Royal Ballet's Giselle - Autumn 2021

[Bruce Wall]

2 hours ago, oncnp said:

 

 

Curious...does anyone know what the choreography actually calls for?

 

Not certain - but wasn't it Percival who said the entrechats sixes started with Nureyev?  He (and here I mean Nureyev) always did say that you could tell a male dancer from his entrechats.  (I always thought this might have been because his were particularly notable.)  Certainly with Baryishnikov it was always those electrifying brises.   If you blinked at those ABT Giselles you'd have missed them - given that they always shot out from the wings like a rapid fire machine gun.  Rat-a-tat-tat they went.  You could always audibly hear the intake of breath from the collective audience.  Sometimes this was quickly followed by collective amazed laughter.  'Did I actually just SEE THAT?' they appeared to be saying.  

 

I was lucky enough to see Muntagirov in the 2021 RB Giselle dress rehearsal.  I wasn't counting but there is no question in my mind that his entrechats were supreme.  Indeed those feet could have cut glass they were so sharp.  Definitely it appears his was a case of quality over quantity.  We are so lucky to be gifted with such a fantastically talented array of male artists at the RB just now.  

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Bruce Wall

[Scheherezade]

There is really nothing that I can add to what has already been said so eloquently about last night’s performance.

 

Nunez and Muntagirov were magical, heartbreaking and showed, yet again, that they are one of the truly great partnerships in this wonderful work.
 

I loved Magri’s Myrthe, majestic and immovable but notably cowed by the unquestionable bond of love between this Giselle and Albrecht.

 

Cowley and Storm-Jensen were well-matched and compelling lieutenants, with Storm-Jensen, always a powerful dancer, having developed her interpretative skills over the Covid lockdown, it seemed, and Lucas B B managed to carve something more than a two-dimensional portrait from the thankless role of Hilarion.

 

The pas de six was beautifullly danced all round, with Melissa Hamilton standing out for the lyricism she brought to her role. 
 

And a special mention for the Corps, who totally deserved the spontaneous applause both during the performance and again at the curtain call. An extraordinary performance by everyone on stage. 

[capybara]

8 hours ago, oncnp said:

Curious...does anyone know what the choreography actually calls for?

 

Versions vary. Peter Wright's is, I think, more or less as Muntagirov performed it; Mark Skeaping's (ENB) does not include the entrechats six (except Cesar Corrales put them in himself!!!); Paris Opera 32 (traditional).

It is interesting that, in this RB run, the Albrechts seem to have a had a choice.

 

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by capybara

[bridiem]

4 minutes ago, capybara said:

Versions vary. Peter Wright's is, I think, more or less as Muntagirov performed it; Mark Skeaping's (ENB) does not include the entrechats six (except Cesar Corrales put them in himself!!!); Paris Opera 32 (traditional).

It is interesting that, in this RB run, the Albrechts seem to have a had a choice.

 

Although it's impressive when they go on and on, I prefer it as performed last night; I don't want that moment to turn into a 32-fouettés moment when everyone is watching to see how many are done - it takes you out of the drama. (It's OK in Swan Lake because Odile is meant to be flashy/dazzling/distracting etc.) And I think the shorter sequence works better with the music.

[Rob S]

1 hour ago, bridiem said:

 

Although it's impressive when they go on and on, I prefer it as performed last night; I don't want that moment to turn into a 32-fouettés moment when everyone is watching to see how many are done - it takes you out of the drama. (It's OK in Swan Lake because Odile is meant to be flashy/dazzling/distracting etc.) And I think the shorter sequence works better with the music.

But Albrecht is supposed to be danced to the point of exhaustion….not very realistic to collapse to the floor after relatively few 

[bridiem]

5 minutes ago, Rob S said:

But Albrecht is supposed to be danced to the point of exhaustion….not very realistic to collapse to the floor after relatively few 

 

I don't know - they look pretty exhausting!! And they're only part of the process - he's already done a lot of dancing. But I do see what you mean.

 

[Balletfanp]

22 minutes ago, Rob S said:

But Albrecht is supposed to be danced to the point of exhaustion….not very realistic to collapse to the floor after relatively few 

But he doesn’t collapse immediately after them, there is another sequence of leaps to follow before that happens.

[capybara]

20 minutes ago, Rob S said:

But Albrecht is supposed to be danced to the point of exhaustion….not very realistic to collapse to the floor after relatively few 

I get that, and I like the entrechats (who wouldn’t?) but, in Peter Wright’s version, Albrecht doesn’t stop dancing, he proceeds to other energetic stuff before falling to the floor.

I stayed in the story last night whereas I can find myself switching into counting mode with the entrechats and then disputing the number 🤭

 

 

 

[alison]

2 hours ago, capybara said:

 

Versions vary. Peter Wright's is, I think, more or less as Muntagirov performed it; Mark Skeaping's (ENB) does not include the entrechats six (except Cesar Corrales put them in himself!!!); Paris Opera 32 (traditional).

It is interesting that, in this RB run, the Albrechts seem to have a had a choice.

 

I have a feeling they've always had a choice in this production: I think several dancers in the past have done the travelling brises, or whatever it is.  I wouldn't necessarily mind loads of entrechats: what I do dislike is the "inappropriate" audience reaction they engender at what is supposed to be an emotional and dramatic moment rather than a circus (sorry, memories of the Bolshoi's Spartacus at the weekend still strong), and which I class along with such other unpleasant experiences as huge applause from the audience when the Spectre de la Rose leaps out of the window totally drowning out the fact that the ballet continues after his departure, and [can't remember what the other one is - may insert it later if I remember].

 

But tastes differ: I remember seeing some ABT fans complaining either because one of their dancers or, if they'd been watching the RB, one of theirs didn't do nearly enough entrechats for their liking.

[capybara]

11 minutes ago, alison said:

I wouldn't necessarily mind loads of entrechats: what I do dislike is the "inappropriate" audience reaction they engender at what is supposed to be an emotional and dramatic moment rather than a circus.

 

Someone near me started to clap Vadim after about four last night but, fortunately, backed off.......

[Rob S]

1 hour ago, capybara said:

I get that, and I like the entrechats (who wouldn’t?) but, in Peter Wright’s version, Albrecht doesn’t stop dancing, he proceeds to other energetic stuff before falling to the floor.

I stayed in the story last night whereas I can find myself switching into counting mode with the entrechats and then disputing the number 🤭

 

 

 

i didn’t mean literally after finishing them although unless I’m misremembering there was a chuckle from the audience when Bonelli collapsed which made me think that that’s what happened 🤔

 

In order to prevent audience members switching to counting mode Berthe should mime the number during her piece in Act 1 (✋🤚✋🤚✋🤚🖕🖕(or ✌️in matinees)) or have the flower guy display the number on a rebadged football substitution display board at the end if the number differs

Edited November 9, 2021 by Rob S

[Richard LH]

Thanks Rob S!  I would love to see your version....😂

Perhaps in your staging you could also get some back-up for poor Hilarion whose "endless dance"  seems anything but, and who gives up after a much shorter trial than Albrecht. Could not  Giselle also  put in a good word for him, or help with some stamina training? 

[Richard LH]

1 hour ago, capybara said:

 

Someone near me started to clap Vadim after about four last night but, fortunately, backed off.......

We were certainly an appreciative audience last night....some people were  clapping part way through the Wilis main dance (immediately after  the hopping sequence) which I don't recall before - mind you, the Corps were outstanding in Act 2 and fully deserved the rapturous applause at the end. They were also wonderful in the Act 1 dances. I am in full admiration of Samantha Raine and all the ladies involved. 

[Rob S]

7 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

Thanks Rob S!  I would love to see your version....😂

Perhaps in your staging you could also get some back-up for poor Hilarion whose "endless dance"  seems anything but, and who gives up after a much shorter trial than Albrecht. Could not  Giselle also  put in a good word for him, or help with some stamina training? 

 

Well obviously Hilarion ran all the way to the forest clearing before he did his dance while Albrecht used the bus

[zxDaveM]

1 minute ago, Richard LH said:

....some people were  clapping part way through the Wilis main dance (immediately after  the hopping sequence)

 

I have a dvd of La Scala ballet where that happens. I'm always slightly surprised it doesn't happen more often! 🙂

[Guest oncnp]

5 minutes ago, Rob S said:

 

Well obviously Hilarion ran all the way to the forest clearing before he did his dance while Albrecht used the bus

A Count use the bus? Surely not.  He rode his trusty charger.

[Rob S]

6 minutes ago, oncnp said:

A Count use the bus? Surely not.  He rode his trusty charger.

 

Peregrine the Pony? 😄

[Sim]

18 minutes ago, zxDaveM said:

 

I have a dvd of La Scala ballet where that happens. I'm always slightly surprised it doesn't happen more often! 🙂

I am very glad it doesn't.  It ruins the mood for me.  

[JennyTaylor]

2 hours ago, capybara said:

I get that, and I like the entrechats (who wouldn’t?) but, in Peter Wright’s version, Albrecht doesn’t stop dancing, he proceeds to other energetic stuff before falling to the floor.

I stayed in the story last night whereas I can find myself switching into counting mode with the entrechats and then disputing the number 🤭

 

 

 

I'm with you here. Having read this thread beforehand, I deliberately stopped myself counting because it was totally distracting. Much better to stay in the moment of the story and just enjoy Vadim's superb entrechats, regardless of how many there were. 

[Nina99]

4 hours ago, bridiem said:

 

Although it's impressive when they go on and on, I prefer it as performed last night; I don't want that moment to turn into a 32-fouettés moment when everyone is watching to see how many are done - it takes you out of the drama. (It's OK in Swan Lake because Odile is meant to be flashy/dazzling/distracting etc.) And I think the shorter sequence works better with the music.

 

I agree with Jenny Taylor about this but having only seen Muntagirov in this role I'm curious as to whether in other performances Albrecht collapses immediately after doing the extra entrechats or do they do some more energetic stuff.  As Jenny says the shorter number works well with the music and doesn't distract from the flow of the story.  

 

 

[AnticaFiamma]

There are a couple of standing tickets in the stalls circle on sale for tomorrow's show if you're quick

[Meetmeatthebarre]

Last night truly belonged to the corps. There's not much I have to say about Nela and Vad - I am a huge fan of both; they set the bar high and always deliver - but in trips to the RB numbering into the hundreds, I have never seen the corps so together and flawless, even from above which is far less forgiving. I found myself drawn to them instead of the principals on several occasions. Yesterday felt like a true Company masterpiece; I couldn't have done better for my first (story) ballet back since Onegin in January 2019!

[Richard LH]

20 minutes ago, Meetmeatthebarre said:

Last night truly belonged to the corps. There's not much I have to say about Nela and Vad - I am a huge fan of both; they set the bar high and always deliver - but in trips to the RB numbering into the hundreds, I have never seen the corps so together and flawless, even from above which is far less forgiving. I found myself drawn to them instead of the principals on several occasions. Yesterday felt like a true Company masterpiece

Wholly agree with this ! They were brilliant. 

[KyleCheng]

I don't think it is so much a competition with other dancers as a competition with the extremely high bar some of us associate with Vadim, consciously or not. At last evening's performance I must agree that the moment Vadim started those inexplicably high and sharp entrechats I was in awe, and I saw in my peripheral vision the lady next to me clapping her hands silently in admiration. At the same time I will admit I was expecting the entrechats to last a bit longer than it had. Make no mistake; what Vadim delivered was still nothing short of a spectacle that I will remember fondly (and it's not just the entrechats, was it, he was great throughout). I am just saying it is not entirely incomprehensible, and also not necessarily a criticism, that last evening some, vis-a-vis that particular sequence, expected one thing and got another.

 

Other aspects of last night were also top notch. Having seem Osipova on the opening night, I am glad I get to see Nunez's very different interpretation. Her port de bras was very musical and elegant and she never fails to impress with her reliably impeccable technique. If Osipova was more convincing as a carefree farmer's daughter who's grown up playing with small animals, I can imagine Nunez's Giselle spending her spare time reading sonnets and painting trees. If they are violinists Osipova would be Joshua Heifetz and Nunez David Oistrakh. You can have preferences but you can't say either of them is not brilliant!

 

I also thought the pas de six was wonderfully executed, especially by the ladies. Special shoutout to the young Mariko Sasaki, dancing with such classical sensitivity, lyricism and a delightful smile once more after her impressive performance as the lead in Anemoi. I look forward to seeing more of her in big roles.

[Shade]

What an abundance of talent at RB currently - we the audience are very fortunate indeed.

[emmarose]

5 hours ago, KyleCheng said:

I don't think it is so much a competition with other dancers as a competition with the extremely high bar some of us associate with Vadim, consciously or not. At last evening's performance I must agree that the moment Vadim started those inexplicably high and sharp entrechats I was in awe, and I saw in my peripheral vision the lady next to me clapping her hands silently in admiration. At the same time I will admit I was expecting the entrechats to last a bit longer than it had. Make no mistake; what Vadim delivered was still nothing short of a spectacle that I will remember fondly (and it's not just the entrechats, was it, he was great throughout). I am just saying it is not entirely incomprehensible, and also not necessarily a criticism, that last evening some, vis-a-vis that particular sequence, expected one thing and got another.

 

Other aspects of last night were also top notch. Having seem Osipova on the opening night, I am glad I get to see Nunez's very different interpretation. Her port de bras was very musical and elegant and she never fails to impress with her reliably impeccable technique. If Osipova was more convincing as a carefree farmer's daughter who's grown up playing with small animals, I can imagine Nunez's Giselle spending her spare time reading sonnets and painting trees. If they are violinists Osipova would be Joshua Heifetz and Nunez David Oistrakh. You can have preferences but you can't say either of them is not brilliant!

 

I also thought the pas de six was wonderfully executed, especially by the ladies. Special shoutout to the young Mariko Sasaki, dancing with such classical sensitivity, lyricism and a delightful smile once more after her impressive performance as the lead in Anemoi. I look forward to seeing more of her in big roles.

 

As a tennis fan I liken them both to Federer and Nadal, completely contrasting styles and techniques but both amazingly brilliant in their own ways and you cannot dispute they're both greats, no matter which way you personally sway.

 

Personally I am a huge Federer fan and also a Nunez fan. Osipova amazes me with her verve and what she brings to roles. I just have an issue with her arms to the point I can be distracted by them.

 

What Marianela does on the stage is something else, her technique is just so perfectly sound that she seems beyond it in a way to then bring so much more to a role.

 

All of these write ups are making me want the 18th to get here quickly!

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by emmarose

[FLOSS]

I began my ballet going when it was widely understood that technique was a means to an end and should never be seen as an end in itself.Performance style at the Royal Ballet was then largely accepted as being what appealed aesthetically to the company's resident choreographers who still largely occupied the aesthetic world created in the West by Fokine. Ashton, MacMillan and Cranko were willing followers of Fokine in that technical difficulties were not seen as something to be put on display, they were understated and made to look as normal as possible. At that time those whose only skill lay in exceptional technical proficiency tended to be dismissed as "mere technicians". 

 

I recall Desmond Kelly some years ago describing how difficult it could be to explain to eager young dancers that when it comes to casting and promotion the decision is not based on the quantity of steps a dancer is able to squeeze into a musical phrase but the quality of their dancing,their artistic sensibility, their interpretive skills and imagination and their ability to evoke specific moods when called upon to do so. Ballet is an interpretative art form concerns about height and quantity sound to me more like the concerns of a circus performer than those of a classically trained dancer with ambitions to be a great interpretative  artist.

 

The problem is that a display of technical prowess can really only amaze an audience once. Indeed each repetition of the same set of technical tricks which is not firmly anchored in the choreographic text by the desire to achieve an artistic or emotional response is going to impress less and less with each repetition and may well come to be seen as little more than a display of vulgarity. 

 

In La Bayadere one of the things that really matters is how well the corps manage to evoke the strange dream-like mood of the Kingdom of the Shades. The performance of the Golden Idol, a Soviet interpolated display piece, is an artistic and choreographic irrelevance as far as the ballet itself is concerned. For an individual dancer it is the choice between the pursue of perfection, beauty  and apparent simplicity on the one hand and the pursuit of quantity on the other. It is the difference between an Eric Bruhn or a Dowell and the latest whizz kid technician who only has one trick in his armoury the ability to excite the audience through displays of technique but has no power to move them.  The power of the technician wanes with familiarity and dwindling physical strength, the power of the great interpretative artist lasts until retirement because even at the end of a career with a dwindling technique the artist is capable of giving insight into a role  revealing aspects of it that until that point remained almost hidden.

 

As a footnote I found the second act of Nunez's Giselle outstanding. If only her first act were at the same level. It is all a question of taste , I know, but I find Cuthbertson's first act far more involving than that of Nunez. Somehow with Nunez the first act does not convince, She has clearly taken great pains with it but it is, to me at least, she gives no more than a superficial carefully learned account of the first act.

 

  

[Fonty]

With regard to technique, there are times when a dancer can seem almost too perfect, to the point where it fails to move me. 

[Lizbie1]

6 minutes ago, Fonty said:

With regard to technique, there are times when a dancer can seem almost too perfect, to the point where it fails to move me. 

 

Hard agree from me for this - and this can also apply to the corps. "Cardboard cut-out swans" was the expression that I saw used once.

 

Edited to clarify: a perfect technique doesn't *necessarily* mean that I'm unmoved, but there are times when some dancers seems almost as if they're falling back on it.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Lizbie1

[LinMM]

I’m not so sure it’s as cut and dried. 
It really does depend on the role and the ballet. 
Some dancers with wonderful technique can reveal its beauty for its own sake but the soul still has to come through or it won’t be a revelation of the beauty of the classical style but a set of classroom exercises!! Some dancers can make you FEEL the beauty of the technique. 

In ballets where the dancers are also interpreting a role then this also requires its own skills and maybe being able to communicate and project particular feelings  to an audience is something you can’t learn ....I’m not sure. 
Some dancers are more natural actors it seems though. If so I guess your career may be able to last longer because physical technique alone however good it is at 20 will not get you much past the age of 45!! 

 

 

 

 

[EVWS]

The full casting for tonight is available on the webiste:

• Giselle: Yasmine Naghdi
• Albrecht: Matthew Ball
• Hilarion: Luca Acri
• Wilfred: Harry Churches
• Berthe: Kristen McNally
• The Duke of Courland: Gary Avis
• Bathilde: Christina Arestis
• Leader of the Hunt: Tomas Mock
• Pas de six: Meaghan Grace Hinkis
• Pas de six: David Yudes
• Pas de six: Isabella Gasparini
• Pas de six: Leo Dixon
• Pas de six: Ashley Dean
• Pas de six: Joseph Sissens
• Myrtha: Marianela Nuñez
• Moyna: Olivia Cowley
• Zulme: Melissa Hamilton
• Peasants, Courtiers and Wilis: Artists of The Royal Ballet

[Dawnstar]

I've managed to miss the train I intended to get to London, due to getting stuck in heavy traffic on the way to the station. I'm now on a train where it's touch and go if I'll get to the ROH by 7.30pm. Given Giselle only has 1 interval, does anyone know if it's likely I'll be stuck waiting in the foyer until then, if I don't make it in time, or if there are any points during Act 1 where latecomers are allowed to slip in? My seat is stalls circle A98, which I believe is on an aisle.

[alison]

Well, if the worst comes to the worst, you can go up to the Crush Bar and watch it on the TV up there.  More I can't really say - you'd hope they could try and sneak you in somewhere.  Best of luck!