Little Swan Lake

Part One

The Royal Ball
The court is celebrating Prince Siegfried’s birthday. From this day on he is considered an adult; he has become a man. His mother, the Queen, who dearly loves her only son, marks the great occasion with a special gift: she presents him with a real crossbow, for he has grown ready for true, perilous hunting. The Prince is overjoyed with the gift and can hardly wait to try it out.
The Queen, however, has something else on her mind. She organized the ball with the undisguised hope that her son would finally find the partner of his life, get married, and sooner or later become king of the Realm. To this end she has invited the most beautiful maidens of the country, hoping that the enchanting dances of the lovely young girls will captivate the heart of her newly grown son. The most varied dances amaze every guest, yet the Prince does not even notice the girls. He spends the entire evening gazing at his new crossbow; his thoughts are fixed solely on the hunt. After the ball, the Queen withdraws to her chamber in disappointment—she longs for grandchildren and a new king upon the throne.

The Lake of the Swans
Under cover of night, the Prince slips out of the castle, but he goes no farther than the nearby lake. Here he sees something very strange and stops in uncertainty. A flock of swans glides, floats, almost dances upon the water. How much more exciting this dance is than that of the overly made-up girls at the ball! How much purer, wilder, and more beautiful it is! He nearly forgets about hunting altogether.
When it comes to mind, he raises his brand-new crossbow, cocks it, and aims straight at the swans. The snow-white, graceful flock scatters in fright at the noise, but one of them suddenly separates from the others. She is not afraid and steps curiously closer. At that moment the Prince realizes that she is not a bird at all, but a real young woman standing before him. She is Odette. The Prince has never seen such beauty in his life. The love that flares up between them in an instant makes them utterly timeless. As they dance, they seem at once like playful children, adult lovers, and a happy elderly couple who have lived their entire lives together.

The Sorcerer
As they dance, the Prince repeatedly senses a strange, eerie rustling behind him, but no matter how often he turns around, he sees nothing and no one. Yet his intuition does not deceive him: Redbeard, the sorcerer, is lurking behind him—the one who long ago transformed the maidens into swans. He himself once had a daughter, Odile, who had long ago been deceived by a heartless man who lured her to himself and then abandoned her. Thus a stain fell upon the girl’s honor, and she knew she would never find a husband. From that moment on, Redbeard grew envious of every snow-white, pure maiden he encountered. Year after year he abducted more girls to carry out his evil plan.
The poor little swans cannot tell anyone of their sad fate, for they cannot speak. Only once a month, on the night of the full moon, at midnight, may they turn back into human beings for a single hour. By chance, the Prince met Odette precisely during that hour. Redbeard watches the blossoming love between the Prince and Odette in a rage, but for now he is powerless; he merely seethes within himself and plots his revenge.

Part Two

The Next Ball
The Prince finds no peace; day and night he thinks only of the swan maiden. Every blessed evening he goes out to the lake, but all in vain—he no longer finds Odette. A month passes since their meeting; another full moon is preparing to rise in the sky, and the Prince begins to lose hope. He feels he will never be happy again.
His mother, the Queen, however, cannot resign herself to the fact that her son does not wish to marry. She decides to organize another ball and, at all costs, find a bride for the Prince tormented by lovesickness. The young man is not interested in the beautiful girls in the slightest, but he does not wish to oppose his mother. He watches the dance of the prospective brides with boredom; their movements blur before his eyes. How could these dull girls possibly be compared to Odette’s graceful, airy figure?
Still, the Queen does not give up. She summons the most beautiful maidens from all over the world, who try to win the Prince’s heart with the dances of their own countries. Yet no matter how charming, proud, and attractive these candidates may be, no matter how lively their dances, none of them interests the Prince, because none of them is Odette.

The Unknown Guests
At this moment, two new guests enter the ballroom. No one knows them, for they have arrived uninvited, yet everyone takes notice of them. One of the guests, a girl dressed in black, is beautiful and slender, drawing the gaze of the entire royal court. Her partner is a dignified, older man with a red beard, perhaps her father. Both move about the hall with such confidence, as if the ball had been arranged in their honor.
The Prince, too, cannot take his eyes off the newly arrived girl. She seems familiar to him from somewhere! His eyes ache from staring: why, she is the love of his life, the swan maiden! When the Prince addresses her, the girl introduces herself as Odile, which confuses him. Is she Odette, merely in disguise? He has no idea what to do. The white swan maiden, to whom he swore fidelity without words, he may never see again; but this Odile is here, within arm’s reach.
The Prince’s mother also notices how enchanted her son is by the unknown girl. At first she does not care for it; she would have preferred him to choose someone from among the original candidates, but the Prince insists that he wants no one else. The red-bearded gentleman, however, stipulates that his daughter can belong only to the one who takes her as his wife. The Prince hesitates for a moment. He thinks of the swan maiden whom he believed he would love forever. But he quickly brushes the thought aside: he will not yearn, wait, and be disappointed in vain again. And so he swears that he loves Odile and will take her as his wife.

The Recognition
At that instant, a shrill laugh rings out. The Prince realizes in horror that the red-bearded gentleman is none other than the Sorcerer himself, and the sound has burst from his throat. He laughs with shrill satisfaction, he has won, his evil plan has succeeded. For this evening, he transformed his daughter, Odile, into Odette’s likeness to tempt the Prince’s heart. The Prince yielded to the temptation; he could not remain faithful and steadfast to Odette.
Odile laughs as well, happy that she has finally managed to marry, no ordinary man at that, for the groom’s vow, spoken before everyone, can no longer be withdrawn. Only now does the Prince realize what he has done. He immediately rushes to the lake to find his true beloved. Once again it is full moon; at that very moment the swans have changed back into maidens. As soon as the Prince sees Odette, he tries to take her into his arms, but she will not let him come close, for he has betrayed their love. Siegfried pleads in vain, trust, once broken, is hard to mend.
Meanwhile the Sorcerer appears as well, and the Prince angrily attacks him. He tries to overpower him with his fists, mustering all his strength, but Redbeard only laughs. In that moment he sees Odette disappear behind the Sorcerer’s cloak, as if she had never been there at all. Prince Siegfried is left alone with his sorrow…