"Giselle"
The San Francisco Ballet
Opera House
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington DC
November 29, 2008 evening and 30th matinée, 2008
by Alexandra Tomalonis
copyright 2008 by Alexandra Tomalonis
There was some very fine dancing this weekend in the San Francisco Ballet's uneven and un-Romantic production of "Giselle." Yuan-Yuan Tan (Giselle on Saturday night) was ghost-thin, but amazingly strong, and her beautifully phrased, light-as-air dancing was a metaphor for Giselle's love and constancy. Vanessa Zahorian was especially strong in the first act, a believable peasant girl whose youth and innocence made what happened to her even more tragic. (Tan was a ballerina throughout, a stranger in her own village, which can work in "Giselle"). Neither Albrecht (Tiit Helimets with Tan and David Karapetyan with Zahorian) were particularly Romantic, and that is a problem with this production generally. There's little Romantic about it -- no passion, no fascination with the supernatural, no stench of death. It's an odd juxtaposition of neat and tidy dancing (in some instances; in others there are joyously delivered circus tricks), several exceptionally well-staged mime scenes and much attention to detail, but so many idiosyncratic notions that the production is choppy and the drama is often obscured.
Helimets is a very fine dancer, and the only one of the men I saw who managed all 36 of the ACT II entechats six (not that anyone's counting). He made Albrecht rather shallow in the first act, which is an interesting idea. But in the second act, both he and Tan seemed much more concerned with the dancing than the story. Tan was detached, consciously pretty, in the mad scene, and so this was a pretty "Giselle," not a tragic one. Karapetyan was, I think, trying to be Romantic, but his gestures seemed affected, not from the heart. Zahorian danced very well, and both had obviously thought through their performances, but there was little rapport, or poetry, between them.
There's an external feel to the production, with lots of pretty effects that don't hold up. The beginning of the second act is beautiful. As we peer into the forest through a thick growth of trees, wilis fly by and men with lamps scatter. Then the trees disappear into the wings, as though they're cousins of the brambles the Lilac Fairy uses to hide Aurora's castle in "Sleeping Beauty," but that's another ballet.
Another beautiful effect that's spoiled because it's meaningless is the way Giselle leaves the stage. It's a lovely, poetic idea. Giselle returns to her grave and disappears in the mists. Except what actually happens is that she's several feet away from her grave, and on her belly, being pulled into the wings by an unseen force (Moyna? Zulma?).
Albrecht's leave taking is set; each Albrecht had to do the same thing: walk morosely to the middle of the stage, cloak over the shoulder, then turn, extend the arm, run back and fall sobbing onto the grave (where Giselle is not, as she's off somewhere else in the forest). None of the Albrechts could pull it off, and I couldn't blame them. It looked like something from an old melodrama.
And why on earth does Myrtha pull off Giselle's veil, then wrap it around her wand and shove it into one of the lieutenant wili's hands, as if it's to go to the cleaners? Not only does it look efficient and pedestrian, it leaves Myrtha (in Sylve's performance; Elana Altman, the excellent Myrtha Sunday afternoon, retrieved the wand somewhere offstage) without a wand, so that the pagan priestess must go unarmed into battle with Christianity later in the act.
There was unevenness in the dancing, too. The Wilis enter, bent over like old women, rather than slightly tilted forward, showing the Romantic sensibility that there are no straight lines in nature. They straighten immediately and become 21st century dancers, so it's another effect that's not carried through. As for Romantic style, where do the V for Victory arm positions the men use in the first act's pas de cinq come from? And why are they dancing 21st century steps?
There are so many small things like this, and they add up. It's especially puzzling because one has the sense that every dancer on the stage is doing his or her best, is interested in the ballet and really wants to do it justice. Both Hilarions (Pascal Molat and Damian Smith) were exceptional, as good as any I've ever seen. Both mimed with such clarity that a stranger to mime would have known what they were saying. In the monologues, you could see them think. In the second act, Molat's very dancing made him seen enchanted. He suddenly became very light, as though his feet were being pulled off the ground and he was being sucked into the clouds. He made quick half-turns, as though the ground were burning, or he was being pulled and poked by unseen demons.
That's Romanticism.
Photos, both by Eric Tomasson:
Yuan-Yuan Tan and Tiit Helimets in "Giselle."
Vanessa Zahorian in "Giselle."
