Mary Skeaping and Giselle

[Irmgard]

As there was some interest in the article I wrote about the creative process of Mary Skeaping's "Giselle", here it is in its entirety.  I hope people will find it interesting and that it will add to your enjoyment of English National Ballet's performances.

 

Mary Skeaping and Giselle

By Irmgard E. Berry (adviser to the Skeaping Estate)

I was privileged to be Mary Skeaping’s assistant for the last five years of her life and honoured when, a few months before her death, she entrusted to me not only her extensive research material but also the guardianship of her choreographic copyright and the artistic integrity of her productions. During our many hours of working together, our conversation had often turned to the creation of her production of Giselle in particular and she was especially keen to teach me all the mime scenes she had restored to the ballet.

Skeaping’s life-long love of Giselle began 1925 when she joined Anna Pavlova’s company as extra corps de ballet for a four-week season at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. To Skeaping, Pavlova remained incomparable as Giselle, although she greatly admired the interpretations of Olga Spessivtseva and Alicia Markova and, in her own productions, Alicia Alonso, Raissa Struchkova, Violetta Elvin, Galina Samtsova and Eva Evdokimova. To be in Act I of Giselle with Pavlova was a harrowing experience for the other dancers as, each time she performed the Mad Scene, it was so real that she reduced them to tears.  The second act was easier to bear as the dancers were able to concentrate on portraying particularly evil Wilis.

When, as Artistic Director of the Royal Swedish Ballet, Skeaping finally had the opportunity to create her own production of Giselle in 1953, staging it a few months later for Ballet Alicia Alonso (the forerunner of the National Ballet of Cuba), she approached it from a musical point of view. (Skeaping was a trained musician, having studied at London’s Royal College of Music in 1924).  Having danced in both Pavlova’s production and Sergueyev’s 1932 production for the Camargo Society, and having rehearsed the Sadler’s Wells version originally staged by Sergueyev, Skeaping was always troubled by the brutal cuts and rearrangements in the order of the pieces which she felt would never have been sanctioned by Adolphe Adam, nor was the banal orchestration the work of this master of melodious and harmonious music. The ballet and its music had proved so popular in 1841 that the Paris Opéra had taken the unprecedented step of publishing a piano reduction of Giselle. (Hitherto, complete ballet scores had not been considered of sufficient interest to warrant the expense of publishing them.)  However, this proved to be a double-edged sword because, although ballet companies wishing to perform Giselle could thus use the original music, rather than composing a new score, the orchestration was generally left to ‘house’ composers far less accomplished than Adam, often resulting in the loss of its dramatic quality. In the 1950s most companies used the Büsser edition of the piano reduction which had been prepared from Olga Spessivtseva’s 1924 performances at the Paris Opéra. Skeaping investigated the archives of the Royal Opera, Stockholm, and found that, although there was no complete orchestral score of the 1841 production, which was first performed in Stockholm in 1845, there was a copy of the 1841 piano reduction.  Notwithstanding the lack of orchestral colour, the score proved invaluable in revealing the correct order of the pieces and for the dramatic instructions it contained although, of course, there was no indication of the actual steps danced. The archives also housed some orchestral parts of the scenes she wished to restore and on this Skeaping built her production until she was able to obtain a microfilm of the original orchestral score from the Paris Opéra. This was the score which would have been transcribed from Adam’s handwritten score (also housed in the Opéra’s archives) by one of the Opéra’s copyists for use by the conductor in 1841.  Skeaping also collected as much information as possible on the original production, with Gautier’s writings, critiques, lithographs and newspaper cartoons all providing her with inspiration.

In her research, Skeaping received tremendous help and support from Tamara Karsavina, who had danced Giselle in Russia a few years after Pavlova’s debut in the role and in the version staged by Michel Fokine for the Ballets Russes.  Karsavina, one of the finest exponents of balletic mime, which she had been teaching in London since the 1930s, taught Skeaping the complete mime sequences which had been drastically cut or omitted altogether in many productions during the 20^th century.  She also discussed the restorations Fokine had made to the ballet at the request of Serge Diaghilev.  To Skeaping’s delight, these included a number of the elements that she herself wished to restore, particularly the Fugue for the Wilis in Act II which had been cut from Russian productions at some point in the late 19^th century.

Skeaping was keen to introduce the villagers at the very beginning of Act I, as indicated in the 1841 piano score. In 1968, when Mary was staging the work for the Frankfurt Ballet, her designer Hein Heckroth (designer of Kurt Jooss’s groundbreaking The Green Table) told her of the autumnal custom still followed in some German villages of tasting the new wine at a different cottage each day. The selected cottage is indicated by a wreath-encircled wine-jug hung outside. For Mary, this seemed to answer a question that had long bothered her: Why does the royal party stop at Giselle’s cottage in particular?  She therefore incorporated this little ceremony into her subsequent productions. This also gives the opening scene a focal point as the young villagers, on their way to the vineyard, acknowledge the wreath and the prospect of the celebrations later that day with the wine tasting and the crowning of Giselle as queen of the vintage. Restoring this scene musically also restores Hilarion’s first entrance and we learn of his love for Giselle and the friendly relationship which exists between him and the vine-gatherers.

In the ballet’s original scenario, the first scene between Giselle and Albrecht contained a mime scene in which Giselle tells him of a troubling dream in which a beautiful lady comes between them, dreams being a popular method of foreshadowing in Romantic plots. Although not including the entire mime scene, Skeaping uses the idea as a motivation for Giselle being unsure whether or not to stay with Albrecht and doubting his love (“You love me not”), leading very nicely to the famous daisy scene.

The two major restorations in Act I which Skeaping undertook in 1953 were Berthe’s (Giselle’s mother) mime scene and the suite of dances known as the Pas des Vendanges, both in their original positions.  Romantic ballet was a blend of realism and the supernatural and, in the mother’s mime scene, we have the first indication of the supernatural, foreshadowing not only the music but also the action in Act II.  Berthe, worried by Giselle’s passion for dancing and her infatuation with the young stranger (the Duke of Silesia in disguise), relates the legend of the Wilis, spirits of young girls who were inordinately fond of dancing and died as a result of being betrayed by faithless lovers.  In death, they become female vampires, haunting the woods to avenge themselves on any male who crosses their path by forcing him to dance until he dies of exhaustion. Skeaping learned the mime sequence in full from Karsavina but simplified it very slightly for present day audiences.

Skeaping restored in full Giselle’s meeting with Bathilde as performed by Pavlova and exactly as described in an article for The Dancing Times by Karsavina.  According to Karsavina, the dialogue in which the two girls discover they are both engaged and Bathilde makes a gift to Giselle of a necklace, was to give a human touch to the otherwise purely functional part of Bathilde. It was at this point that Skeaping found the perfect place for the Peasant Pas de Deux. Although this was not in the original scenario, being a politically motivated interpolation to give the established étoile, Nathalie Fitzjames, the opportunity to upstage the newcomer, Carlotta Grisi, just before her mad scene and had obviously not pleased Adam or Gautier, it had become an accepted part of the ballet. To Skeaping, it made dramatic sense to move it to a less intrusive position as the perfect entertainment for the royal party. The original suite, put together from music by Burgmüller, contained six pieces. Skeaping decided to use only the entrée and adage, boy’s variation with restoration of the rarely used coda, girl’s variation and coda. It was orchestrated for Skeaping by Peter March of the Tchaikovsky Foundation in New York. In Skeaping’s production, this is followed by Giselle’s solo to music by Minkus, probably choreographed in the 1880s and first danced in London in 1932 by Olga Spessivtseva.  At first, Skeaping omitted this Russian interpolation in her productions but, after much persuading by Galina Samtsova, Giselle in the première of the 1971 production by London Festival Ballet, Skeaping found a dramatic reason for its inclusion: it is Giselle’s way of thanking Bathilde for her gift of the necklace.  There was also the practical reason that guest artists would have a solo familiar to them.

The Pas des Vendanges is a suite of dances which Giselle and Albrecht perform to celebrate the height of the wine festival, following Giselle’s coronation as queen of the vintage.  No record of the original choreography exists, although there are some indications in Serge Lifar’s book on Giselle. Giselle’s solo is described as a vivacious tricotage to a flute melody.  Albrecht should dance the “acrobatic arsenal of the danse d’école”.  In the finale of the pas de deux, Albrecht and Giselle “give an image of fidelity with kisses in arabesque”. Skeaping drew on steps from earlier in Act I, her own knowledge of Romantic technique and a lithograph from the original production to create a charming set of dances to this suite.

In Skeaping’s production, Giselle’s mad scene is based on the performances of Pavlova and Spessivtseva.  For many years, there has been a controversy as to whether Giselle dies of a broken heart or stabs herself with Albrecht’s sword at the climax of the mad scene.  Skeaping found Gautier’s writings ambiguous so she followed Pavlova’s example:  the sword is snatched from Giselle before she can stab herself.  Her weak heart, already revealed to the audience in a telling moment which Skeaping restored earlier in Act I, cannot stand the shock of Albrecht’s duplicity and so she dies.

The essence of Act II is the conflict between the supernatural and the religious elements.  The dominant figure of the supernatural world is Myrthe, whose passion for dancing is so great that she is queen of the Wilis.  Skeaping restored her solo music in its entirety to establish this extraordinary passion, creating the most virtuosic choreography in the ballet for what she considered to be a ballerina role with the instructions to dance “furiously and with great delight”.  After summoning the other Wilis to initiate Giselle, Myrthe becomes cold and calculating as she instructs them to attack the gamekeepers who have wandered into her realm.  Skeaping considered this scene crucial in establishing the Wilis as the cruel, vengeful creatures described by Heinrich Heine, luring any man to his fate.  She found that, too often in 20^th century stagings, the character of the Wilis is diluted so that they appear to be no more than sylphs, largely due to later orchestrations which remove the evil quality of the music but it should be remembered that, in the original score, Adam described the dances of the Wilis as an “infernal Bacchanale”.

The Fugue for the Wilis (allegro feroce) has perhaps been regarded as Skeaping’s most controversial restoration but she regarded it as central to the conflict between the supernatural and the religious. Giselle has led Albrecht to the safety of the cross marking her grave. The myrtle branch, symbol of Myrthe’s strength, is shattered by the superior power of the cross as she tries to force him away from it.  This marks a turning point in the action as, from this moment on, her power is continually challenged.  During the Fugue, she sends wave after wave of Wilis to force Albrecht away from the protection of the cross but each time they are repelled by its power (a stage direction from the original score).  On the final bars, Myrthe orders Giselle away from the cross, realising that Albrecht will not be able to resist the seductive power of Giselle’s dance. In Skeaping’s production, Giselle subtly gestures to Albrecht to remain by the cross but, as she is carried away by the dance, so he is enraptured by her beauty and cannot resist leaving his sanctuary. However, Giselle continues to thwart Myrthe’s destructive intentions until the dawn when the Wilis must return to their graves.  In a beautiful mime sequence restored by Skeaping, Giselle tells Albrecht “the sun has risen, you are saved”.

Skeaping’s production of Giselle has been acclaimed as powerful evocation of the Romantic era.  However, in her view, the present day idea of Romanticism is very much distilled and therefore she decided to omit the final tableau vivant in which Bathilde and Albrecht are reconciled at Giselle’s grave.  Instead, it is only Albrecht who receives Giselle’s blessing as her spirit sinks back into its grave, saved from her fate of remaining a Wili by her undying love.

 

© Irmgard E. Berry   London 2016

[Two Pigeons]

Thank you so much for posting this.  I have always loved this production and I think it retains something of the essence of Giselle that others may have lost.

 

Some of my happiest memories of the ballet (in any production) are of seeing Eva Evdokimova and Peter Schaufuss who completely understood what the work requires.  ENB are very fortunate to have been given and retained this production and it is terrific that we can still see it.

[Coated]

Wonderful article, thank you very much for posting it. I will undoubtedly pay a lot more attention to the fugue and some of the details described in today's performances

[bridiem]

Thank you so much, Irmgard, that's absolutely fascinating. It helps to clarify why the production is so powerful, especially in Act II. I can't wait to see it again! (Next Tuesday, I'm glad to say.)

[Timmie]

Thanks Irmgard, I haven't read it yet as I'm just getting ready to head off to see both of today's Giselles - I'll read on the train .

[Sim]

Thanks so much for this fascinating article, Irmgard. I will certainly be seeing this ballet in a new light next Tuesday and Thursday!

[Kat09]

Thank you - very insightful - I have forwarded to my DD

[Quintus]

This is so very interesting, thank you for sharing.  I was particularly pleased to read regarding Myrthe "Skeaping restored her solo music in its entirety to establish this extraordinary passion, creating the most virtuosic choreography in the ballet for what she considered to be a ballerina role with the instructions to dance “furiously and with great delight”   After the first night, where Lauretta delivered a blazing Myrthe, there were a few whinges on Twitter to the effect that her vitality was to the detriment of the usual ethereality.  The phrase I've bolded however shows that she was true to Skeaping's intention, and I for one found it very effective. 

 

​Having read your article I'm feeling the itch to take my enhanced understanding to another performance....

[Jan McNulty]

Thank you Irmgard.  This is such a fascinating read.

[Pas de Quatre]

Thank you Irmgard, such an interesting and informative article!

[Fiz]

That was completely fascinating. Thank you for posting it, Irmgard.

[J_New]

Thank you - I shall notice so much more when I go again next Friday. I loved it anyway, but will now appreciate it even more!

[CHazell2]

Thank you so much for this article Irmagard. Very informative. I wish the ENB would film it as it is a very good production.

[FLOSS]

Thank you so much Irmgard for the article about the thinking behind the Skeaping production which not only explains the link between her work on Giselle and the National Ballet of Cuba's staging of the ballet but also explains why, although derived from the same source, Berthe's mime sequence about the Willis in this production differs from that performed by the RB.

 

After seeing the Skeaping production again. I am not sure that Sir Peter's version which attempts to give the ballet more dramatic coherence really achieves what he set out to do.While I think that Giselle's suicide rather than death from a broken heart makes more sense as it explains why Giselle is buried in the woods rather than in consecrated ground, I think that, apart from that the ENB production has greater over all dramatic strength and depth. By giving the three main characters more dancing to do the production enhances their stature and significance.This is particularly helpful for the dancer portraying Myrthe as the extra dancing gives her a real opportunity to establish her authority and power through her choreography which reveals not only her strength but her implacability.This in turn adds to the audience's appreciation of the true nature of the struggle between Giselle and Myrthe for Albrecht.It seems to me, that this production stops Giselle being a work which is being performed because of its historic importance as a relic of the Romantic era and its performance history to which each generation of dancers wants to add and restores it to being a piece of living theatre. A ballet which fully deserves its continued place in the repertory as dance drama in its own right rather than simply as a "classic".

 

Just as an after thought it would be fascinating to know just when the performing tradition abandoned the original death by suicide in favour of death from a broken heart/heart condition. I suspect the change took place in Russia simply because the ballet continued to be danced there long after it was abandoned elsewhere. But by whom and for whom? I don't think that it can have been a general proscription on depicting suicide on stage as Fenella still continued to throw herself into the crater of a volcano in the opera La Muette de Portici and in the spoken theatre Katya Kobanova committed suicide in Ostrovsky's "The Storm".

 

 

"

Edited January 14, 2017 by FLOSS

[Pas de Quatre]

Could it be political considerations in Soviet times?  Perhaps is was incorrect to show a peasanrt, i.e. worker, committing suicide.

[Jamesrhblack]

Thank you so much for posting. It has been over thirty years since I last saw this beautiful production (at the Coliseum with Patricia Ruane and Jay Jolley) and I am looking forward very much to seeing it again next week.

 

It is so good to read an article that concentrates on the nature of the work and its presentation quite as much as who danced what and how. Of course, that is important, but it is also salutary to be reminded of the values that have a kept a work and its production in the repertorie.

[LinMM]

Wow many thanks Irmgard that was a really interesting read and must have taken you ages.

 

I must have seen this production before unless in Evdokimova's time there was also another production danced by the then Festival Ballet. However it is now so long ago that I have got used to RB's production so will be even more interested to see this next Tuesday

 

It's interesting this more "evil" aspect of the Wilis that Skeaping wanted to keep ....as I felt in the recent Akram Khan's production he had made them much more dis likeable and more vampire like.....perhaps he read up on Skeapings thoughts about this!

[Scheherezade]

I am so glad that you decided to post your article, Irmgard. The background information, fascinating in its own right, will greatly enhance my understanding and enjoyment of future performances.

[alison]

 

I must have seen this production before unless in Evdokimova's time there was also another production danced by the then Festival Ballet.

 

I think there was: I remember performances in about 1991, with Yelena Pankova (who to my surprise, proved to be a very fine Giselle, despite having seemingly been typecast as a soubrette by the Kirov) guesting, and I don't think that was the Skeaping production, or if it was then I certainly wasn't aware of it.

[Irmgard]

I think there was: I remember performances in about 1991, with Yelena Pankova (who to my surprise, proved to be a very fine Giselle, despite having seemingly been typecast as a soubrette by the Kirov) guesting, and I don't think that was the Skeaping production, or if it was then I certainly wasn't aware of it.

Yes, it was the Skeaping production, which was performed from 1971 to 1991.  Evdokimova was one of the very finest exponents of it and was one of the original casts in 1971.  I know I saw two casts in 1991, one being Renata Calderini who was exquisite, and the performances were at Royal Festival Hall.

[alison]

Oh, perhaps I didn't recognise it because the scenery had been adapted to the RFH stage, or something?  Mind you, it would have been my first time of viewing.

[Jan McNulty]

Oh I remember the RFH season.  I think I saw a Russian star in whom i was disappointed but I definitely remember seeing Daniela Angelini who was ex-Northern Ballet.  

[MAB]

I think there was: I remember performances in about 1991, with Yelena Pankova (who to my surprise, proved to be a very fine Giselle, despite having seemingly been typecast as a soubrette by the Kirov) guesting, and I don't think that was the Skeaping production, or if it was then I certainly wasn't aware of it.

 

Pankova had remarkable ballon making her perfect for the role, especially when  in the second act, hadn't she danced it previously in London with the Kirov?  With Andris Liepa I think.

[Tony Newcombe]

I think you are right MAB. It was at the Coli. She and Ayupova were the two dancers I remember in the roles

[LinMM]

I saw Evdokimova around 74 75 I think and it was at the Coliseum definitely ....so probably was this Skeaping production

She had a very ethereal quality so was a lovely Giselle in my view though still have a soft spot for Makarova who had a brilliant mad scene .....this may well have been mid 70's too so Makarova would have been with the RB? Or maybe she was visiting with the then Kirov...am not sure now.

[ambros1a]

Thank you so much for this article Irmagard. Very informative. I wish the ENB would film it as it is a very good production.

There were cameras at the performance last night.

[Irmgard]

I saw Evdokimova around 74 75 I think and it was at the Coliseum definitely ....so probably was this Skeaping production

She had a very ethereal quality so was a lovely Giselle in my view though still have a soft spot for Makarova who had a brilliant mad scene .....this may well have been mid 70's too so Makarova would have been with the RB? Or maybe she was visiting with the then Kirov...am not sure now.

As far as I am aware, Evdokimova only danced in the Skeaping production in the UK.  In fact, she and her husband asked me if they could make a film of it a few years after Mary's death but sadly this never happened.  That would certainly have been a wonderful tribute to the Skeaping production! Makarova also danced in the Skeaping production (I have the programme somewhere) as well as in the RB version. 

[CHazell2]

There were cameras at the performance last night.

 

That sounds great - but I wonder whether they are filming for their archives or for commercial purposes. I would so love to have a DVD of this production. I don't really fancy the Khan production

[Blossom]

Fascinating, thank you. I love the idea that this is a truly historical version of the ballet, history being another love of mine, pieced together by Skeaping. 

[alison]

I was going to point out the inconsistency of casting of the Cojocaru cast as probably mitigating against there being a commercial DVD, but realised that Michaela dePrince is doing all the Myrthas apart from the first night.  OTOH, if you were filming your company, wouldn't you want one of your own principals to be immortalised as Myrtha rather than a guest?  Unless there was the thought that dePrince might be more commercially advantageous.

[alison]

On the other hand, back in the days when London Festival Ballet recorded the Makarova Swan Lake they didn't go for the first in-house cast, but for Peter Schaufuss (understandably, as the bigger name) and a guest Odette-Odile ...

[Jan McNulty]

On the other hand, back in the days when London Festival Ballet recorded the Makarova Swan Lake they didn't go for the first in-house cast, but for Peter Schaufuss (understandably, as the bigger name) and a guest Odette-Odile ...

Evelyn Hart

[alison]

I know