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Giselle Smiles—For A While

by Melinda Tuhus | Jun 17, 2007 10:21 pm

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Posted to: Arts

Giselle_Pair.jpgI learned a few things in the one ballet class I took, at age 10. In doing those quick turns, swivel your body most of the way around, then whip your head around real fast at the last second, so it meets up with your body but doesn’t make you dizzy.
And SMILE! If you’re a female, that is. Male ballet dancers usually either glower or simper.

The State Ballet of the Republic of Georgia performing Giselle this past weekend at the Shubert as part of the Arts & Ideas Festival got all those things right—at least until Giselle dies at the end of the first act. Then nobody smiles anymore. “Uncontrollable and inconsolable,” the program says, she goes mad and expires.

Until that scene, the acting in the first act seemed over the top, and the dancing seemed a little hesitant and out of synch. But the going mad and dying scene was superb—we could all feel Giselle’s agony after discovering her lover, Albrecht, was two-timing her. And, after intermission, everything bumped up a notch.

Not that Giselle disappears in the second act. She reappears from beyond the grave, as one of the Wilis—in folklore, young women who die after they’re engaged to be married but before their wedding day. Their “job” is to lure young men to the forest and dance them to death. As Giselle takes center stage, two groups of eight ballerinas line both sides of the stage, sometimes turning in unison, sometimes waving their arms gracefully, but mostly standing very still. I know from my limited experience how incredibly difficult that can be.

I’m no dance critic, but I know what I like. The leaps, the pirouettes, the graceful falls of the second act were all perfectly executed. Nina Ananiashvili as Giselle captured the hearts of the audience, as did Sergei Filin’s Albrecht, even though his character was less appealing.

The “bravos” and standing ovation lasted ten minutes before the curtain finally came down again. I found it touching (and downright romantic) when Filin gracefully took Ananiashvili’s hand and kissed it (seemingly out of their characters as ill-fated lovers).

Sitting in the fourth row, we got a good look at the dancers’ faces as well as their lithe, perfect bodies. At the end of the evening, I read the program and was shocked to learn that Ananiashvili is not only the prima ballerina with the company, she’s also its artistic director. And, her professional career began at the top when she joined the famed Bolshoi ballet in 1981. This was all a bit incredible to me, since she has the face and body of a 25-year-old.

Walking out of the Shubert, one awe-struck audience member said, “I’ve seen this ballet 40 times. That was classical ballet at its best.” All I have to compare it to is a few versions of The Nutcracker, but I would tend to agree.

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