Giselle, Australian Ballet, Sydney 2019

[jmb]

You may remember that Graeme Murphy, TAB's famous choreographer, pulled out of presenting his latest work, The Little Prince only a couple of months before it was due to premiere. Ill health. Anyway, TAB replaced it, in Sydney, with Giselle, which was presented in Melbourne last year ( I saw it with David Hallberg as Albrecht. Unforgettable.) This presentation was good but not great. Ako Kondo was a feather-light Giselle, dazzled by the wonderful, good-looking, apparently considerate creature who was interested in her. You saw her move from dutiful daughter, remembering her mother's (undoubted) warnings, to confident and care-free woman, secure in her love. You saw her reluctance to hurt Hilarion (Andrew Killian) but her determination to respect her own feelings. Chengwu Guo, as Albrecht, was less impressive. He is a great dancer, capable of exploding into action, apparently from stillnes. However, his Albrecht showed no development. You did not see him gradually fall in love with Giselle. In fact his somewhat disengaged demenour at the beginning of Act 1 was largely unchanged at the end of the act. Act 2 was better, but I got little sense of the desperation which needs to underpin Albrecht's dancing. 

The dancing of the corps de ballet was wonderful, rivetting. In Act 1 they created a sunny, untroubled vision of village life against which the tragedy unfolded. In Act 2 they were steely and flint-hearted: exacting terrible revenge for their own suffering. Overall, a good evening, so I will avoid unnecessary comparisons with last year in Melbourne.😊

Edited May 5, 2019 by jmb
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[Sophoife]

Thanks @jmb, I never find Kondo/Guo very much of a partnership, despite their real-life marriage...of course Giselle is the role that saw Kondo named principal back in 2015.