Event information
Cape Town City Ballet presents a double bill of two classical works: Swan Lake Act II, set to Tchaikovsky's score, and Raymonda, set to Alexander Glazunov's celebrated score with choreography attributed to Marius Petipa.
Swan Lake, first performed in Moscow in 1877 with Tchaikovsky's score, is among the most widely performed works in the classical ballet canon. Act II centres on the lakeside scenes in which Prince Siegfried encounters the enchanted Swan Queen Odette, establishing the ballet's defining visual language: the white tutu, the corps de ballet moving in unison, and the iconic mime of Odette's transformation. Cape Town City Ballet has performed Swan Lake more than 18 times since the company's origins as the UCT Ballet Company, founded by Dulcie Howes in 1934.
Raymonda, first performed by the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg in 1898, is less frequently staged in its complete form outside of Russia. The excerpt presented here, Raymonda Pas de Dix, showcases ten dancers in the ballet's classical grand pas sequence, highlighting Glazunov's score and the technical demands of Petipa's choreography; intricate footwork, grand lifts, and the romantic and heroic themes of Raymonda's relationship with the Crusader knight Jean de Brienne.