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Music
Adolphe Adam
Conductor
Boris Gruzin
Choreography
(after Jean
Coralli
and Jules Perrot)
Marius Petipa
Production
Peter Wright
Designs
John F.
Macfarlane
Lighting
Jennifer
Tipton
Giselle
Darcey Bussell
Count
Albrecht
Roberto Bolle
Hilarion
Thiago Soares
Myrtha
Zenaida Yanowsky
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Royal
Opera House
15
- 29 April 2006
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In this
revival by the Royal Ballet,
Darcey Bussell was on supremely
sure and poetic form, and
her already formidable artistry
has undoubtedly made yet another
great stride forwards. She
is not a natural Giselle,
less on account of her years
than because she hardly evinces
the overwhelming vulnerability
and innocence of this teenage
village girl. But she danced
with such joy, such bold,
strong, long movements, such
pert, almost frisky, phrasing,
that you were carried away
by the sheer delight of her
Giselle's love of dance and
life.
The dashing Roberto Bolle,
as Albrecht, the disguised
Count for whom Giselle falls,
was superbly elegant and poised,
but he lacked the visceral
passion for which the part
calls, both in the first Act,
when he woos Giselle and dismisses
challenges from Hilarion,
the local forester who also
loves her - evoked with wonderful
simplicity and stubbornness
by Thiago Soares - and in
the second Act, when he despairingly
visits the grave of the girl
to whom he had lied.
The scene in which Albrecht's
lie drives Giselle to madness
and death was Bussell's only
weak moment. She didn't muster
what should be unbearably
drawn-out tension as madness
slowly takes hold of her,
nor did her death seem much
of an event.
Her return as a ghost in the
second Act was, however, ethereal,
fiery and imperious, especially
as she sustained Albrecht's
strength while the Wilis,
those spirits of dead unmarried
girls who want to murder every
man they encounter, tried
to force him to dance himself
to death. Zenaida Yanowsky's
Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis,
was commanding and her terse,
self-controlled despair deeply
moving. Her troupe of vengeful
ghosts, frightening in their
obedience to a law beyond
human reach as well as in
their implacable grief, showed
us what a superb corps the
Royal Ballet has. Their dancing
was dignified, measured, steely.
Boris Gruzin, well known to
Covent Garden audiences for
his conducting of the Kirov
ballet, coaxed great beauty
and articulation out of the
Royal Opera's orchestra.
Simon May |
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