Ballet Lovers: May 2013

Giselle – a synopsis

As the ballet begins, a nobleman named Albrecht is busily wooing a young, beautiful peasant girl named Giselle. Albrecht leads the young maiden to believe that he is a farmer named Loys. Giselle falls in love with the man, unaware that he is already betrothed to Bathilde, daughter of the Duke. She agrees to marry the man, despite the romantic advancements of another peasant, Hilarion, who suspects that Albrecht is an imposter.

The Duke and his entourage are soon announced by a hunting horn. When the Duke’s daughter realizes that she and Giselle are both engaged, she gives her a gold necklace. Hilarion tells Giselle that Albrecht has been deceiving her, that he is actually a nobleman. Bathilde quickly reveals to Giselle that Albrecht is indeed her fiancé. Horrified and weak, Giselle goes mad and dies of a broken heart.

The second act of the ballet takes place in a forest beside Giselle's grave. The Queen of the ghostly Wilis, women who have died of unrequited love, calls upon them to accept Giselle as one of their own. When Hilarion enters, the Wilis make him dance to his death. But when Albrecht arrives, Giselle (now a Wili herself) dances with him until the Wilis' power is lost, when the clock strikes four. Realizing that Giselle has saved him, but was now forever parted, Albrecht cried at her grave.

Review: The Paris Opera Ballet’s production…

Giselle is an iconic work in the ballet repertoire. Since its premiere in Paris with the POB, it has had an almost unbroken tradition of performance around the world.

This company is the oldest on Earth and, as such, is almost equal with ballet itself. For such an old ballet, one of the most striking things about it is the relative youth of its dancers, with an average age of 25.

There was no sign of fatigue or complacency. It was as if Giselle was a new ballet and this was its debut. This sense alone is one of the Paris Opera Ballet’s and this production’s great strengths. The role of Giselle is one of the most sought-after in any ballet company. To win the role, a ballerina must have near perfect technique, outstanding grace, and great drama skills.

Karl Paquette as Albrecht

Karl Paquette, playing Albrecht, was amazing. His entrechats in act two, would have to be among the highlights of the ballet. His feet were a blur as they criss-crossed each other during graceful leaps. It’s as if he were thrust from the stage by unseen forces; no effort was apparent, his legs alternating like an egg-beater whisking an omelette to fluffy delectability.

Isabelle Ciaravola as Giselle

The object of his and Hilarion’s (played by Audric Bezard) affections, Giselle is danced by the exquisite Isabelle Ciaravola, (in the role) the very quintessence of the wide-eyed innocent; a sincere, naïve girl whose heart is open to love and its achy-breaky consequences. It is her sympathetic feeling for her character that distinguishes her performance as much as her dancing, which is flawless.

Emilie Cozette as Queen of the Wilis

One wouldn’t normally associate white meringue and dainty wings as power dressing, but it works for Emilie Cozette: as queen of the Wilis, she radiates power and authority.

Christine Peltzer, a quadrille, steps up as Berthe, Giselle’s mother, who betrays the dualistic ballet-pantomime tradition with a clear defined and urgent vocabulary of gestures predicting dire straits, should Giselle persist with her infatuation.

Mélanie Hurel and Emmanuel Thibault in
the peasant pas de deux

One of the most artistic sidelights was the peasant pas de deux (dance of two), performed by Mélanie Hurel and Emmanuel Thibault. Very beautiful and charming!

However, the core strength of the Paris Opera Ballet is in the corps de ballet: there is a uniformity of excellence which other companies don’t have. Thus, the delight lies not so much in the feats of technical brilliance by the principals, though they’re very much in evidence, but in care of performance en masse; every move is a work of art, every line and arc as if described by an architect’s sharpened pencil. Here, in act two, were 26 dancers that didn’t need the wings on their backs to show they could fly.

Corps de Ballet

It was ballet master Jean Georges Noverre’s desire for ballet, as a stand-alone art form, to be able to tell a story; a goal finally realised, although around a century later, with Giselle. Its strong themes and bold flavours, so clearly communicated and easily savoured, seem, somehow, no less modern and, certainly, no less sophisticated. Musically, choreographically and otherwise, Giselle, in the loving care of the Paris Opera Ballet, remains a work of almost unmatched elegance and finesse.

Back in the day, it was enthusiastically and willingly declared the greatest ballet of its time. That time may still be with us. It’s a work and production that reclaims from the realms of cliché the phrase, poetry in motion.

Besides, it’s so Frenchy, so chic.

Love Sararose xox