Mary Skeaping and Giselle

[Irmgard]

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

I think it was pre-Soviet times!  Mary based Giselle's mad scene on that danced by Pavlova (taught by Petipa in 1903) and Spessivtseva whose Giselles both died of a broken heart.  In my study on the ballet (which I will hopefully publish this year), I quote Markova who was taught the role by Sergueyev and, of course, saw both Pavlova and Spessivtseva in performance:

" Giselle did not die, as one sometimes sees today, by stabbing herself...Giselle dies - so Sergueyev told me - from complete emotional and physical shock; in other words from a broken heart" ("Markova Remembers" 1986).

"...she seized her lover's sword and tried to stab herself.  The weapon was snatched from her before she had made more than a slight wound, so shock and anguish were really the decisive factors in her death". ("Giselle and I" 1960).

 

So it seems Mary was continuing a very long tradition that may or may not have started in Russia, as it was Fanny Elssler's mad scene (first seen in Russia in 1848 and thought to be more dramatic than Grisi's) that provided the 'template' for this scene in all subsequent revivals by Petipa, eventually being notated by Sergueyev.

[alison]

" Giselle did not die, as one sometimes sees today, by stabbing herself...Giselle dies - so Sergueyev told me - from complete emotional and physical shock; in other words from a broken heart" ("Markova Remembers" 1986).

The possibility of which has sadly been discussed only recently in relation to Debbie Reynolds' death.

[James]

 

"...she seized her lover's sword and tried to stab herself.  The weapon was snatched from her before she had made more than a slight wound, so shock and anguish were really the decisive factors in her death". ("Giselle and I" 1960).

 

This happens, exactly as Markova describes it, in the film of Giselle made in 1951 which ENB have put up on their YouTube channel.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HnNXvF0Kn0

 

The relevant action begins round about 14.40.

 

I think we tend to forget how suicide was viewed until comparatively recently.  It was only decriminalised in England in 1961, and people who had survived suicide attempts were regularly prosecuted. Some were even sent to prison (as recently as the 1950s).

 

Anyone attempting suicide was just as a culpable as someone who succeeded, and I am sure the law followed religious teaching here.  Giselle's attempt at stabbing herself with the sword would, in itself, have constituted a mortal sin, and, in the absence of confession and penance, would presumably have condemned her in the eyes of the church.  For that reason, there is justification for her not to have been buried in consecrated ground, even if the primary cause of death was her weak heart.

 

James