Alexei Ratmansky’s reconstruction of Marius Petipa’s Swan Lake was rapturously received by almost all the critics when it premiered in Zurich in February. Alastair Macaulay in The New York Times said, “This Swan Lake has become the one by which we should judge all others.”
This touchstone production, then, is about to open in Milan, though a little different to the one in Zurich. Ratmansky says,
The stage in Zurich is quite small, but now, here at La Scala, we can present the original number of dancers, especially for the Act I Polonaise and for the corps de ballet of swans.