A swan to watch

One of the most exciting aspects of following ballet is watching a career develop - currently, that of Lauren Fadeley, plucked from the corps de ballet to debut in the dual principal role of Odette/Odile Thursday night, when the Pennsylvania Ballet opened Christopher Wheeldon's Swan Lake at the Academy of Music.

Fadeley, who got some cygnine experience last year as one of 14 Pennsylvania Ballet dancers to perform in the Oscar-winning Natalie Portman film Black Swan, has fluid, expressive arms that beautifully evoke fluttering swan wings, and feet that point into a particularly gorgeous arch. She danced cleanly and confidently, and was a joy to watch, especially as the seductive black swan Odile, generally considered the more difficult role. The nuances of her white swan queen, Odette - shyness, fear, love, heartbreak - were too subtle for the grand space of the Academy.

The corps de ballet, as a flock of white swans, was lush and gorgeous, at turns highlighting and hiding Fadeley, mirroring her movements, and nesting around her in interesting formations.

This is a transition year for the Pennsylvania Ballet: Among the principal dancers, Martha Chamberlain is scheduled to retire in April, and both Julie Diana and Riolama Lorenzo are pregnant with their second children (though they are performing smaller roles this week). So the timing is right for Fadeley and other young dancers to try their wings. Soloist Brooke Moore is also debuting as Odette/Odile, in alternating performances.

Among the solos, Amy Aldridge danced a sultry Russian dance in the third-act party scene - as she did when the production premiered in 2004, commissioned by Pennsylvania Ballet for its 40th anniversary - charming both the audience and the men in the party scene, who peel off her dress layer by layer.

Zachary Hench reprised his 2004 Prince Siegfried, desperately in love with Fadeley's doomed swan. While his solo is filled with high jumps and multiple-revolution pirouettes, he danced them with little flair, though he came alive in the acting-heavy scenes.

Indeed, Wheeldon's Swan Lake is Siegfried's story. Set in a ballet studio, as are several other Wheeldon ballets, it goes back and forth between dancers rehearsing for Swan Lake and the dreamlike Swan Lake itself. The first act is like a mobile exhibition of Degas paintings, with vignettes of dancers putting up their hair, practicing at the barre, standing in fourth position, arms behinds their backs. The production rarely breaks completely out of this studio setting, which can constrain the action. And there is only the barest hint of a lake in this Swan Lake until near the end.

But Wheeldon's choreography is gorgeous, and honors its Marius Petipa-Lev Ivanov roots.

As for the future, look for Fadeley.