As things are very quiet these days, I thought I'd ask this burning question. Does Rothbart have a grudge against the fathers of all the swans - or only against Odette's? I know there was some discussion earlier about whether the other swans were Odette's companions who were with her when she was transfigured or whether they are other girls and Odette was just the most royal so got the title of queen. If they are companions, then we only have to worry about one grudge (companions' feelings don't count anyway), but if they were all changed separately, it opens a can of worms. Thirty-two seems an awful lot of companions for one girl to have! (Unless she went to public school in NYC!)

barbecued wings? (mmmmm)

Now, now, pmeja, I'm all for silly season, but this is a serious question

She's a princess and princesses have ladies in waiting -- at least, that's what I've always thought. Structurally, I think the "companion" idea must come from the old court ballets, when the Princess really did dance with her ladies-in-waiting. Giselle has her little gang of friends, as does Swanhilda. If it's Odette's Mother who turned her into a swan to keep her safe from Von R, then it would make sense that she'd thoughtfully turn all the ladies in waiting into swans, too, so that Odette would have someone to swim with.

Now, for the $64,000 question -- why swans?

<silly season again> Well, I think that it would have looked quite different if they had been hippopotamuses or turtles...

More seriously, I wonder if the idea of swan characters had been used in other ballets before "Swan lake"?

I wonder if anyone has encountered the story "The Stolen Veil" from Johann Musäus Popular German Legends? That's the root story from which the libretto is supposed to have sprung. What creatures are involved there?

>silly season again >Porcupines?<

• Q. How do you make love?
  
• A. VERY carefully!

Which would be a distinct improvement over some presentations I've seen.

[ 08-18-2001: Message edited by: Mel Johnson ]

[ 08-19-2001: Message edited by: Mel Johnson ]

Before we get seriously off-track, could I ask that we keep silly season out of this forum generally? I'd like to build up an archive of material on these ballets and don't want to have to go through and read every post and cull out the jokes. If we want to have a silly season type post on swans and other ballet beasts, that might be a good topic for Anything Goes. (Thank you )

Estelle, I don't know if swans had been used in ballets before -- hard to imagine they wouldn't have been. I don't have time to check it, but anyone who has Wiley, Beaumont's book on Swan Lake, or Kirstein's Movement and Metaphor -- I'll bet there would be something in there.

[ 08-18-2001: Message edited by: alexandra ]

It's not Odette's mother who turns her into a swan, it's Rothbart - in revenge for???? or is he a fairy tale version of a child molester or serial rapist??

Would a royal princess have as many as 32 ladies-in-waiting? But if they aren't Odette's friends from before her transfiguration, then who are they/ :confused:

I think the swan angle may have something to do with the geographical location of whereveritis in Germany the ballet is supposed to take place. The swan has been a heraldric charge in Bavaria, specifically of the Royal Family, the Wittelsbachs. Ludwig II took this aspect of his heritage to an extreme, as he did with so much of it. So maybe the ballet is supposed to be set in southern Germany in some principality or tributary state of Bavaria?

I've actually thought about this some. Perhaps Rothbart, being an overly grown beast-like creature (it varies from performance to performance) is captured by, and rather jealous of swans (them being one of the most graceful bird). So he picked out the prettiest, most petite girls he could find (feeding on his jealousy of pretty, petite things) and turned them into swans, so he could spend the day looking at them, wishing he were just as graceful, and beautiful. And maybe he choose one of the most graceful and prettiest BIRDS because he really wishes he could fly, and not just leap about the stage, although almost gracefully, still rather grotesquely. Hmm...maybe Rothbart really is a nice guy, he just has some psycological problems.

Hope this all makes sense!

Emily

I agree with the Ladies in waiting theory, it makes the most sense to me. I think historically french (?) princesses did have 32 or more ladies in waiting, though I could be wrong

During the era of Louis XIV, court etiquette (the term dates from then) grew to be an extremely complex and convoluted matter, and attendants upon certain persons was rigidly codified under the authority of the King, who often preserved "ancient privileges and prerogatives" in his selection of appropriate retinues for his subordinates and himself. Under certain circumstances, the Duchess of Burgundy could have more attendants than a Princess of the Blood Royal!

But all this hearks back to Louis himself, and the concept of the rightness of the Absolute Divine Right Monarchy. Ludwig II may have been called "Mad King Ludwig", but his stand in favor of absolutism was much admired in late-19th-century Russia. I recently discovered a set of hunt silver made in Russia in 1876, according to the hallmarks on the pieces, and they were highly decorated with swans! I learned, from following up with some research, that the swan was very popular as a design motif in the 1875-1885 era in Russia, largely as a tribute to Ludwig's championship of absolutism!

[ 08-19-2001: Message edited by: Mel Johnson ]

oh wow, that's really cool. It makes a little more sense now

Thanks, Mel for that information. But anybody who knows swans will know that they aren't just pretty and graceful: they are really MEAN. I've been chased by one (he wanted a roll I had in my hand), and it was truly scary. He could run really fast on land as well! Someone should create a ballet on the subject of a helpless creature being hounded by a vengeful swan! (Have you ever heard one hiss?)

Yeah, mute swans (the ones that hiss) are particularly nasty. Trumpeter swans (the ones that bark) are nicer. I've always wondered about von Rothbart's taste in ornithology. Why change somebody into a really big, bad-tempered animal with villainous table manners? And further, one that could possibly do you harm? Some productions have made use of the dark side of the swan personality, and have them nibbling various characters to death; a truly horrible way to go!

[ 08-20-2001: Message edited by: Mel Johnson ]

Maybe they're swans, magically transformed into maidens at night?

(More seriously) C W Beaumont's book quotes lots of antecedents for the woman/swan transformation story; and he also gives the libretto for the original Swan Lake, which I thought was fascinating. Odette tells Siegfried that the spell she's under was put on her by her grandfather, not out of spite but to protect her from her wicked stepmother. The lake is made up of his tears, and he keeps Odette there, just letting her out at night close to the lake where he can keep an eye on her. But during the day he turns her (and her friends, which may be a clue in this discussion) into swans - not as a punishment but so that they can fly away safely and have a good time!

I just thought of this. There is also the Irish legend, The Children of Lir, who were also turned into swans.

Does anybody know the date that Swan Lake premeired? It is a Petipa ballet correct? That would place it at the late 1800s. So Mel's earlier statement: "that the swan was very popular as a design motif in the 1875-1885 era in Russia, largely as a tribute to Ludwig's championship of absolutism!" Would probably explain why the princess and the maidens were turned into swans in the first place. It simply was a very trendy animal at that time period...
Any thoughts on this?

Beth

The original production premiered at the Bolshoi Theater in 1877. The version we're used to was presented in 1895 as a complete version with musical edits and interpolations by Riccardo Drigo, and the choreography split between Marius Petipa and his assistant, Lev Ivanov. If you go to the Ballet Alert! homepage and click the link to "Ballets", and select 19th century ballets, there's a whole THING in there about Swan Lake.

If I may just add a bit..I found this and thought it was quit einteresting and may answer the question as to why swans....

".. It is highly likely that Tchaikovsky had a good deal of influence over the story’s
development.
Legends of swans were presumably familiar to Tchaikovsky and his artistic friends, who no doubt discussed the idea of the swan as a symbol of womanhood at its purest.
The legend of the Swan-Maiden goes back for centuries, appearing in differing forms in both eastern and western literature. Women who turn into birds and vice versa were popular themes, and the swan was particularly favored due to its grace when swimming in the water. The ancient Greeks considered the swan to the bird closest to the Muses. When Apollo was born at Delos, the event was celebrated by flights of circling swans.

The Tales of the Thousand and One Nights tells the story of Hassan of Bassorah, who visits a place inhabited by bird-maidens. When they take off their feather garments, the bird-maidens are transformed into beautiful women. Hassan captures the clothes of one of the maidens in order to keep her in human form as his wife. She is able to regain her feathers and flies away from him. Hassan sets out on a quest to regain his wife and after many adventures succeeds in finding her.

Sweet Mikhail Ivanovich the Rover is a Slav tale that begins with Mikhail the Rover who is about to shoot a swan that warns him "Shoot not, else ill-fortune will doom thee for evermore!" On landing the swan turns into a beautiful maiden. When Mikhail tries to kiss her she warns that she is an infidel. However, if he takes her to the holy city of Kiev, then she might be received by the church and thus free to marry him. So they set out.
In a similar South German legend a swan speaks to a forester who is about to kill her. The beautiful maiden in this case says that she would be his if he could keep her existence a secret for one year. He fails and thus looses her.

Celtic folk-lore brings us The Legend of the Children of Lir. When King Lir’s first wife dies, he marries a wicked woman Arife. Jealous of Lir’s children from his first wife, Arife turns them all into swans.

The complete scenario of Swan Lake is not to be found in any of these legends, but many parallels do exist. Other possible sources of inspiration could have
been Johann Karl August Musäus’ Der geraubte Schleier, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Wild Swans and Alexandre Pushkin’s Tzar Saltan, the story of a prince who saves the life of a wounded swan who later reappears as a woman to marry him. There are also elements of the story that are traditional in many ballets. One cannot discount the influence, at least on Tchaikovsky, of Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, the story of an heroic Swan Prince, a man with a mysterious past who arrives on a magical swan-boat. ..."


Go to http://www.balletmet.org/balletnotes.html

for an extensive essay on Swan Lake! Happy reading.

[ 08-20-2001: Message edited by: Xena ]

The Children of lir story is correct, except that King Lir married his first wife Eva's sister. Her name was Aoife (not Arife) and they were said to look exactly the same, but one was light of heart and the second dark of heart. Kind of like the black and white swans

Further on Tchaikovsky's choice of swans - he already had a little bit of material "in the can", as he had composed a one-act "Ballet of the Swans" for his sister's children. His original contract called for him to supply music to a version of Cinderella, but this plan fell through.

Emily's post has an interesting idea. It really reminded me of the movie "The Last Unicorn". There's an old man who keeps all the unicorns prisoners in the sea so that he can watch them all day. But I don't think that in the ballet, the idea of Rothbart being a nice guy ( or having a heart at all, for that matter) is supposed to ever cross our minds. He is most often portrayed as pure evil and darkness ( even though there is no such thing). I guess those psychological problems of his run pretty deep!

FYI: when trying to sort through the characters and motivations of "Swan Lake" it might be useful to refer to the original, 1877 libretto as well as that for the revised scenario of ‘95. Note that originally the swan transformations were a form of self-protection. Also note how originally it was Odette's grandFATHER's tears that formed the lake of the swans, not her mother's, etc. etc. Unfortunately the ‘95 libretto does not spell out the particulars of Odette's mime. (Though I suppose it may be written in the Stepanov notation, which Doug Fullington might be able to provide.) But it would seem that in the re-written scenario, the evil stepmother becomes the genie (Rothbart) and that the grieving grandfather becomes, perhaps, Odette's mother, whose tears, Odette's pantomime now-traditionally tells us, created the lake of the swans. And in the revised version the bewitchment is no longer a means of self-protection but a sinister spell.
The following is from the 1877 libretto of ‘Swan Lake' i.e. "Lebedinoe ozero" with regard to the bewitchment of Odette into her swan form, from Roland John Wiley's "Tchaikovsky's Ballets" (p. 323 -324)
"[Odette's narrative.]
‘Yes Listen...My name is Odette, my mother is a good fairy; against her father's will she fell in love with a noble knight and married him, but he destroyed her, and she was no more. My father married another, forgot about me, but my wicked stepmother, who was a witch, hated me and nearly killed me. But my grandfather took me in. The old man loved my mother very much and cried so about her that from his tears this lake was formed. He himself went to a place there in the deepest part and concealed me from people. Now, not long ago he began to indulge me, and is giving me full freedom to make merry. Thus by day with my friends we transform ourselves into swans, and merrily fly through the air, high, almost to heaven itself; and by night we play and dance here near our dear little old man. But my stepmother even now leaves neither me nor my friends in piece.'
At this moment the sound of an owl rings out.
‘Did you hear?...This is her ominous voice,' says Odette, looking around alarmed. ‘Look, there she is!'
In the runs appears a huge owl with eyes lit-up. [The appearance of an owl.]
‘She would have destroyed me long ago,' Odette continues. ‘But grandfather follows her vigilantly, and keeps me from harm. With my marriage the witch loses her chance to injure me, but until then only this crown saves me from her wickedness. [Odette: ‘with my marriage, etc.] And that is all, my story is not long.'"
Of the revisions made by Modeste Tchaikovsky for the 1895 production Wiley states thus (p. 248):
"Modeste substantially recast Act II. Siegfried has been separated from the other hunters when the latter discover the swans. Benno sends the rest to find the Prince, and then is accosted by the swan maidens. Apart from this scene, which is incidental to the main story line, Modeste clarified and abbreviated. Odette no longer has to mime a complicated family history: she and her friends are enchanted by an evil genie who may appear either in the form of an owl or a human. But the conditions of her release are different and more complex: instead of marriage a pledge of eternal love is required, from someone who has never pledged it to another, plus the sacrifice ofhis life. Odette warns Siegfried of the dangers that await him at the Princess's ball, and this predictive element, thanks to the reduction in unnecessary detail in the act as a whole, emerges more clearly now than it had in the original."

The Third Tableau from the ‘95 scenario as published in Wiley, pp. 338 -39:
"Siegfried, struck by her beauty, forbids his comrades to shoot. She expresses her thanks to him and explains that she, Princess Odette, and the young girls subject to her are the unhappy victims of a wicked genie who bewitched them. By day they are condemned to take the form of swans and only at night, near these ruins, can they regain their human form. Their master, in the form of an owl, watches over them. His dreadful spell will continue until somebody falls truly in love with her, for life. Only a person who has not sworn his love to any other can be her deliverer and return her to her previous state. Siegfried, enchanted, listens to Odette. At this moment an owl flies in, and having transformed itself into an evil genie appears in the ruins, having listened to the conversation, it disappears. Horror strikes hold of Siegfreid at the thought that he could have killed Odette when she was in the form of a swan. He breaks his bow and throws it away in indignation. Odette consoles the young Prince."

Thanks, rg, and welcome to Ballet Talk.

Re: Begichev's and Geltser's 1877 mime - too many mothers-in-law. ;)

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to post that, rg -- and thank you for joining us

I'm still unclear on one point. You wrote: "And in the revised version the bewitchment is no longer a means of self-protection but a sinister spell."

But Odette does mime "mother's tears" formed the lake, doesn't she? I've always thought, as Mel implies, that "mother" was easier to do in mime than "grandfather," hence the switch.

firstly, apologies for neglecting to see that Jane Simpson had already made the original libretto's points w/regard to Odette's grandfather, etc. etc.
secondly, to alexandra re: my point about the differences between the 1877 and the 1895 librettos, was given to note how in '77 the transformation was not a wicked deed but a useful, magical way for Odette and her friends to have some freedom from her stepmother's evil designs (her mother after all was a good fairy, and so i suppose Odette had inherited some magic powers). with modeste's re-write the transformation of the women into swans becomes a sinister way for the evil genie to control Odette and her band to his satisfaction. the point about 'my mother's tears' is certainly in recent (early-mid-20th c.) lore, and is there whenever the mime is performed nowadays, i just wonder what precisely that 'narrative' was in '95. maybe the stepanov spells it out, the way the '77 scenario specifically states: Odette's Narrative. (the '95 scenario does not fully give, at least in the version given in wiley, any mention of 'my mother's tears, etc. etc.'
but perhaps beaumont does, which i'm not looking at right now.

rg, I don't have the Stepanov SWAN LAKE on hand, but Wiley offers a translation of the prose given in the notations on pp. 262-3 of TCHAIKOVSKY'S BALLETS:
Prince: I beg you not to go away. I beg you. I beg you.
Odette: I am afraid of you.
Prince: Why?
Odette: You will kill me with your crossbow.
Prince: I will not shoot you, but will protect you.
[She bows to him, then evades him, etc.]
Prince: What are you doing here?
Odette: I am the queen of the swans.
Prince: I bow to you, but why are you a swan?
Odette: Look there. There is a lake. My mother cried and cried. An evil magician turned me into a swan, but if someone falls in love with me and marries me, then I am saved and will not be a swan.
Prince: I love you and will marry you, but show me where this genie is.
Odette: He is there.
Prince: I will kill him.
The mime is written in prose using the characteristic short phrases that suggest a fairly literal prose 'translation' of what was actually mimed, as opposed to what might be printed in the libretto.

No, Beaumont's version of the 1895 scenario (or at least what he calls 'The Book of Swan Lake adapted by Marius Petipa') has nothing about the lake of tears - Odette just tells how Rothbart has bewitched her.

In passing, I notice that in this version the scene actually starts with the entrance of the swan maidens, and Siegfried, Benno and the huntsmen are about to shoot them when Odette enters for the first time - was it actually choreographed like that originally, I wonder?

Doug, are we to think, then, that Von R turned Odette and her friends into Swans, and then her thoughtful mother cried a lake for her to swim in?

Moms!

Giannina

I've once had a choreographer tell the story while staging the ballet and he implied that all the other swans were simply Swans. Von R. captured them and gave them to Odette to have as company because she was to be under his spell forever.
He also mentioned that he believed that was a good reason for Odette to have the short tutu while the regular swans had the longer more romantic type.

the attached steel(?) engraving from THE ILLUSTRATED SPORTING AND DRAMATIC NEWS - November 17, 1877, p. 216 isn't especially unfamiliar - it's reproduced in most books on SWAN LAKE - but i'm able to scan it here b/c i recently acquired a copy of an actual ILLUSTRATED page.
i've always liked it, for all its poetic license, b/c it clearly shows the ballet's intention to indicate that as the swan maidens enter the moonlit clearing through the ruined castle they are clearly shown to be maidens and not swans - every current staging that goes out of its way to have the female corps de ballet variously peck away and frantically imitate birds should be reminded to study this image - it's one thing if these productions care to re-visit the libretto and pull away from the original scenario - the way matthew bourne has done - but it's something else to claim to be 'after' moscow/st.petersburg 19th c. traditions and insist on treating the female corps de ballet as a bunch of birds.
wiley makes quite clear that the illustrations we have from '77 production can't be taken as direct views of what the stage and its choreographic action looked like, but they do give a sense of things as they looked to '77 audiences.

thank you for posting that rg!

is the last dancer coming out of the castle, on the door, wearing wings...?

I think she hasn't yet completed her metamorphosis into a maiden. She'll probably lose the wings with her next step or so.

I notice that this was printed in The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. I guess Swan Lake Act II covers it all!

Thanks, rg, for reviving this fasctinating thread. I love your comment ....
By the way, it appears that this was your first (or one of your first) appearances on Ballet Talk, rg. A lucky topic for all of us.

AS I read the entire thread (a first time for me) it was fun to watch the early tension between the initial impulse to treat this as a "silly season" topic, and the way Alexandra literally pulled into back into serious discussion. With really interesting results.

Alexandra says:But there clearly has been a movement to turn the corps into replica swans. (Don't we often see them -- or pasteboard versions of them -- gliding along the back stage scrim at the beginning of the scene?) Perhaps something akin to the idea of "physical possession" is what is happening. Ladies possesssed by the spirit of swans -- in which the literalness of "Is she a woman? Is she a swan?" is somehow irrelevant.

Doug gives us a translation of the original pantomime notations:

I've learned so much from this thread. There are so many of us relatively new to Ballet Talk -- surely there's more to be added to this great discussion.

Thanks, rg, for reviving this fasctinating thread. I love your comment ....
By the way, it appears that this was your first (or one of your first) appearances on Ballet Talk, rg. A lucky topic for all of us.

AS I read the entire thread (a first time for me) it was fun to watch the early tension between the initial impulse to treat this as a "silly season" topic, and the way Alexandra literally pulled everyone back into serious discussion. With really interesting results.

Alexandra says:But there clearly has been a movement to turn the corps into replica swans. (Don't we often see them -- or pasteboard versions of them -- gliding along the back stage scrim at the beginning of the scene?) Perhaps something akin to the idea of "physical possession" is what is happening. They are women but have been possesssed by the spirit (anima?) of swans -- in which the literalness of "Is she a woman? Is she a swan?" is somehow irrelevant.

Doug gives us a translation of the original pantomime notations. He makes me long to attend a truly traditional version, so I can see how this looks on stage.The lame half-mime you usually see has none of the urgency and desperation of the words.

I've learned so much from this thread. Many of us relatively new to Ballet Talk -- or at least have joined after the thread was started in 2001. Surely there's more to be added to this great discussion.

What's your take on the Rothbart and the (are they or aren't they) swans?

Hi, bart, and for your definition, which i think is the best one i've heard in a very long time. This has always been kind of a tricky question, specially if i'm taking somebody to see a "Swan Lake" for the first time, and this person can't make that much of an abstraction of the 'logic" of the story and concentrate on , lets say, choreography. And it doesn't only happens to the corps. I've had the same question formulated related to Odette, as soon as she pops in, regarding her bird-like mannerisms,("Is she a woman or a swan?") and also about Von Rothbart, specially if sometimes he really never gets to look either as a human evil Count or an owl, but rather a sci-fi-inspired-amphibious-look-alike. And then, the III Act, where people always listen to the "Black Swan" story...and again the question...("Is she a black swan?"), with my common answer being: "No, she's a woman dressed in black who has been enchanted by her father Von Rothbart to look like the other woman in white.Is the same ballerina". And then..."But why the Black Swan...?" and so on...Personally, i try to focus on the choreography and don't care too much about the accuracy on the design of the characters, knowing the real story, but it can be counfusing for the non expert public.

I have heard and read interviews with more than one ballerina when the issue of Odette's characterization was posed, and the dancers said, basically, "Well, first you decide whether you want to empasize the woman or the swan. . . ." It's a combination of the dancer's emploi (as we're discussing on another thread), temperament and imagination. There is logic in the construction of the choreography, but not in the story. That's a fairy tale and requires suspension of disbelief.

If it's someone's first ballet, it won't be easy to decipher the dancer's intentions. It's a foreign language, after all. But after several viewings, especially of different dancers in different stagings, a viewer should be able to meet the dancer on the dancer's terms.

re: wings, black swan, owl/genie

*wings: there are numerous swan/maiden myths that include noting the moments when these enchanted women take off their swan 'skins' etc. i assume the engraving is illustrating the moment when the last maiden in line is about to shed the wings she has in her swan guise. (also, angels of all sorts in christian iconography are frequently shown w/ swan's wings.)

*black swan: as noted on BT in various ways, this designation for odile is a twentieth century one, in the nineteenth century this imposter was simply called Odile.

*owl/genie: the first 1877 'von rothbart, evil genie in the guise of a guest' was pavel? nikailevich? SOKOLOV - i know of no images of him in this role; in the petipa/ivanov staging the role, called 'von rothbart, evil genie,' was first done by aleksei dmitrievich BULGAKOV - i've attached a scan of the one image i know of showing bulgakov in his 'owl' form - i don't know the one mel has noted of this character in his ballroom disguise.

I thought it was pretty straightforward--at night, Odette and the other swans are women; it's only during the day that they are swans. Siegfried goes hunting in the evening (the daylight fades and lanterns are brought out during the Danse des Coupes) so when he happens upon the lake, he sees Odette being transformed. At the end of the night, Odette and her maidens turn back into swans and Siegfried goes home. Presumably the ball takes place in the afternoon, which is why we see Odette in swan form beating her wings at the window during the grand pas de deux and flying away at the end of the act, and by the time Siegfried reaches her at the lake, night has fallen again, so she is human.

I always assumed this was a vision or flashbasck Siegfried has which precipitates his memory of the oath. I also thought it possible that Rothbart might have created the vision to cause Siegfried even greater anguish. (I should add that I have no evidence at all for any of this.)

On the other hand, if Odette is really present, flapping away at the window, why are the courtiers, etc., so oblivious to it? And wouldn't this be uncharacteristically assertive and risk-taking of her, given her fears and understandablel skittishness in Act II?

I guess my kind of unexamined assumption -- based on productions which may or may not be authentic -- is another reason we need our ballet historians so much.

i've always found the presence of 'mechanical' swans swimming on the lake a very fine idea.
certainly the vinogradov kirov prod. has them. ABT's blair production had one, obviously odette's swan b/c of the crown on its head; balanchine's ter-arutuninan prod. had them: a line of bareheaded swans plus one w/ a crown (vaes less felicitous re-do of the ballet also has them, w/ the crowned swan being seen last in the line at the ballet's beginning and very last, in the ballet's conclusion); and kudelka's prod. (designed by santo loquasto) has them in a good scale opposite the would-be distance castle.
baryshnikov's short-lived prod. for ABT had them, and he made very sure his swan maidens were dressed in am most feminine silhouette, very much along the lines shown in the 1877 engraving. i interviewed him for a story in the LA Times and i can still hear him insisting, w/ regard to the swan-maidens: 'they are not the birds, not the swans; they are the girls.' (or something close to that.) pier luigi samaritani's tutus for this production's swan corps, built simply but beautifully by b.matera in nyc were exquisitely made and shaped - gossamer soft, fine-tulle skirts on plain white bodices. when the prod. was discarded these lovely costumes were variously deyed and recycled for a few other ballets, but their first 'life' on ABT's female corps the ballet were their finest hour. additionally odette has a most distinct and delicate crown.
mckenzie's 'soft' swan for the transformation sc. to the overture, for his prologue, would have even more dramatic sense if the same scale swan could be seen swimming on the lake to the introductory sc. for the first lakeside sc. but at least his prod. does not change the princess odette into a ballerina a tutu, the way the re-vamped burmeister prod. for paris does. so far as i can tell burmeister prologue was meant to show princess transformed into a [mechanical] swan seen swimming on the lake at the conclusion of the overture.

I LOVE the "girls" museline-like costumes and loose hair...

the loose-hair look pertained in 1895 for the swan maiden ensemble as well as for ivanov's snowflakes in '92.
the 'bun head' is a later, rote, detail.

and the costumes are lovely too!! ...for what i can see they were also simple, soft and loose, so no stiff tutus ah?...(kind of TPDD alike)
Thank you so much Mr. R.G for this valuable information!

The engraving seems to be an artist's interpretation. I found this photo from the original 1877 staging, and the costume is most definitely not loose, flowing, diaphanous chiffon.

I was wondering that myself (whether the image was a real depiction of the production, or an artist's interpretation of the concept) so thanks for answering that question.

Furthermore, with all the debate about how Swan-like the dancers should be, it is quite interesting to see that the 1877 production included WINGS on the costume!