UPDATE on May 11, 2012: the NY Times weighs in on PNB's Giselle research.
With enormous care, intensive scholarship, and the exhilaration that comes with the rediscovery of long-lost sources, Pacific Northwest Ballet has reconstituted, reimagined and restaged one of ballet's greatest classics, Giselle.
It's a timeless tale of a young girl's love for the wrong kind of guy (Albrecht, a philandering prince) and the first half ends with her early death after her broken heart gives out. In the second half, she's become part of a flock of winged nighttime spirits, the Wilis, who lure men to their deaths, but the girl comes into her own, defies the Wilis, and saves the rogue who betrayed her. A contrived story, to be sure, but so are the plots of Romeo and Juliet and La Bohème, to name but two stories of young love that end badly.
Giselle premiered in St. Petersburg 170 years ago with Carlotta Grisi (pictured) in the title role and has been a staple of the romantic ballet repertoire ever since, though it had never been performed by PNB. Peter Boal, PNB's artistic director, writes that he wanted to do more than recreate another company's production but didn't want to choreograph one himself. The solution came from PNB's director of education, Doug Fullington, and the historian Marian Smith (PhD from Yale, on the faculty at University of Oregon), who reconstructed long-overlooked elements of the ballet's original music and choreography. Their scholarship may become the new gold standard of future Giselle productions; certainly the premiere Friday night at McCaw Hall was received with great enthusiasm.
Alas, the great good will and intelligent collaboration of the creative team were not enough to overcome what appeared to be a lack of precision and lightness by the principal dancers or the sluggishness of the corps de ballet. The sonorous orchestra, led by guest conductor (and music director-to-be) Emil de Cou overwhelmed the performance, and, on more than one occasion, seemed out of sync with the dancers.
As Albrecht, Cuban-born Karel Cruz brought the heroic stature, if not the virile stage presence, of role's most fabled interpreter, Mikhail Baryshnikov. The Brazliian prima ballerina, Carla Körbes, showed the virtuosity, but not the consistency, of a great Giselle.
The original production, we're told, was almost half pantomime, for which the music was written in a different style. At first the pantomime was a welcome storytelling device, but several gestures became repetitious, like a referee's waving his arms for a first down or an incomplete forward pass. The set, from Houston Ballet, was a serviceable holdover from ballet sets past: a proscenium lushly filled with branches and boughs.
As we noted, the production was noisily acclaimed by an audience of Seattle first-nighters, so my skepticism is clearly a minority viewpoint. But the stage of a theater is not a baseball diamond where runs are scored or a soccer pitch where goals are cheered, not a center court where aces and backhands win points. Performance art demands more. More of its performers, more of its audiences.
Pacific Northwest Ballet presents Giselle through June 12th at McCaw Hall. Tickets ($27 to $185) online at www.pnb.org or by calling the box office at 206-441-2424.
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