Dorothy Chandler Pavillion – June 26, 2025
Since Julie and I have turned into Frasier and Niles, of course we bought tickets to the ballet! Her friend wanted to see it Saturday at 1:00 p.m. but there was no way we were going to deal with that many children, so Thursday night it was.
I thought this show started at 8 since most of the shows we go to start at 8. Luckily I double checked with plenty of time to fight Thursday night traffic. Traffic was still increasing when I left, but I made it Downtown by about 7. Maps took me off the 110 at 4th and onto Lower Grand to General Thaddeus Kosciuszko Way to Hope to 2nd and then a left turn onto Grand to get into the parking lot. It was awful. Sometimes I really should trust my instincts over Maps. It took me 4 lights to make that left turn from 2nd to Grand. I would have been far better off staying on the 110 to the 5 and getting off at Temple. I texted Julie as I was waiting to pay for my parking and she replied that the parking lot was full and they were sending her to park under City Hall. So at least I knew what was in store. I was glad I didn’t change into heels as I had planned to do since I have made that hike from Grand Park to the Dorothy Chandler before. From the parking entrance, we inched slowly down to the bottom of the lot and then under Grand to the Grand Park lot. The second I parked, I texted Julie her ticket and then I high-tailed it up 2 flights of stairs, an escalator, across Grand, and up some more stairs. I had my phone out and ready with my ticket and was directed to an elevator (which was surprisingly right there waiting for me) and around a corner to my seat. An usher led me in, but I was on an aisle seat and as soon as I walked in I saw Julie. I sat down and looked at my watch: 7:40. And the show had not started yet. There were a ton of people still coming in. At some point, they held the people and started the show.
The curtain opened to a prologue where Odette is transformed into a swan by the evil Von Rothbart. I honesty had no idea what was going on. I didn’t have enough time to read the program before the show started and it was my first time seeing Swan Lake. The prologue was very brief. The curtain dropped and the scene was changed to the castle gardens. It’s the prince’s birthday. There is revelry, drinking and a lot of dancing. At one point the queen presents the prince with a crossbow and apparently (according to the program) reminds him he must select a bride the following evening. He sees some swans flying by and takes off with his crossbow to find them. There was a solo dance where the prince was presumably wandering around looking for the swans and at that moment, the staff decided to seat everyone remaining outside. There was a huge ruckus as people tried to get into their seats that was very distracting. Just after everyone was seated, the curtain went down and there was a long pause while they fogged up the stage. I will never understand why the ushers did not wait for the curtain to go down before seating all the latecomers. It would have made so much more sense!
Act II takes place at the lake. The swans all dance. The prince encounters Odette and falls in love. Odette explains about the curse and how the prince can break it, which he pledges to do. Von Rothbart has been watching and works to thwart their plans.
In Act III we are at the Castle Ballroom. Many young women dance for the prince to try to win him over. The prince rejects them all since he’s in love with Odette. Von Rothbart enters with the black swan – his daughter Odile, disguised as Odette. The prince believes it is Odette and professes her love to Odile only to have Von Rothbart reveal himself and tell (show? it’s all done through dance – it’s the ballet, after all) the prince that now Odette’s curse can never be broken.
For Act IV we are back at the lake. Odette tells (shows?) the other swans that they are cursed forever as the prince rushes in to beg for forgiveness and explain that he was deceived by Von Rothbart. The two together manage to defeat Von Rothbart, but it’s not enough to break the curse. Odette returns to the lake, and overcome by grief, the prince follows her into the water to drown.
There were some problems with this show. It failed to really tell the story. We left going, “Wait, that’s not how it ends, is it?” At one point between acts, Julie turned to me and said, “Does this feel like a middle school recital?” It did. And at intermission I turned to her and asked, “Did the harp seem out of tune to you?” Mind you, for me to notice an instrument out of tune, it has to be REALLY out of tune. Toward the end of intermission we could hear them tuning the harp. And the tuning of the harp was not the only thing that fell flat. Despite the wonderful costumes and set design, there was just something missing. The whole show was sort of meh.
We paid $44 for Loge/Floor 3 tickets and our seats were not bad – not as good as the orchestra ring tickets we had, but certainly not bad. If I had it to do over though, I would probably skip this one. When I got home, I had a message on my landline (yes, I still have a landline, don’t judge) saying that they were expecting very heavy traffic and plan to arrive at least one hour before the show. I’m not sure how they got that number, and I’m not sure how they expect anyone to be at the Music Center by 6:30 on a Thursday night. I had a colleague going to the Saturday night performance so I made sure to let him know that there are shows at the Ahmanson and at the Mark Taper right now so parking is a mess. I hope he made it there in time!