Princesse Tutu

Recently a friend of mine introduced me to an anime she thought I would like, called Princess Tutu. Basically it’s about a duck, which turns into a girl, who turns into a princess in order to save a prince. Although the storyline may seem a little odd, to say the least, a lot of its content is very interesting and relevant to ballet class.Although I have not finished both seasons of the anime, what I have watched so far does remind me of the ballet Swan Lake. In fact I think the plot of Princess Tutu might have been based of that ballet for several reasons.

Princess Tutu

The characters that share the most similarities are Ahiru, which is her name when she’s human, and princess Odette. The similarities begin with the magical characters, which in Swan Lake would be the evil sorcerer Von Rothbart. Princess Tutu has a similar character named Drosselmeyer whose stories he writes are able to become a reality. In Swan Lake Von Rothbart casts a spell on the maiden Odette so she turns into a swan whenever it becomes night. Quite the opposite occurs in Princess Tutu where Drosselmeyer turns a duck, who is fascinated by a Prince named Mytho, into a human girl with the use of a magical necklace. From here many similarities begin to stem.

The most obvious one would be the way Drosselmeyer portraits Ahiru, whose magical self is known as Princess Tutu, and Rue whose magical self is known as Princess Kraehe. In his stories he often shows Princess Tutu as a white swan while Princess Kraehe is a black one. In Swan Lake Odette wears white while Von Rothbart’s daughter wears black. The costumes of both Princesses in the anime also reflect this, with Tutu’s costume is nearly all white, while Kraehe’s is all black.

Princess Kraehe

Just like in the ballet where Odette and Odile want to be with Prince Siegfried, both of the female characters want to be with the Prince Mytho. Unfortunately for Ahiro, she cannot confess any feelings to him because she’ll end up disappearing. That is the curse that the anime has, while the curse of Swan Lake is princess Odette being a swan when nightfall arrives.

As one might guess just might the title alone Princess Tutu obviously involves ballet and they incorporate this in different ways. First off, Ahiru, Rue, and Mytho all attend a ballet academy and they are often shown in class practicing and dancing. Outside of class the characters are also seen dancing. This holds especially true for Princess Tutu who “battles” other characters by dancing with them, in order to get pieces of the Prince’s heart back. In these “battles” the anime exposes the viewer to many different songs such as:

Tchaikovsky
- The Nutcracker
- Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies
- Miniature overture
- March
- Waltz of the Flowers
- Swan Lake
- Waltz, act 1 no. 2
Mendelssohn
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Wedding March
Beethoven
- Overture to Coriolan
Mozart
- The Marriage of Figaro
- Overture
Prokofiev
- Romeo and Juliet
- Romeo and Juliet's Before Parting

Last but not least, Princess Tutu also has some lessons embedded in the episodes. One that comes to mind is Season 2 Episode 1-Part 2 where the ballet teacher tells his students a story about an encounter he had with a legendary ballet dancer named Nyadzinsky, who performed extraordinary choreography. When the teacher was himself a student he happened to see this legendary dancer practice, but instead of expecting him to practice his complex moves he instead “repeated the basic practices faithfully, over and over”[2:06s]. When he confronted the dancer and asked why he was practicing such basic exercises the legendary dancer responded with “Someone who has not mastered the basics cannot perform great acts or possess a supreme spirit”[2:47s]. In other words, just because a dancer has learned new material that is more complex than the basics doesn’t mean that the basics should be forgotten since other moves built up on them.