It has become the company's signature work, an international calling card and a huge audience favourite. There hasn't been one year since its premiere in 2002 when this Swan Lake has been absent from the stage, whether in Australia or abroad.
Melbourne and Sydney see it again this month and next; Paris and Manchester follow in September and October. How long, you might, ask, before the vein of gold is thoroughly plundered? The opening performances in Melbourne at the weekend suggested there's plenty left, for two reasons. The first is the nature of the ballet, which reveals more riches on repeated viewings rather than fewer. The second is the promise shown by the AB's newest cast, drawn from the company's second and third tier of dancers.
It's hard to remember a time when the middle ranks of the AB were so strong. The soloists (the third rank) are exceptionally gifted, and there are 16 of them. In 2004 there were four, in 2005 there were five.
The depth of talent and the hunger that goes with being in an extremely competitive set gives the AB a vitality that augurs well for the future. It's also why it can restage Swan Lake endlessly without it looking stale.
The concept, created by Murphy with his wife Janet Vernon and designer Kristian Fredrikson, rejects the supernatural world of the original. The Swan Queen becomes a young woman married to a man whose passions lie all too obviously elsewhere; the sorcerer Rothbart is now the other woman. It makes the story one of recognisable human frailty, albeit in a glamorous royal setting.
The ballet teems with juicy characters that need dancers with much more than solid classical technique and some personal charisma: strongly individual, detailed interpretations are possible and required. It's a star-maker ballet, if the dancer is up for it.
Friday night's Melbourne opening featured the experienced, and stellar, trio of Madeleine Eastoe, Robert Curran and Lynette Wills and they were, as expected, splendid. Wills, returning from maternity leave, danced with new freedom and an even deeper understanding of the Baroness von Rothbart.
The Saturday matinee, however, was something else, urging the audience to a rather un-Melbourne-like tumult at the curtain call.
Soloist Amber Scott (Odette) has danced in this ballet a handful of times but not with Adam Bull (Prince Siegfried) and Danielle Rowe (Baroness von Rothbart), senior artists who were making role debuts on Saturday afternoon. The team is a new one and the three haven't yet got their story quite straight, but there was the unmistakable and exhilarating atmosphere of young turks making their presence felt.
The thrill was made up more of wonderful parts than an unassailable whole. The narrative was perfectly clear but the motivations and relationships less so. The messages from Rowe and Bull were either mixed or too subdued, although Scott - a revelation - was unwavering and true in her desperation.
Because the emotional tone wasn't always entirely coherent there was an interesting shift of focus to the shape of the choreography. It's almost like a driving instructor with the power to override when the situation demands it, although it was fascinating to see the dancers wrest the controls back at the end to make it all coalesce.
Murphy's movement is classically based but he invariably finds that a curve is the best way to reach a resolution rather than a straight line. The dancers are in constant motion, their bodies circling, swirling and spiralling on their own axis and in groups. The circle of the lake, which dominates Fredrikson's design, echoes the patterns as does the soft fluidity of the women's skirts.
Scott has an air of youthful innocence and the buoyancy of thistledown, but you can see the more complicated woman she will become in the generous arch of her upper body.
In taking Tchaikovsky's score back to its original order Murphy moves to Act I music usually identified with Odette's doppelganger, Odile, and her glittery 32 fouettes in Act III. Those stabbing circular sweeps of leg and body are here given to Odette as a measure of her anguish and they are, effectively, a way for her to get a pack of wedding guests out of her way.
Scott finished her outburst with a perfect triple pirouette that, as it should, emerged as an expression of her whirling mind. The audience was in no doubt it was seeing someone special, and Scott has emphatically reached the potential so much talked about when she left the Australian Ballet School.
Bull started tentatively but you could see the gear change when he decided to go for it, not long into the first act after a few small imperfections that seemed to shake him into action. He over-emphasised some of Murphy's swoops and elongations - and he is extremely tall for ballet at 190cm - but as he threw himself wholeheartedly into the steps he looked as if he had begun to believe in himself, and therefore in Siegfried.
The luminous Rowe seemed constrained in conveying what she felt about the Prince so the relationship was less electric than it should be (I think Rowe would be a superb Odette). But by the end of Act IV abandon bordering on the frantic took over and the ballet came to an unusually strong conclusion, with much of the impulse coming from Rowe's ferocity and Bull's exhaustion, which he probably wasn't entirely acting.
The smaller roles were attacked with enormous verve and a creamy style very much in line with the qualities of the leading trio. The corps' enthusiasm led to occasional untidiness but they were working their socks off to create credible theatre in a piece new to some of them and very, very familiar to many.
Less commendable was Orchestra Victoria, under the baton of Nicolette Fraillon. On both Friday night and Saturday afternoon there were far too many infelicities.
The Australian Deborah Jones March 18, 2008
Images by David Crosling, Jim McFarlane and Liz Ham