Swan Lake is one of the most performed ballets in the world but it actually tanked on its first outing – the 1877 run was cancelled – but the 1895 revival was the one we know and love today. Or is it? A thread 1/

The plot is batshit even by ballet standards, which is quite the statement given that there’s a whole ballet about a dancing sweets where a young woman is sexually awakened by a nutcracker. 2/

The story of goes: Prince Siegfried is out hunting at a moonlit lake. He spies Odette, who has been turned into a swan and held captive by a winged sorcerer, as one does. She can only break her curse if a man who has never loved before promises to love her forever. 3/

Siegfried (a virgin who lives with his mum) is well up for this. The next night, he sees Odette, dressed in black at his birthday party and swears undying love ONLY IT’S NOT ODETTE IT’S THE WINGED SORCERER’S DAUGHTER IN A BLACK DRESS! 4/

Too late: he’s pledged his love to the wrong woman and Odette is doomed to spend eternity as a swan. When Siegfried and Odette realize what he has done, they drown themselves in the moonlit lake; their only chance for happiness is in the afterlife. 5/

But after the 1917 communist revolution Swan Lake nearly fell victim to cancel culture. SL was aristocratic: anything associated with the Tsars was double plus ungood. But the Russians loved their ballet & Lenin reckoned it was a good way to get propaganda into the masses. 6/

It was the Soviet belief that Art should represent a positive view of the communist struggle. Swan Lake is a battle between good and evil where evil wins out, with death the only possible triumph. But Soviet fairytales needed HAPPY ENDINGS where the goodies beat the baddies. 7/

If you’ve seen Chernobly you’ll be familiar with the Soviet slogan 'Our goal is for the happiness of all mankind.’ In the social paradise of the USSR, you couldn’t have Siegfried going nuts and jumping into the lake because communism made everyone so bloody happy! 8/

So they made an alternative ending where Siegfried kills the sorcerer and lives happily ever after with Odette, a metaphor for the new regime triumphing over the old. Stalin bloody LOVED it. 9/

The thing is, tragedy is in the DNA of Swan Lake, it’s in the yearning strings, it’s in the choreography itself. It’s like turning Romeo and Juliet into a romcom. 10/

But done right the happy ending CAN work. I saw both when I was researching my ballet thriller Watch Her Fall. If you made it to the end of this thread, I think you'll like the book, about Russian ballet, death, rivalry and betrayal - like #SwanLake itself https://www.waterstones.com/book/watch-her-fall/erin-kelly/9781529377293