Lake description

Chile's leading classical ballet company brings its staging of Swan Lake to London for its UK debut.

Tchaikovsky's ballet follows Prince Siegfried, who is told he must choose a bride and who meets Odette at a lakeside at night. She and her companions have been turned into swans by the sorcerer von Rothbart, and the spell lifts only between dusk and dawn. Siegfried swears to love her alone, which would break it. At the ball where he is to make his choice, Rothbart presents his own daughter Odile in Odette's likeness, and the prince gives his vow to the wrong woman.

Ballet de Santiago is the resident company of the Municipal de Santiago, Ópera Nacional de Chile, and is in its 66th year. It is one of Latin America's leading ballet companies, and these performances are its first in the United Kingdom. The score is played live by the English National Opera Orchestra. The Irish Times gave the production four stars when the company danced it in Dublin, calling it "the most beguiling swan Dublin has seen in years", and No More Workhorse described "a visual, balletic and aural, timeless treat".

The production is staged by Ivan Nagy and Marilyn Burr, based on the original choreography of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, to the score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Nagy, the Hungarian dancer who was a principal with American Ballet Theatre before turning to direction, created this version during his own tenure leading Ballet de Santiago.

The company is led by artistic director César Morales, who trained at the Municipal de Santiago's ballet school and at Houston Ballet, spent sixteen years as a principal with Birmingham Royal Ballet, also danced as a principal with English National Ballet, and returned to Chile in 2024 to take charge of the company where he began. Casting for the London performances has not yet been announced.

A company new to British audiences dancing the most familiar ballet in the repertoire: book tickets for Swan Lake.

Playing at London Coliseum

St Martin's Lane, London, WC2N 4ES GB (venue info)

Directions