Ballet Review: Giselle, The World's Best Ballerina, and the Eternal Feminine

Giselle: A Romantic Ballet in Two Acts

Music by Adolphe Adam

Choreography after Marius Petipa

Staged by Kevin McKenzie

Starring Natalia Osipova and Kevin Hallberg

The American Ballet Theater

Metropolitan Opera House, New York

May 18, 2018

This performance of Giselle was a prototype NYC Big Event. Since it featured the current World’s Best Ballerina Natalia Osipova in her only NYC appearance this season, current and ex-ballerinas were in the audience, tickets sold out, and elderly ex-dancers were dressed in their arty best attire. The performance was wonderful, exemplifying the best of the romantic tradition, and Osipova lived up to her billing. What does it mean to be The Best ___ in the World, and is it possible to know who that is? In individual sports with quantitative competitions (swimming, archery), sure. In qualitative sports like figure skating, there are regular adjudicated competitions. In team sports like basketball, it is possible to reach consensus that LaBron James is the Best by both his statistics but by constant qualitative observation on TV. But what about the arts? Pavarotti was indeed the greatest tenor of his generation, and there are recordings to prove it (live, he was a bit of a stick).  Acting will, I think, never really center on such designation, but Meryl Streep has made a case based on both qualitative observation of her many films, and on her success in the Oscars (adjudication). Ballet has none of this. No awards, no competitions, no extensive record of all performances (YouTube has been at least helpful for highlights)--just the opinions of critics and fans who see many ballets, but who come with individual biases. One could imagine adding ballet to the Olympics, as it combines athletics and art just as figure skating. In any case, Osipova is the best I have seen, combining style, acting, and amazing athletic leaps that elevate her amplitude and speed 20% higher than the other prima ballerinas, which is obvious to even an untrained viewer. 

What to make of Giselle (1841)? This is the oldest full-length ballet, and set the standard for the 19^th century classics to follow (Don Quixote, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, etc.). In act I the village girl Giselle flirts with her boyfriend, the aristocrat Count Albrecht (David Hallberg) who is masquerading as a villager (she oddly does not seem to detect his aristocratic mien). She dances with joy, despite an ominous heart condition. When she discovers Albrecht’s duplicity and intent to marry a noble woman, she collapses and dies. In Act II she joins the Wilis, spirits of dead virgins who never got to the altar. They take vengeance, succubus-like, by luring single men to dance to their deaths. The now-Wili Giselle instead chooses to save the guilt-stricken Albrecht rather than taking her revenge, and he is left alone onstage, regretting his actions (at least until the next pretty face comes along).

This is hardly a plot for the #MeToo era. Woman protagonists on stage have evolved, reflecting their society’s mores. In the 18^th century Handel chose strong Grecian gods and biblical women to portray (Semele, Esther). Later, Mozart portrayed women perhaps as naturally as any author has, complete with sexuality and ambition (The Marriage of Figaro). But with his Faust (1772-1808), Goethe ushered in romanticism. This is a complex term, with many aspects, but his depiction of Gretchen set the standard for women in the 19^th century. Gretchen falls for the amoral Faust, has an illegitimate child, goes insane, is condemned to death for aborting the child, then finally rises into heaven (with the dead, unborn child), redeemed and saved by God.

This set up or revived feminine models for early romantic works of art of the 1820s and 30s: woman going insane (the mad scenes of  Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Anna Bolena), woman as damaged temptress/succubus (Bellini’s La Somnambula features a sleepwalking heroine who enters mens’ rooms and walks precariously across dangerous bridges while asleep), and above all the concept of the woman as something to be worshiped (Goethe called it “das ewig weibliche”, the eternal feminine).While none of these models takes women seriously as productive contributors to society, they do set them up on an unattainable pedestal. No wonder it took so long for women to get the vote, or join the workforce--hard to do those from a pedestal. Actually, none of this moved far beyond the original biblical/Catholic dichotomies of woman as whore (Eve) or virgin (Mary). By the early twentieth century, we see the arrival of angry, vengeful women like Lulu, Salome, and Elektra, strong but still not societal participants. It is only in the last 70 years that strong multidimensional women appear on the stage, but many famous ones still are a bit unhinged or addicted: Blanche duBois, Mary Tyrone and Beverly Weston (August, Osage County). We still lack women characters like Willy Loman, interesting because of how their character and real-world accomplishments conflict. Perhaps the best is Meryl Streeps’s Amanda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada (2004).

Giselle follows the romantic woman-type closely. There is a mad scene, she tempts the heroic (yet creepy) Albrecht and initially tries to lure him to his death, but ultimately sacrifices her spirit-principles to save him. Along with several Donizetti and Bellini operas, Giselle remains one of the earliest Romantic artwork still in common performance. The ballet succeeds despite typically pedestrian hippity-hop tunes by Adolphe Adam, largely due to its plot economy, a well-developed central character, and famous, classic choreography by Marius Petipa that still provides the core of the steps used in modern performances. Natalia Osipova has grown into a superb acting dancer. She debuted a decade or so ago, initially blowing away the world with high jumps and rapid steps (she began as a gymnast) in athletic works like Don Quixote, but now is turning to the more mature, acting-dependent roles as a prima ballerina at the Royal Opera House in London. Giselle requires youthful brio in Act I, then more subtle ghostlike presence in Act II (there is that female dichotomy again, just as in Swan Lake’s Odette/Odile). The springy amplitude Osipova achieves with the simplest hops makes her feel like the youthful village girl she is, and she overlays the ominous illness-portents convincingly. Her mad scene (after her boyfriend’s duplicity is revealed) was physically convincing without being histrionic; here Petipa achieves with dance what Donizetti did with coloratura in Lucia di Lammermoor’s mad scene. Her performance as a spectral Wili was also convincing, putting the cap on a complete and dramatically convincing performance.

One characteristic of Osipova is her extreme athleticism, which she likes to showcase and her fans love. This means that she often races ahead of the music to pirouette or jump not just higher, but faster. This must have made conductor Ormsby Wilkins nervous. In this run, he had to conduct seven different Giselles, and Osipova’s is exceptional in its speed.  So the conductor and orchestra could not just sink into tempo familiarity in her performance. I can only imagine the tension in the conductor’s mind as some of her solos approached in the score. His choice was to either do the music a little faster and let it not quite synchronize, or do it a lot faster, and keep it together. Neither is a perfect choice. As examples, look at two performances of Giselle's first act variations where, despite her mother's worries about her health, she dances for her boyfriend. First, here is the more non-synchronized approach like the one I saw at this performance; note Osipova’s lightning circular pirouettes at 2:00, not quite lined up with the orchestral beat.  Very exciting, and perhaps appropriate for an animated young girl showing off for her boyfriend, but not quite precise. Compare this to a more measured approach by Alina Cojocaru, much more in synch, more controlled, but less exciting. What if the conductor actually tried to keep up with Ms. Osipova? This excerpt from Don Quixote shows what happens then…the musical line becomes a bit silly at 1:52, but her leaps and speed generate chills galore. Note throughout all these how she interacts with the music, the other characters, and the audience, showing true star quality.

Of course, all this is beside the point. The scores of rapturous balletomanes who sang “Happy Birthday” to Ms. Osipova after her sixth curtain call were not there to dissect the nuances of Ormsby Wilkins’ conducting approach to the titanic music of Adolphe Adam. They asked for, and got, a star performance from their ballerina. She was well partnered by Mr. Hallberg--tall, blond, a bit frail appearing, and noble; he is not an obvious match for an athlete like her, but is a superb partner and they have collaborated on this ballet for year, including during his time at the Bolshoi. Christine Shevchenko was icy, statuesque, and scary in the Russian tradition as the Queen of the Wilis, a great contrast with the shorter, friskier Ms. Osipova. Whatever one thinks of Giselle’s tradition of portraying women, this performance was about as good as it gets, and I left it strangely moved and with a few tears in my eyes. Romanticism still works!