New Dancers Simplify Bourne’s ‘Swan Lake’

A slate of young alternate principals brightened, simplified and refocused Matthew Bourne’s daring re-creation of “Swan Lake” at the Ahmanson Theatre on Sunday night without diminishing the emotional impact of this previously reviewed Adventures in Motion Pictures production.

For audiences who’d prefer seeing the work’s social, psychological and metaphysical complexities minimized in favor of an emphasis on all-consuming, doomed, gay, interspecies romance, this is definitely the cast.

Although he never began to suggest the sense of mystery that Adam Cooper brought to the role of the Swan on opening night, 20-year-old William Kemp blazed through the performance Sunday with a supercharged lyric suppleness matched by forceful acting.

He may have been too transparently evil as the Black Swan, a fault many ballerinas share in traditional versions of “Swan Lake.” But his intense bonding with the Prince in the second and fourth acts provided the evening’s sweetest, most poignant moments.

Avoiding the neurotic interpretation of his predecessor, Ben Wright portrayed a puppyish Prince miraculously unwarped by a lifetime in the oppressive royal court, apart from unresolved feelings for his mother. Like his acting, Wright’s dancing came in sudden bursts of boyish enthusiasm, and he gave his love to the Swan immediately and unconditionally. In the end, he seemed engulfed not by madness but by endless tears, a sentimental characterization, skillfully executed.

Deft and detailed in pantomime passages, Isabel Mortimer played the Queen as perfectly suited to her mindless ceremonial duties, cheerfully promiscuous and utterly incapable of dealing with any problem as serious as raising a son. Her strong technique gave the ballroom ensembles extra sharpness.

Among reshuffled subsidiary dancers, Michaela Meazza made an especially effective prima ballerina in the Moth Maiden ballet sequence, a comic parallel to the main story line. David Frame again expertly conducted the valiant reduced orchestra.

*

“Swan Lake” runs through June 15 at the Ahmanson Theatre, Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave. Tuesdays through Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 2 and 8 p.m. Added matinees: May 29, June 5, June 12. $15-$45 through Wednesday, $15-$60 afterward. (213) 628-2772.