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Flowers in Giselle


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1 hour ago, Pas de Quatre said:

Joe - I much prefer the traditional Peasant Pas de Deux too, and rather dislike it being rearranged as a Pas de Six.    

 

Me too, I loathe it, the pas de deux is somehow more in keeping with the celebrations, two dancers stepping forward to entertain their pals but six dancers turn it into a set piece that breaks up the action.   And don't get me started on Albrecht's wretched entrechat six, I detest them.

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1 hour ago, alison said:

I don't.  In "traditional" productions, I find that having a secondary principal couple detracts too much from Giselle and Albrecht.

 

My reasoning, I suppose, being that G and A don't actually have a "proper" pas de deux in Act I, so giving some unnamed characters one seems to elevate them above the main couple.

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https://petipasociety.com/giselle/

 

I have just found this on the Petipa Society website which is fascinating.  If we are not allowed to quote something this long, moderators please delete the text.   You can follow the link above and scroll down until you find the heading for Peasant Pas de Deux.

 

 

Peasant Pas de deux

The Peasant Pas de deux is another of the most famous passages in Giselle and has an interesting history. After the 1841 Paris première, one of the Paris Opèra ballerinas, Nathalie Fitz-James was determined to have her own pas in Giselle. Like many of her colleagues, Fitz-James was a mistress of one of the Opèra’s most influential patrons and used her relationship with him to influence the arrangement of a new pas to be added for her. However, Adolphe Adam was unavailable at the time to write new music, so Jean Coralli had to look elsewhere. In the end, he arranged a new pas de deux for Fitz-James to music by the German composer, Friedrich Burgmüller from his suite Souvenirs de Ratisbonne. This new pas was christened as the Pas des paysans (aka Peasant Pas de deux); it was first performed by Fitz-James and the danseur, Auguste Mabille and has remained in Giselle ever since.

In Petipa’s time, the Peasant Pas de deux was performed by the likes of Tamara Karsavina, Mikhail Fokine and Vaslav Nijinsky. The Sergeyev Collection includes notation scores for the pas de deux when it was performed by Agrippina Vaganova and Anatoli Obukhov.

 

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The Petipa Society has got it slightly wrong.  It was Nathalie's sister, Louise, who was the mistress of a wealthy patron of the Opera, a banker named Agaudo.  He persuaded the powers that be to include a pas de deux for Nathalie in the ballet in an attempt to upstage Grisi.  It was actually in the premiere, not after it.  Gautier and Adam were furious about it.  When Burgmuller's publisher  reissued a waltz used in the pas de deux, announcing it as the waltz from "Giselle", he was promptly sued by Adam's publisher!

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11 hours ago, Irmgard said:

The Petipa Society has got it slightly wrong.  It was Nathalie's sister, Louise, who was the mistress of a wealthy patron of the Opera, a banker named Agaudo.  He persuaded the powers that be to include a pas de deux for Nathalie in the ballet in an attempt to upstage Grisi.  It was actually in the premiere, not after it.  Gautier and Adam were furious about it.  When Burgmuller's publisher  reissued a waltz used in the pas de deux, announcing it as the waltz from "Giselle", he was promptly sued by Adam's publisher!

 

That is really interesting, the usual programme layout in Paris in the 19th century only lists the full name of the ballerina and the other female dancers are only identified by their surnames,  As Nathalie was more well known than Louise I imagine the Petipa Society made the wrong assumption.   However Beaumont in his Complete Book of Ballets doesn't have the peasants as being on the original cast sheet at all.

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25 minutes ago, joe blitz said:

Have you noticed how in our life-time Hilarion has turned from red-bearded villain to a sympathetic character. 

He's become the unwitting catalyst of this tragedy.  

I read that at one time a red beard signified villainy.

 

He's not a sympathetic character in any production I know.

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When I was young, I did used to sympathise with Hilarion. I thought that he was the one who really loved Giselle, and that it was only right and in Giselle's best interest that he should expose Albrecht's duplicity, and that the subsequent tragedy was not his fault but Albrecht's. It's only as I've got older that I've realised that Hilarion's behaviour is not necessarily entirely nobly motivated. On the other hand, Giselle had to find out some time! And would she have reacted any less violently if the exposure had happened in some other way?

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I think the idea of making Hilarion sympathetic originated in the Soviet Union, after all Albrecht is a member of the aristocracy and Hilarion a member of the proletariat, therefore there is no way he can be portrayed as a villain.  This idea was taken to ridiculous lengths when in the 80's the Bolshoi cast Gediminas Taranda  in the role.  Anyone seeing the ballet for the first time would be puzzled as to why Giselle was rejecting ballet's most gorgeous man.

 

Here in Britain it was more the norm to have an older man cast as Hilarion or someone clearly uncouth, never saw a red beard in the old days.

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4 hours ago, bangorballetboy said:

 

he tries to force himself on Giselle when she’s not interested and physically assaults her - this is very clear in Peter Wright’s production.

 

That's a very 21st-century, or even 2018, take on it, though, isn't it?

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13 hours ago, bangorballetboy said:

 

he tries to force himself on Giselle when she’s not interested and physically assaults her - this is very clear in Peter Wright’s production.

 

I'd always read it that Hilarion and Giselle had, perhaps, been stepping out before she fell hook, line and sinker for Albrecht and that then he grabs her to say what about me and what WE had.  I've always felt sorry for Hilarion.

 

Isn't it fabulous that we can all see the same thing different ways!

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  • 1 year later...
On 24/02/2018 at 18:16, Pas de Quatre said:

 

 

Peasant Pas de deux

The Peasant Pas de deux is another of the most famous passages in Giselle and has an interesting history. After the 1841 Paris première, one of the Paris Opèra ballerinas, Nathalie Fitz-James was determined to have her own pas in Giselle. Like many of her colleagues, Fitz-James was a mistress of one of the Opèra’s most influential patrons and used her relationship with him to influence the arrangement of a new pas to be added for her. However, Adolphe Adam was unavailable at the time to write new music, so Jean Coralli had to look elsewhere. In the end, he arranged a new pas de deux for Fitz-James to music by the German composer, Friedrich Burgmüller from his suite Souvenirs de Ratisbonne. This new pas was christened as the Pas des paysans (aka Peasant Pas de deux); it was first performed by Fitz-James and the danseur, Auguste Mabille and has remained in Giselle ever since.

In Petipa’s time, the Peasant Pas de deux was performed by the likes of Tamara Karsavina, Mikhail Fokine and Vaslav Nijinsky. The Sergeyev Collection includes notation scores for the pas de deux when it was performed by Agrippina Vaganova and Anatoli Obukhov.

 

 

The Petipa Society is wrong (-ish) to say that Nijinsky danced the peasant pas de deux. The pas de deux he danced in the 1907 Giselle was created for himself and Karsavina by Nikolai Legat, specifically to showcase their talents together. So successful were they together, that an outraged Anna Pavlova famously stormed out of the wings to berate Karsavina.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 22/02/2018 at 16:23, Lynette H said:

....And following up on the theme emerging here of fascinating inconsistencies in Giselle, how many Albrechts actually get to notice that Giselle is wearing his fiancee's necklace - which is potentially such a powerful moment ? 

 

 

 

Before seeing this picture of Dowell I had never given it a thought…

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