ABT brings McKenzie's Swan Lake to Shanghai for the first time

American Ballet Theatre returns to Shanghai after a three-year absence with the Shanghai debut of Kevin McKenzie's Swan Lake at the Shanghai Grand Opera House from Nov 12 to 15.

Presented during the house's inaugural performance season and as part of the 25th China Shanghai International Arts Festival, the run comprises of five performances over four days, with the Nov 15 performance serving as the festival's closing presentation. ABT executives and dancers met the press at the venue ahead of the opening.

"I cannot think of a more perfect production from our repertoire than Swan Lake to help in the inauguration of this new magnificent opera house," Clinton Luckett, ABT's associate artistic director, said at the conference.

Kevin McKenzie, who led ABT as its artistic director for 30 years, created the production in 2000. It reworks the 1895 Petipa–Ivanov classic with a dramatic prologue and a tragic thread running through all four acts. The staging "retained the cornerstone classical moments" of the traditional production choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, Luckett said.

The 1895 production established Swan Lake as one of the most frequently performed ballets of all time and set the template for the classical renditions of Swan Lake that followed in the 20th century.