The classic story of the search for love, love unrequited, and redemption that only true love can bring will come to the Lake Michigan College Mendel Center Mainstage when the Russian National Ballet Theatre presents “Swan Lake” at 2 p.m. Jan. 13.

“Swan Lake” was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who fashioned the story from Russian folk tales.

It tells the story of Odette, a princess who is transformed by an evil sorcerer’s curse into a swan by day, and only able to regain her human form at night. The spell can only be broken by the power of eternal love from a young man who will remain faithful to her. If the vow of eternal love is broken, she will remain a swan forever.

Russian National Ballet

The Russian National Ballet Theatre was founded in Moscow during the transitional period of Perestroika in the late 1980s, when many of the great dancers and choreographers of the Soviet Union’s ballet institutions were exercising their new-found creative freedom by starting new, vibrant companies dedicated not only to the timeless tradition of classical Russian ballet but to invigorate this tradition as the Russians began to accept new developments in dance from around the world.

The company, then titled the Soviet National Ballet, was founded by and incorporated graduates from the great Russian choreographic schools of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Perm.
The principal dancers of the company came from the upper ranks of the great ballet companies and academies of Russia, and the companies of Riga, Kiev and even Warsaw. Today, the Russian National Ballet Theatre is its own institution, with more than 50 dancers of singular instruction and vast experience.

In 1994, the legendary Bolshoi principal dancer Elena Radchenko was selected by presidential decree to assume the first permanent artistic directorship of the company. Radchenko is the founder of the Russian National Ballet Theatre, and she has focused the company on upholding the grand national tradition of the major Russian ballet works and developing new talents throughout Russia, with a repertory of virtually all of the great full works of Petipa including Don Quixote, La Bayadere, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Raymonda, Paquita, Coppelia, and La Sylphide, as well as productions of, among others, The Nutcracker, Sylvia, and La Fille Mal Gardee.

Ticket information

Tickets, $38, are available by calling the LMC Mendel Center Box Office at (269) 927-1221 or visiting www.lmcmainstage.org. Students and seniors receive $3 off single-ticket prices.