Gigi Reviews: Swan Lake — at the Cinema 🦢🍿
The verdict: TOO BAD SO SAD 🥀 — it could have. It did not.
🩰 What: Swan Lake — the greatest ballet of all time, on a cinema screen
🍿 The format: a full ballet, a flat screen, and popcorn
🌟 Étoile spotted: on screen only. Does not count. My list has standards.
💰 Price range: free for me (full disclosure: I think I got a free ticket via le conservatoire) — otherwise normal cinema prices, which, hold that thought, we’ll come back to it 💰
🗺️ Where to see it: check the Opéra national de Paris cinema schedule — their shows, filmed and beamed to cinemas everywhere. Which is exactly the problem, but we’ll get there.
What it is 🔍
Swan Lake. THE Swan Lake. White swan, black swan, a prince who cannot tell two completely different women apart (Siegfried, my red-flag list says hello), despair, a lake, doom, the most famous music in ballet. You know it even if you think you don’t. And this time: at the cinema, filmed at the opera, projected on a big screen while people around you negotiate with their snacks 🍿 Apparently it was filmed in IMAX. Everyone told me like it’s so cool. What is IMAX anyway? Does anyone know what it actually means? I didn’t. Does anyone, really? So I went down to the mine for you and did my research: IMAX stands for… “Image MAXimum”. That’s it. That’s the whole secret. I expected more too. ⛏️ Now, whether I actually WATCHED it in IMAX or on a normal cinema screen… no clue. Which possibly tells you everything about IMAX. 🎥
Confession time 🙏
OK. I said I would tell you everything, so here it is. I fell asleep. Maybe twenty minutes in? Everyone was introducing themselves to the queen like the longest, most boring party line ever, and I closed my eyes for one second. That second lasted until mommy woke me up for the dance of the little swans. And then (I WAS TIRED, it was a Sunday afternoon, please do not throw pebbles at me 🪨) it happened again, and my sweet little mommy woke me up again for the Black Swan entrance (she knows me).
Before you go with the BOOOOO, remember — I could have kept this slightly embarrassing fact a secret forever. I’m telling you because there is a point to this review. 💤
My highlights ✨
Acts 3 and 4. Black Swan chaos, White Swan despair, doom, death, the music doing THAT thing. Eyes fully open, heart fully broken. This is why Swan Lake has survived everything. 🦢🖤
Act 2. The dance of the little swans. Worth being woken up for. Always. Four girls, sixteen perfectly synchronized legs, zero room for error. Respect. And the music. Iconic.
The Black Swan entrance. Main character energy as a choreographic concept. She walks in and the whole ballet changes temperature.
What could be better 🤔
The beginning is looong. I will argue this to anyone: the whole ball section at the start is a bit longish. I usually like the first girl dance, but the parade of introductions? We could trim, is all I’m saying. I know it’s sacred. Trim the sacred. ✂️
THE CINEMA. This is the real point. You know I understand the words “you are inside with the camera, you see much better than behind a pillar at Palais Garnier (because let’s be realistic, that’s the only affordable seats)”. But still. The CINEMA. Not the same vibe, not the same magic, not the same anything. No orchestra warming up, no velvet, no held breath in the room — just a screen, doing screen things. Swan Lake deserves a room that breathes with it. 🎥❌
🐷 Princess Piggie Rating: 2 / 5
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The verdict: TOO BAD SO SAD 🥀 — it could have. It did not.
To be clear: the ballet is a 5 (well, at least from Act 2 onwards), the cinema is the problem. Seats too comfy, popcorn too crunchy. Go watch a live production, especially since it is literally the most available ballet. It is played constantly, everywhere, there are lots of touring companies, and you can actually find decent-price tickets for a touring production (or so my mommy says, and she has never once lost a ticket-price argument). Or go for an alternate version — the Preljocaj Swan Lake also tours and is absolutely worth it. I got my kids’ tickets for 10€. LESS EXPENSIVE THAN A CINEMA TICKET. A thousand times better. Sorry not sorry. 💅
Gaby’s take 🐠
HISTORIC MOMENT: Gaby attended. Dragged through the door, or rather baited with a giant box of popcorn. But he attended — his first appearance in this section as an actual audience member. His performance: ate an entire box of popcorn, and somehow his eating sounds were more surround than the cinema’s sound system. Fell asleep at approximately the same scene as me. Did NOT wake up (mommy did not bother). And in the fifteen minutes he WAS awake, he managed to ask approximately one billion times how long it would be. Rating: one box of popcorn out of one box of popcorn. Ballets watched: technically present. 🍿💤
The official Gigi verdict scale 📏
1. BOMBASTIC CRIMINAL OFFENSIVE SIDE EYE 😒 — don’t even think about it.
2. TOO BAD SO SAD 🥀 — it could have. It did not.
3. NOT BAD BUT NOT GOOD 😐 — if someone invites you, go.
4. GO ✅ — worth emptying your princess piggie bank 🐷💰
5. SLAY 👑 — drop everything, buy the tickets, front row.