Swan Lake

Attending three junior high schools and two high schools is not easy for anyone, but it was my musical ability that made it bearable for me. All schools have bands, some have orchestras and only one of the ones I attended had another oboe. It was my way to belong.

My first really big solo came when I had the opportunity to play Swan Lake my junior year. I was so frightened I threw up twice back stage before we started. I love that music. It has always seemed like the quintessential place for an oboist to perform.

Still I was always a bit ambivalent about the ballet itself. Until tonight.

Swan Lake is a love story, a sweet story and Tchaikovsky intended it to be that way, but tonight I saw a version by Matthew Bourne that seems to have grasped its very essence. His is the story of a young prince who seeks only love and cannot find it in his home where his mother is present, but not outwardly loving. When the woman he is supposed to love dies, he meets the swan he once dreamed of and they fall in love. A man and a swan, a union neither family will accept.

It is magnificent, but sad. The other swans kill his Swan and the Prince dies. In the finale his mother comes in and hugs him, but it is too late. He is gone. It would be bleak beyond bearing if not for the ending.

As the curtains close, I see the swan standing above the bed holding the Prince in his arms and I have to admit, I cried.