The majestic Gillian Murphy as the Swan Queen Odette
Gillian Murphy has been with American Ballet Theater for about 25 years. She’s getting close to retirement age (she’s 45), but this video was made at least fourteen years ago. Murphy is exceptionally strong and she is also tall for a ballet dancer (probably around 5’6″, which is quite tall for a female dancer since they spend so much time on pointe).
That makes Murphy naturally queenly and less fragile, but her arms and upper body give the necessary fragility and vulnerability here. Her long fingers are very expressive and she uses them masterfully; it’s not all that common to notice a ballerina’s fingers but I find hers very arresting. Her extensions are extreme but her upper body and flow saves her performance from being too acrobatic.
The moments in this pas de deux when the Prince folds her “wings” in and cradles her are performed beautifully (and filmed well, too) so that the viewer really understands what the gesture means. He’s saying You needn’t be a swan anymore and try to fly away – be a woman, and I will love and protect you. That is essentially what the Act Two love story is all about.
There is often confusion about the Swan Queen. She’s a woman under a spell and has been transformed into a swan by day, but she becomes a woman again at night. When Prince Siegfried meets her and dances with her she is a woman, but a woman who retains her swanlike characteristics. She can be released from the spell if someone vows to love her forever, and is faithful to that vow. It’s that last part that leads to his involuntary and unaware betrayal in Act Three.
But here’s the pas de deux from Act Two. The part I mentioned about folding in her wings can be seen from around 5:58 to 6:12, and then again from 6:27 to 6:37:
Wow!
I put this off until I had done my French and my chores. I know I have to strap in for neo’s ballet videos like I do for Shakespeare and other High Art, but it’s always worth it.
Ballet still looks almost inhuman to me. But I remind myself that I am watching professionals aspiring to the same perfection as Larry Bird, one of my other gods.
There’s nothing natural about what Bird could do and did.
Murphy seems to have the Plisetskaya gift in a taller package. I’m so grateful to see such skill rendered in hi-res color.
OMG! Sweet elegant perfection! I am somehow more human because I have seen this piece! Thank you so much! Can we see Act III ?
Anne:
Some day. 🙂 . Actually, I think a full length version with Murphy is on YouTube, but the resolution isn’t as sharp.
I think Murphy is much better as Odette than Odile, though. However, reasonable people may differ.
huxley:
I agree that at this level, she doesn’t look human. But in this role she’s supposed to look not quite human.
neo:
It’s OK.
Even if artists look human I know, for the great ones anyway, there is an insane level of accomplishment beneath the surface.
Thanks for introducing me to ballet. I doubt I would have figured it out on my own.
I feel guilty watching ballet in general, and especially a performance as beautiful as this.
I feel bad deriving pleasure from watching a woman destroy her feet.
If Pointe had been invented 10 years ago, it would be extinct by now, because the plaintiff’s bar would have bankrupted any company requiring it, and any school teaching it.
huxley:
Murphy seems to have the Plisetskaya gift in a taller package.
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Exactly. Thanks to Neo I can see that she is doing highly extended leg lifts, etc. but it’s all one organic, expressive – and elegant – line, not gawky acrobatics.
She is *acting* with her torso and all her limbs, like Plisetskaya.