Bourne, Curtin as Queen Lead New Casting in ‘Swan Lake’

Shortly after his “Swan Lake” opened at the Ahmanson Theatre in late April, choreographer Matthew Bourne began reshuffling the principals in his two alternating casts to create intriguing new partnerships and interpretive possibilities. More recently, company members new to their roles have added more surprises to this Adventures in Motion Pictures production.

On Wednesday, for example, you could find Bourne himself playing the manipulative Private Secretary with deadpan menace--in makeup that made him a facsimile of that arch ballet manipulator, impresario Sergei Diaghilev.

You could also find guest conductor Lucas Richman leading an ideally propulsive and incisive performance by the 27-member orchestra.

However, Saranne Curtin’s uncompromisingly icy performance as the Queen attracted particular attention. Apart from fleeting awkwardness in the intricate partnered passages of the ballroom scene opposite Adam Cooper, she danced the role expertly, but her most memorable achievements were histrionic: the convincingly regal, utterly vacant public smile, for instance, or her instinctive resentment of her son that grew to agonized revulsion when he pleaded for her love.

Unfortunately, her credibility was sabotaged by makeup that left her looking much younger than Scott Ambler, who played her son. Their relationship thus seemed literally inconceivable, invoking the immortal words of W.S. Gilbert in “Iolanthe”:

I wouldn’t say a word that could be reckoned as injurious,

But to find a mother younger than her son is very curious,

And that’s a kind of mother that is usually spurious.

* “Swan Lake,” Ahmanson Theatre, Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, 8 p.m.; Thursday and Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Ends June 15. $15-$60. (213) 628-2772. Recommended for audiences 13 years and up.