For Pooa’s birthday yesterday, Daniel and I treated her to American Ballet Theater’s production of Giselle. We were all quite hungry before the performance, although with only half an hour, we didn’t have enough time for a proper meal at PJ Clarke’s. So Pooa and I procured two half paninis and a bottle of water next door to the American Folk Art Museum.
Returning to Lincoln Center 15 minutes before the performance, Pooa was concerned that we did not have enough time to munch the paninis in peace. By my calculation, the organizers of such events must know to take into account the extra 10-15 minutes it could take a typical audience member to shake the drip out of a temperamental urethra, so we had plenty of time. Daniel concurred, and we sat on a bench outside enjoying our meal while a slow trickle of shaky legs made their way into the Metropolitan Opera house and its cascade of stories.
Once inside, it took another 10 minutes before the light scorchingly reflected off of the sea of gray manes and bald heads dimmed as the precariously dangling chandeliers retracted into the safety of the ceiling and the performance began.
Nina Ananiashvili
The ballet was spectacular, as can be expected. Nina Ananiashvili, playing Giselle, was the perfect vision of dainty young delicate thing, twittering her toes at just the right angles, pushing and pulling her aspiring lovers, codpieces unperturbed, and proving beyond any doubt that despite acting an innocent peasant girl on stage, she does not partake of the khachapuri before a performance.
Marcelo Gomes was equally dashing as Count Albrecht, Giselle’s love interest, who has a dramatic and clearly challenging solo dance towards the end, prancing around with twitching legs like a virile flamingo suffering the onset of premature Parkinsons.
Classical or neoclassical ballet is enjoyable in much the same way as Baroque classical music. Sometimes you encounter moments of genius like a Bach fugue that are timeless and need no explanation, but mostly there is an emotional disconnect between the language of the dance and the expectations of contemporary aesthetics.
While Giselle’s character is very sweet, gentle, and sympathetic even by today’s androgenous standards, she falls over and dies when she finds out that her loverboy is cheating on her. I wish I knew a girl like that.
Giselle is the essence of purity, so no further explanation of her motivations is necessary. But the same can’t be said of Count Albrecht. He is clearly living a dual life, but there is never any examination of his motives. Why, if he picks the rich girl in the end, does he later risk his life to visit Giselle’s grave.
Calculating bastards like this do not lie prostrate over their dead foresaken lovers’ tombstones unless their current wives are giving them headaches. Yet we never hear anything about this. And how is it that the spirits of unmarried dead women attack the innocent and noble hunter who is the only commendable person in this drama?
But the oldies in the audience don’t mind glossing over these difficult details. At least love is pure when you’re dead. That’s worth a couple hundred bucks to find out.
One striking feature of the ballet is that there is no way to discern the plot without reading it in the playbill.
Count Albrecht is drawn to the gravesite for the specific purpose of being tormented by the spirits of the dead, unmarried women. These spirits lure the lovers of their fellow unwed-dead and capture their souls. Giselle’s spirit dances with her lover until 4am when the spirits become powerless, thus saving his life.
It is my understanding that the youth, captured by the spirits before Albrecht arrives, though played by the same dancer who played Giselle’s betrothed, Hilarion, is actually a different character. In the graveyard scene he is sans beard and costumed differently. Taking into account the economy of theater, one must assume he is meant merely as an anonymous lover taken by the spirits.
Ki, who sits next to me in the office and who enjoyed Giselle, also enjoyed this blog post. Upon inquiry, her belief is that Giselle had a pre-existing heart condition. This was the underlying cause of her sudden demise, expedited by heartbreak.
lol…. to clarify, i didn’t say “she had a pre-existing heart condition”, just saying she could have been a very fragile girl and by shock (yeah, possibly heart attack), she died?? just guessing… altho ppl can’t die that easily… it’s all about drama.
and i’m sure there are tons of girls who would be like her (except dying part, more like suicide with mental condition…) :p
anyway very much enjoyed your blog, thanks for sharing.
Thanks Kiki and Handy. Obviously Giselle is a purebred nymph with a fragile constitution. According to Wikipedia, the original version of Giselle committed suicide with Albrecht’s sword (symbolism?), but that’s no longer in fashion. These days, she’d best overdose on antidepressants. She is clear, but the mother, lover, hunter, and other woman all play important roles that are not so straightforward. There should be a spin-off ballet focusing on them.
I just read the Wikipedia synopsis, and am very surprised. Certainly none of this came across in the ballet itself, and most of it wasn’t even in the playbill. Maybe they should introduce a narrator. Seems the choreographer doesn’t have much sense of narrative.
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