Tag: Grigorovich

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Giselle: The Royal Versus the Bolshoi

Last Wednesday I went to see the Royal Ballet’s Giselle live-streamed direct from London. Today, I saw the Bolshoi’s live-streamed from Moscow, both via Emerging Pictures’ excellent Ballet in Cinema series. I have to say I think this new series is one of the most exciting things happening in ballet right now, if not the most exciting. You can see the world’s greatest ballet companies perform live in your hometown via your local movie theater (if, of course, you’re lucky enough to have a local cinema that’s participating – and hopefully you are!). Not only do you get to see the live performance, but the camera also takes you behind the scenes to see things even those in the theater can’t see – to the makeup rooms, the rehearsal areas where the dancers are warming up, getting dressed, and sewing their shoes, etc., behind the curtain during and after the performance where you see the dancers prepare for curtain calls, and down into the orchestra pit where camera focuses on the conductor and members of the orchestra. You also get a good view of the theater – from inside the auditorium to the lounge areas, even to the outside front. You really feel like you’re there. And knowing it’s in real time makes it all the more fun. I kept wanting to wave out to the audience members as they took their seats, some looking at the camera. But of course they couldn’t see us…

Anyway, it’s such an experience, and hopefully everyone will be able to have it at some point soon.

So, the Royal’s Giselle: the dancers were Marianela Nunez in the lead, Rupert Pennefather as Albrecht, Gary Avis and Hilarion, and Helen Crawford as Myrtha. Also, one dancer who wasn’t a lead but who I was just really captivated by was Yuhue Choe, who danced the female peasant in the peasant pas de deux.

Overall, I liked but didn’t love this production. My biggest problem was Pennefather, who I just didn’t find at all compelling – either in his dancing or his acting. He was definitely good-looking and had a regal bearing so I understand why they cast him, but his dancing was just nowhere near the level of someone like David Hallberg’s. In the second act in the would-be dance-to-death scene where he went to do his high jumps with the many braided entrechats, they just didn’t look polished or sharp enough. They almost looked fake – like he wasn’t really weaving his feet backward and foreword. I’m sure he was, it just looked sloppy. And as a character his Albrecht didn’t make much sense. At the beginning, when his servant helps him change into his peasant costume, he looks down at the costume, and smiles to himself, pleased. Then, he has fun dancing with Giselle, tricking her with the altered flower, etc. Later, when he’s found out and his betrothed asks him why on earth he’s dressed as a peasant, he immediately laughs it off, and practically runs toward her, kissing her hand. It’s never clear what he hopes to accomplish by pretending to be a peasant and seducing the unknowing peasant girl; what his motivation is for doing any of it. But he didn’t seem particularly dumb or playboy-like either. It just seemed like a role that wasn’t thought-out.

I did like Nunez. I thought she was a tremendous dancer, and she acted very well too. Her mad scene was real, completely believable, not at all overdone, with depth, one of the best I’ve seen. Of course it helps that the camera’s so focused up close on her face! You can easily see the emotions. The only thing was that body-wise she didn’t seem like a Giselle to me. She didn’t seem weak and delicate and fragile. And that strength came through in her dancing too. Her performance reminded me a little of Paloma Herrera’s Giselle. I thought Herrera was terribly miscast. I thought Nunez was such a remarkable dancer though that I was able for the most part to suspend disbelief, more so than with Herrera.

I thought Gary Avis was a really hot, hunky Hilarion 🙂 He’s a very good actor too. I think he was actually the best actor in the whole production. I really believed his love for Giselle, his urgent need to keep Albrecht away from her, and his devastation over what ended up happening to her. And ditto for the Bolshoi’s Hilarion (or Hans as he’s called there), Vitaly Biktimirov – at least in the hot & hunky department. He was a good dancer, but less of a good actor than Avis. I was talking with a friend and fellow blogger, Art, during intermission, and he said he thought the British were simply just trained to be actors as well as dancers, probably because of their history. The Russians weren’t so trained. And I agree with him. The Russians seem to do everything in a very melodramatic, somewhat phony way. I mean, not Veronika Part, not the Russians who come here. But when you see a production by a Russian company it just seems like everything is very performance-y, not natural.

I really loved Choe in the Royal’s peasant pdd and found myself wondering what type of Giselle she’d make. She looked perfect for the part. I thought her dancing was lovely, but I’m not sure if, had she danced Giselle, it would have been at the level of Nunez’s. Has anyone seen more of Choe? She’s a beautiful dancer.

Interestingly, Helen Crawford, who danced Myrtha, was a tiny little thing. Very pretty, very fine features, very delicate-looking. She also had the appearance of a Giselle. She did a superb job though acting the controlling, sometimes damning Queen of the Wilis. It was just interesting casting, though, because all of our Myrthas are the larger, more physically-imposing ballerinas.

I hate to say it, but I really didn’t like the Bolshoi’s very much. But I LOVED their performance of The Class Concert, a one-act that preceded their Giselle. The Class Concert was created in 1960, by Asaf Messerer,  and it’s one of those storyless ballets that takes place in a classroom and that are meant to highlight the magnificence of ballet, from beginning at the barre, and ending with the grand jumps and high overhead lifts of center-work. Kind of like Harald Lander’s Etudes or Christopher Wheeldon’s Scenes de Ballet. Anyway, those dancers are incredible. I mean, I was almost on the floor I was so in awe. From the small children to the young adults doing all the lifts and crazy chaine turns and high jumps – every hip was completely perfectly turned-out, every tendu perfectly pointed, every single body’s form was absolute perfection. They weren’t always moving in unison, but just the perfection of each of them individually made me not care that they weren’t always in sync. It was amazingly beautiful, but in a way, it was also slightly creepy. I mean, to attain that kind of miraculous perfection, you realize these children must do nothing but eat, sleep and ballet every day from the time they’re 2 years old foreword. Talk about Tiger Mothers. It’s a whole Tiger State.

Anyway, their Giselle I felt was lacking. I loved their Albrecht – Dmitry Gudanov. He had everything Pennyfather lacked – at least in the acting. Gudanov had definitely thought through his motivations for the character. Gudanov’s Albrecht was in love with Giselle. His servant tried to tell him he was going to hurt her, but he just blew his servant off. He was reckless but his heart was with Giselle. Later, when the princess, his betrothed, sees him in the peasant costume, at first he doesn’t know what to do, how to act. Then he slowly, begrudgingly takes her hand. But it’s clear he’s not in love with her and he really wants Giselle. He remains torn between her and Giselle even after he realizes he must chose his betrothed – at least for the time being. And then he’s shocked when Giselle reacts so badly. And then he’s devastated along with Hilarion, even going after him with a sword, when she dies. I still wasn’t in love with his dancing, though. Actually, he did everything very very well. He was a very good dancer. What I wasn’t in love with was Grigorovich’s choreography for him. I didn’t feel that the dance to death scene was in any way a seriously dangerous dance. It looked rather lyrical. There were no brises or jumps with the entrechats; instead there was a series of tour jetes back and forth, and they weren’t done particularly fast. It looked like he was flying gracefully through the air not like he was exhausting himself to the verge of death. And when he’d “collapse” he’d go down so lightly, it was like he was going to sleep, like Sleeping Beauty. No crashing to the floor in sheer exasperation ala Marcelo Gomes at all.

But who I really didn’t like was Svetlana Lunkina as Giselle. I’ve heard so many good things about her and my hopes were so high, but now I can’t understand the big deal at all. She seemed really really wooden to me. She really didn’t act at all. Her face was devoid of emotion throughout. And, unlike Nunez or Osipova, or any other dancer I’ve ever seen in the role, her dancing was nothing to write home about at all. She was adequate but she looked like a corps dancer to me. What am I missing? Maybe she was really just having a bad night, because during the wilis scene when she had those several slow turns on one leg, her balance looked very off. I really thought she might actually lose her balance and fall. So maybe it was just the pressure of the cameras and knowing so many people were watching.

Again, I really liked the ballerina who danced the peasant pas de deux – here, Chinara Alizade – and wondered what she would have looked like as Giselle.

Oh, and speaking of the peasant dances: hehe, these were the absolute fanciest peasant costumes I’ve ever seen! Art joked that these were peasants flown in from Paris for the occasion!

I had a blast though. And the Sunday performances are so nice because there are so many more people. I met two new dance fans who regularly read my blog! I felt kind of half-dead today – probably because of a late night last night – but I’m always so flattered when people recognize me and come up and talk to me. I’m always so thrilled to find that people like this blog and find it valuable and my viewpoints interesting and all! So thank you!

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American Ballet Theater’s Original New Nutcracker

 

More photos coming soon. This one (of Gillian Murphy and Catherine Hurlin as the two versions of Clara) is taken from culture.wnyc.org.

Last night was the official opening of ABT’s much awaited new Ratmansky-choreographed Nutcracker at BAM. I loved almost every single second of it. I’ve only seen about six different versions of this ballet, but this one to me seems most original. It’s very entertaining, very humorous at points, and can somehow maintain the attentions of small children while being clever and witty – and beautiful – for adults. It’s very theatrical and it’s not as “dancy” as the one I just saw from the Bolshoi (Grigorovich’s version)- there’s more non-balletic jumping and playing around in Act I at the party, but there’s plenty of beautifully choreographed classical ballet during the grown Clara and Nutcracker Prince pas de deux and the ensemble snow scene and waltz of the flowers.

It opens with the cooks and maids in the kitchen preparing Christmas dinner. They’re going about their merry preparations when suddenly their space is invaded by mice. The mice completely take over, chase out the cooks, jump up on the tables and grab for the hanging meats. Adorable and hilarious. There’s one very cutely mischievous little mouse who appears throughout.

Then the party scene happens and Drosselmeyer (a non-dance role here) presents the children with two sets of life-sized dolls. The dancing was very good, but there were no sharp, stunted staccato movements as in the Bolshoi’s, so the dancers didn’t look like real dolls to me. I loved the costumes for Harlequin and Columbine though. They looked the most commedia dell’arte that I’ve seen. All costumes were brilliant – one of the most excellent things about ABT’s production. They, and the equally brilliant sets, were made by Richard Hudson, of Lion King fame.

When the dolls are ordered to return to their boxes, the children do a group dance that looks more like fitful stomping than anything balletic. But it’s still musical and evocative and cute, and it got a lot of laughs. The nutcracker that Drosselmeyer then gives Clara (danced brilliantly by Catherine Hurlin) is half-doll, half-human. He’s danced by a boy (Tyler Maloney) but he has a full nutcracker head, so he can’t do as much as the Bolshoi’s human nutcracker doll – his movements are much more limited. Once Clara’s dream begins, the boy removes his doll head before escorting her off to the Kingdom of the Sweets. I have to say, I really liked the boy who danced Clara’s bratty brother, Fritz – Kai Monroe. He was very entertaining, did a good job with both the acting and the dancing (high jumps!), and I think he will be one to watch for.

The Battle scene between the mice and the nutcracker and his soldiers was good, and, again, the costume for the mouse king (Thomas Forster) was fantabulous. I couldn’t even count the heads he had there were so many. I think of all battle scenes, I like Balanchine’s the best. I love how a mouse will scurry ominously across the floor right in time with a flute chord. Then the mice begin to gather and organize right in time with the flute ensemble so that it seems like the mice are talking. And Balanchine’s battle scene seems the most theatrical. Balanchine’s growing tree is also magnificent. Here, the tree only grows a bit, but soon they multiply and trees begin to eat up the wings, which was also spectacular.

The snow scene was really beautiful and this is where we first meet the grown-up Clara and her nutcracker prince (last night they were Gillian Murphy and David Hallberg, but there are many casts – see James Wolcott’s review of a preview starring Veronika Part and Marcelo Gomes here). Their first pas de deux is a beautiful waltz, and it’s made very clear that this is Clara’s grown-up vision of herself and her prince. The child Clara and Nutcracker boy waltz alongside Gillian and David until the classical ballet steps takes over, and the children stop dancing and gaze longingly at their grown-up selves as they finish the pas de deux. There’s a really beautiful Viennese waltz-type of lift where he spins around with her perched on his shoulders.

The Kingdom of the Sweets is really different from other versions. The “Sugar Plum Fairy” or “Nanny” as she is alternately called here, is not a dance role, but more of an escort through this kind of tour of It’s a Small World. She dons an absolutely gorgeous ancient Indian costume, as does her male companion. The dancer representatives from various countries are not dolls; they are real, but most of the dances are very different. The Arabians, for example, are danced by one man (last night, Sascha Radetsky) and four women, and the women are all cutely chasing the one very wickedly flirtatious man. It reminded me a bit of Kevin McKenzie’s von Rothbart deviously flirting with all the court women at the beginning of the Black Swan pas de deux. At the end of this dance, though, the tables are turned and the women come into their own and no longer need him. Now of course, he’s not very happy about that. It’s great fun and I loved this dance the best.

The Russians (Mikhail Ilyin, Craig Salstein and Arron Scott) were more folksy than bravura ballet, which was fine, because they later did a circle of barrel turns as their part of the final ensemble dance.

And we see Mother Ginger again (or who, as a child, I called The Fat Lady with the big skirt). I haven’t seen her since Balanchine! And there’s an added element of hilarity here involving the mischievous little mouse from the kitchen!

The only dance I didn’t really care for was the Chinese. As I’d expected, these roles were danced by Daniil Simkin and Sarah Lane. But Ratmansky didn’t really use them for what they are known for and the dance is very tame compared to this dance in the other Nut versions. I really wanted to see Daniil go flying around the stage in those crazy million times-overrotated turning leaps that he’s known for. There weren’t even any high jumps. It’s just that I look to the Russian and Chinese dances for the bravura parts and it’s okay if they’re lacking in one dance, but not both! The Chinese weren’t as goofily portrayed though as in other versions, so I appreciated that.

And I loved the waltz of the flowers. Included here are some very charming bees, but they’re not used in a slapstick way at all, which I thought they would be when I initially saw them. They dance is very classical and there’s a beautiful part where the four male bees toss the red and pink-clad ballerinas into each others’ arms in a circular rotation. That received a lot of audience applause.

And then is the ending pas de deux again between Gillian and David. I’d written before, when I saw an excerpt at the Guggenheim, that it looked more modern lyrical than classical, but last night it looked very classical to me. Ratmansky used my favorite lift from the Grigorovich Bolshoi version where the prince lifts and holds Clara up by one lower leg and carries her all around stage like that. The solo variations were nice. David didn’t seem to have the height he normally does on his jetes (I was told later at dinner though, by a dancer – not from ABT – that that choreography was crazy hard) but he made up for it in a series of spins. I know in ballet they’re called turns, but he was going so fast they looked more like ice-skating spins to me!

The only thing I found bothersome was the acoustics in the BAM opera house. Maybe I’ve just never heard live music played there but it just seemed like the orchestra was playing so softly. The sounds of the toe shoe-clad feet and the sounds of children coughing dominated.

Oh, one final thing: when David Koch, who financed a good part of the production, gave his opening speech, he accidentally called Kevin McKenzie “Peter.” Got a lot of ooooohs from the audience. I couldn’t hear through the ooooohs what he said after that – I assume it was an apology – but whatever it was it elicited even more ooooooohs. Funny.

Overall it’s a brilliant new ballet, a very original new production. Definitely get out to BAM if you can! Go here for the rest of the schedule.