As the haunting opening bars of Tchaikosky’s Swan Lake floods the auditorium, the curtain lifts to reveal a stunning palace with lithe, agile figures pirouetting on stage, everyone in the audience is transported to a fairy world and a higher level of sensory experience for the next two hours.

It’s the universal saga of love conquering all, good winning over evil (with the evil in black, always more glamourous than the virginal white) and justice in the end.

The ballet is in four acts—the opening palace scene where Prince Siegfried (Jan Vana, graceful, energetic and vulnerable) must chose a bride but he doesn’t find anyone suitable. ?He is told about Swan Lake where the evil genius Von Rothbart (Koarezov Andrii, relishing his villainous act in a black and red silk cloak) has turned young girls into swans.

The second act is in the serene Swan Lake, mist rising from the blue waters where the prince is about to shoot at a swan but he freezes as it transforms into the beautiful Odette. They fall in love and the prince invites her to the palace. But Rothbart has other plans, he sends his daughter Odile, the black swan, disguised as Odette and the prince professes his undying love to the wrong girl.

Matsak Natalia is mesmerizing as both Odette and Odile, though she has more solo time as the black swan to showcase her talent. The ballerina has done some 2,000 shows of Swan Lake so far and is perfection personified. In the last act, things are set right, Rothbart is conquered, the prince and Odette are united.

In the cultural sphere, this ballet coming to India is nothing short of the bullet train running here.

The new arts and entertainment company, Navrasa Duende (the promoters are an old engineering group) which has brought the ballet to Delhi plan to take it to the other metros as well.

They will also be bringing Sleeping Beauty and Tchaikovsky’s other great work Nutcracker soon to India. They have done up the capital’s Siri Fort Auditorium with the kind of sound, light and other technical requirements for a world class performance of this standard (even the satin stage curtain has been brought for this show) as India has no place to stage a show like this.

“I don’t know when our voice will finally reach the people who matter. We claim that we are one of the top ten economies in the world but we don’t have a single world-class opera house or auditorium. About a fifth of the audience here in Siri Fort didn’t have the right view as that’s how it is designed,” says Dinesh B. Singh, Founder-Navrasa Duende. He says people thought they were crazy to have five shows of Swan Lake over a weekend in Delhi, which means packing in 10,000 people at an average ticket cost of Rs 3,500. But all the five shows are a complete sell-out. So, watch out for Swan Lake in the other metros. Till Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker then. ??