I always assumed Swan Lake had a sad ending, because I am pretty sure the famous piece of music from it is called The Dying Swan. But the first one I saw was the Chinese Acrobatic version, with the prince defeating the sorceror at the end and a happy ending. The next one I saw was by Northern Ballet Theatre, and they changed the story quite a lot, and they had a sad ending but it wasn't really the same as the usual ending (sort of) anyway.

So I was pretty open to either a sad or happy ending - I assumed sad because I thought I'd read a synopsis of the Nacional Ballet De Cuba version, and it kept talking about Siegfried 'pledging his life to their love' and Odette being 'destined to die' and them being reunited at the end. But to be honest, I couldn't tell if they died at the end or not - I sort of assumed they were reunited in heaven, since they didn't show them going back to the castle or anything. Which is sort of a happy-sad ending, in a way. But I gather from reading about it that lots of different versions have slightly different endings, and like I say my first experience with it was a version with a happy ending. So I didn't really mind the ending they put on it. I imagine it's different if you're used to seeing versions with a sad ending, though.