Le Lac Des Cygnes - International Classical Ballet Of Ukraine - Tournée

An evening with International Classical Ballet of Ukraine: Le Lac des Cygnes

We are delighted to welcome International Classical Ballet of Ukraine for a luminous performance of Le Lac des Cygnes at Bourse du Travail Lyon, where our stage becomes the mirror-still lake at the heart of this timeless tale. From the first strains of Tchaikovsky’s score, audiences can expect a journey through moonlit mystery, courtly spectacle, and the gripping duality embodied by the heroine’s transformation. The company’s dancers bring crystalline lines and ensemble precision to the fabled white acts, while the dramatic tension of the ballroom scene shimmers with virtuosity and character. We cherish the privilege of presenting a production that honors the classical tradition associated with Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, yet feels urgent and alive in the hands of artists who understand the story’s emotional stakes. Expect grand tableaux, sculpted port de bras, and that magnetic interplay between Odette’s vulnerability and Odile’s dazzling bravura, framed by sweeping formations that unfurl like wings across the stage. This is the kind of evening our audience treasures: world-class technique channeled into storytelling that is both intimate and immense, revealing new facets of a legend every time the swans assemble beneath the moon.

The company’s artistic pulse and the experience in Lyon

As guardians of a living classical legacy, International Classical Ballet of Ukraine continue to tour widely, refining their hallmark clarity of line and cohesiveness of corps. This season, the company underscores dancer individuality within the ensemble—allowing soloists’ phrasing to bloom while maintaining the geometric elegance that makes Le Lac des Cygnes so hypnotic. Their approach to the grand pas de deux balances poetry and power: adagio phrases breathe with musical nuance, while the coda gleams with exactitude and fearlessness. In the ballroom, Odile’s glittering attack sharpens the dramatic contrast that drives the story forward, culminating in the famed series of fouettés that never fail to ignite a collective intake of breath. Throughout, the musical architecture of Tchaikovsky’s score is treated as a partner in motion—accents caught like shafts of light, suspensions floated to the brink of silence, and climaxes carved with sculptural clarity. The company’s current performances radiate a sense of purpose: not just to revisit a masterpiece, but to mine its living heartbeat—its themes of fidelity, illusion, and redemption—with fresh eloquence for today’s audience in Lyon.

Our night with Le Lac des Cygnes highlights the refined stagecraft that supports this interpretive richness. Costumes achieve that essential alchemy of line and luminosity: the white act’s tutus catch the light with a soft, feathered sheen, while the ballroom palette gleams with jewel-toned contrasts that heighten the drama of mistaken identity. Scenic textures sketch the lake’s surface in tones of silver and shadow, opening out into courtly spaces where propriety strains against desire. For viewers new to the ballet, the production clarifies the narrative arc with theatrical fluency: the loneliness of the prince, the revelation at the lakeside, the seduction and rupture at the ball, and the final reckoning by the water’s edge. For seasoned balletgoers, it offers the pleasures of close observation—epaulement that whispers intention, phrasing that lets a melody bloom a half-second longer, and ensemble patterns that ripple through the ranks like a single breath. Presenting International Classical Ballet of Ukraine in Lyon affirms what we value most: a space where tradition and immediacy coexist, where artists carry a canon forward without smoothing away its shadows, and where a community of spectators gathers to witness excellence executed with heart. Le Lac des Cygnes remains a rite of passage for dancers and a touchstone for audiences; in this performance, its white wings feel improbably near, beating time with the music until the final curtain falls.