ENB Mary Skeaping Giselle January 2024

[Fonty]

42 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

The audience on a Tuesday night didn't laugh at the effects at all and were very enthusiastic with their applause. So it sounds like we just have a different audience this season, maybe newcomers who have a tendency to giggle at something unfamiliar. (As long as they're not giggling at Giselle's death- which they aren't.) 

 

I've put this new "phenomenon" down to current newbies in the audience not being used to seeing traditional stage effects like wire work, flying effects, etc because of the ever increasing employment of digital and film technology in productions in the West End and other locations.

 

I think this is a pity - I like ballet (or opera, plays and musicals) to look like theatre productions and not a miniature version of a pop concert in an arena or stadium. If it's used for a specific purpose, eg the digital projection to show Alice shrinking in Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (impossible to shrink an actual human) that's a very good idea of course, but they shouldn't be used in everything and they are rather overused nowadays. 

 

 

 

I agree.  I have to say that I found the laughter on my first visit coming from a specific group of women behind me a little irritating.  However, on reflection I don't think it was disrespectful, more a "Goodness, that surprised me" sort of laugh. @LinMM It certainly wasn't widespread, and I didn't notice any at all on my second visit, which was the school matinee performance.  

 

 

Edited January 30 by Fonty

[alison]

I quite agree with Fonty: I did hear laughter on several occasions, but I think it was at the suddenness of the veil's disappearance rather than anything else.  It wasn't "Oh, this is so cheesy" laughter, or anything like that (or it would probably have continued rather than subsiding immediately) - just people not used to old-style stage effects (and/or balletic convention?).  Also, I note that Paluch is very careful not to indicate which performance it was, but given all the multiple cast changes it's quite possible that he may have seen a cast which hadn't had much rehearsal time together.

[Sim]

2 hours ago, LinMM said:

I’ve just lost my post I was writing! 
Have I the energy to do it again!! 
I don’t know why this happens!!! 
 

I just went to double check the spelling of  “Paluch” and when returned to post it was gone! 

Linn, if you are writing more than a couple of lines, may I suggest that you write your post on a Word document first, then copy and paste it to the forum when you are happy with it.  That also enables you to edit in your own time, without the dreaded 30-minute deadline.  That's what I always do, anyway.  You then have much less of a chance of losing your words. 

 

[Sim]

I went to three shows, and I did hear laughter in those places at two of them.  But as others have said, it's just surprise, as I thought at the time.  But this is not a new thing; I remember when the Bolshoi came a few years ago and their plastic swans floated across the back of the stage to indicate their arrival at the beginning of Act 2, there was much laughter and mirth in the ROH, but it didn't last for long.  

 

I agree that I'm not sure what the point is of Paluch's article.  If he is trying to critique, there is not much point in not mentioning the lead couple.  If he isn't, and is just trying to write a general article about the ballet, why keep referring to this lead couple and this particular performance?  

 

@Irmgard I would be very interested in your thoughts about what he had to say!!

[Emeralds]

3 hours ago, LinMM said:

I’ve just lost my post I was writing! 
Have I the energy to do it again!! 
I don’t know why this happens!!! 
 

I just went to double check the spelling of  “Paluch” and when returned to post it was gone! 

Poor @LinMM- hope you managed to retype all you wanted to say subsequently. If it's any consolation it has happened to me a few times (probably cyberspace telling me not to be so longwinded...haha) so I know your pain! 

 

Apart from Sim's useful tip, the other tricks  are 1) click and copy (or use CTRL+C) the whole thing every so often so that if you lose it you can paste it and resume, 2) if it's just spelling, submit it anyway and alter the spelling by using the edit function. (I hope Matthew Paluch appreciates the trouble you went through to spell his name correctly!)  🙂

 

[LinMM]

Well you are not going to believe this as went to reply to Sim and Emeralds and there was my original Paluch post🤔. But definitely an empty space when first went back to post. 
So it did store but just wasn’t there when I wanted it to be! 

I do everything on my iPhone as my iPad is now defunct and I don’t have a computer proper as it were so don’t have the computer keyboard Emeralds. 
 

 

[Emeralds]

13 minutes ago, LinMM said:

Well you are not going to believe this as went to reply to Sim and Emeralds and there was my original Paluch post🤔. But definitely an empty space when first went back to post. 
So it did store but just wasn’t there when I wanted it to be! 

I do everything on my iPhone as my iPad is now defunct and I don’t have a computer proper as it were so don’t have the computer keyboard Emeralds. 
 

 

Now that you mention the reappearance, that has happened to me too- it's not lost but I have actually timed myself out. Basically if I log out and then log back in, the entire post reappears.

For touchscreens like iPhones you just tap the whole thing to copy like you would copy for any other typing (whether WhatsApp or emails or texting), and then if you need to, paste it. Good luck for next time! 🍀 

[MAB]

Personally I put any laughter down to alcohol being drunk during the ballet.  When I went to a matinee with lots of kids present I heard no laughter whatsoever.

[Irmgard]

@Sim, I wasn’t sure about responding to Matthew Paluch’s article on here but, as you asked for my opinion, here goes!  His article appeared on my Facebook page this morning and I have to say that I was perplexed by it, although its main thrust seems to be that, because members of the audience laughed at two very minor and fleeting moments in Act 2, there is a problem with the Skeaping production!  As I previously mentioned, I attended all the performances and, yes, some audience members at most of the performances laughed at Giselle’s veil flying off and her ‘flying’ across the back but, as I and others have said on here, it was not laughing in ridicule but at the surprise of both moments, much as audiences from the baroque era onwards did when confronted with various stage effects (having worked at the wonderful perspective theatre at Drottningholm with its amazing bits of set that suddenly pop up through the stage, I can understand audiences at that time looking forward to these moments and responding to them with delight), so I see no problem with audiences expressing themselves in this way, especially “the ones who actually bothered to buy a ticket and rock up to the theatre” (and I find nothing “scary” about this).  Paluch was a member of ENB’s corps de ballet when “Giselle” was performed 2005-2007 but, unless he was cast as a gamekeeper, he would have been out of the theatre by the time Act 2 happened so he would not have realised that the laughter at those moments has been happening for a very long time (going back to the 1970s) but it has always been good-natured.  Incidentally, there was also laughter at a number of performances when the last two Wilis chased the final gamekeeper off the stage but, again, it was not laughter ridiculing the moment but almost saying “job well done”!    He mentions Giselle being carried by a company member in black (affectionately known as “the man in black” within the company) across the back of the stage but fails to mention the skill this dancer requires, with Giselle actually perched on his shoulder, to run smoothly enough to give the impression that she is floating or flying.  For those interested, it was Junor Souza at most performances, chosen by me for his exceptional partnering skills.  Paluch rather messes up his “spoiler alert” because I think what he meant was that the dancer performing Myrtha does not have supernatural powers and the dancer performing Giselle cannot fly but, at first glance, it certainly reads as if he is talking about the characters rather than the dancers!

 

I was surprised by his remarks about the mime.  I have never heard mime criticised before for being musical!  Of course, there are varying degrees of accomplishment in performing mime and I would have loved to have had more rehearsal time for this but almost everyone performed the mime naturally and musically, exactly as Mary Skeaping taught it to me, she in turn having learned it from Tamara Karsavina and, of course, Anna Pavlova.   And I certainly do not recall anyone putting “every gesture on a beat”, as the gestures are done to phrases of music.   

 

I am not sure what he means by his sentence “Elsewhere we find other predictable moments from all areas of the theatre” but he then goes on to talk about the Wilis' “infamous (??) hops” across the stage.  Why not call them what they are – temps levés in arabesque.  And in ENB they are never referred to as hops but as shunts, as the ladies must only lift their heels from the floor enough to shunt the working leg forward to give the smooth, floating effect.  And if someone wants to clap after a few “hops”, why not?  The ladies would certainly appreciate acknowledgement of their efforts!

 

I think Paluch must have been the only person who thought he was in Camelot in Act 1 as the designs are clearly Tudor, with the necessary Germanic influence on the buildings and the castle in the background!

 

Since he is too coy to say which cast he saw, it is almost impossible to comment on his scathing reaction to Albrecht, although he does say “many who are cast” are “waiting for the …Instagrammable moment.” but he confesses that he only saw one cast!  And I cannot think of any Albrechts who approached “the whole event as a number of competition solos with some bits in between”, although of course some are naturally better than others in getting under the skin of the character.

 

As someone else mentioned, it does seem like he is regretting that Osipova was not dancing Giselle, to the point of including a photograph of her in the role rather than any of ENB’s lovely Giselles, but I am not sure that a Giselle “who verges on the unhinged” well before the mad scene would fit Skeaping’s production or Gautier’s original conception of the role and neither would “frenzied concern” in Act 2.  As Markova says she learned from Sergueyev, Giselle still has her human emotions in Act 2 but they are muted as she is now a phantom.

 

Paluch says right at the beginning of his article that he remembers dancing in Skeaping’s production as an “enjoyable and vivid experience”.  From the ovations at the end of every performance, I would like to think that the majority of people in the audience felt the same way and had been fully engaged with it.  Considering the number of dancers who have told me they cannot wait to perform this “Giselle” again, it appears they also found it to be an enjoyable and vivid experience!

[FionaM]

Personally I’ve always found the way the veil is pulled off to be rather comical.  But there is no easy solution to this one and if it’s sticking to what Mary Skeaping planned then so be it.  It is minor.  
 

I did want to applaud the man in black’s skill … that supported lift across the back is so quick! 

I do agree with Matthew’s comment of the bits inbetween struggling to tell the story if the solos become only ‘show-off your technique’ pieces.   Act 1 of any Giselle can be quite bitty like that, with the pauses in the music for applause and bows.  This is how all the classics are… perhaps he is getting weary of traditional ballets.  Then go see wonderful ENB in the Akram Khan Giselle! 
 

I don’t read Albrecht as a fool … he is any normal young person (man or woman, today or then,) who has got themselves caught up in a triangle of love and cannot extricate themselves because of Hilarion’s discovery and public pronouncement of it.   Albrecht must then show us that he realises his true love for Giselle by the end of Act 1.   This is important else there is no point to Act 2.  
 

it is a great story of love, betrayal and forgiveness! 

 

[Pas de Quatre]

In some cases it may be "nervous laughter", a well known reaction to surprise, shock and alarm, rather than finding the moment comical. A quick Google search will find lots of information about this. 

[Emeralds]

I've always wanted to know who the dancer/s doing the unseen lifting was/were! Thank you @Irmgard.  Kudos to Junor Souza and his other colleagues who did it - if you know, please let us know who the other dancers so that we can give them a shout out too. Junor and his colleagues did it so well that at every one of the 3 performances I attended it looked (without the benefit of opera glasses or binoculars turned up to maximum focus) like she was flying with the aid of wires. All the guests who came with me couldn't figure out how it was done and were fascinated by it. So well done to the dancers! (And also the ballerinas also played their part in creating the illusion). 

 

I  think we have a good number of members and readers here who would love Skeaping's production to come back very soon (within 2 years please!) And certainly many people love this traditional version- to sell that many tickets in a huge opera house in London during a limited 11-day run in harsh weather conditions is actually very impressive. 

Edited January 31 by Emeralds

[Sim]

@Irmgardthank you so much for your ever-informative rebuttal to Matthew Paluch's somewhat bizarre article. I too am stumped about many things he said, and, like you, I wondered about his comparing the Act 1 set to Camelot.   This version of Giselle takes place hundreds of years after the supposed existence of Camelot.  It certainly would not have looked like an early Renaissance Rhineland village.  Strange.

 

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you so very much for all the posts you have written for us during this run of Giselle.  The history has been fascinating to read, and it really enhanced my viewing pleasure (which was already huge; I have always loved Skeaping's Giselle). Your guidance is invaluable and much appreciated.  Now let's just hope that we don't have to wait seven years to see it again!  

[Fonty]

@Irmgard I would like to second the comments by @Sim above.  Your wonderful posts really did add to the whole experience of watching this marvellous production.  I hope I can remember them all when ENB performs the ballet again.  Next year might be a bit too soon, but the year after perhaps?  By that time, I hope the dancers in the lowest ranks who gave such splendid solo performances will have been promoted, as they richly deserve.  On that topic, I forgot to mention Anna-Babette Winkler, who really caught my eye as Moyna in the second act. 

 

I must confess I misread Mr Paluch's remarks about how Giselle flies, as I was going through it very swiftly with mounting irritation as I read it.  No idea why he felt the need to let everyone know how it was done, or the sarcastic way in which he said it.  Surely it is a sign of the skills of the performing artists that we get so involved in the story that we don't care about the methods used.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 31 by Fonty

[Roberta]

Going against the grain here, but I do like to know about magical stage effects and how they are achieved.  Demon traps to raise Giselle from her grave, often quite thrillingly at speed? Yes, I have in the past quietly smiled at a turbo charged resurrection. I suspect many a Giselle has been surprised at how rapidly she has been propelled from the bowels of the earth / theatre, summoned by Myrtha's wands of rosemary (for remembrance), still with her tutu pristine.  (Not only this production has magic, there are others with varying 'SFX'.)  Mary Skeaping, of course, had a good grounding during her varied early career (which included panto) and at Drottningholm, with all the preserved stage machinery. 

 

Knowing how things work doesn't, for me, at all detract from the fact they do.

 

We must face it, Giselle is actually pretty ridiculous, designed to give 19th century audiences a thrill of vampirism, ghoulies, ghosties and things that go bump, as well as a love story, a story of dastardly (or not) betrayal, a villain in Hilarion, and a splendid 'mad scene' and death. That we leave the theatre wrung out by the drama, the music, the acting, the mime, the dancing, doesn't alter the fact it is so (wonderfully) ludicrous.   https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781400832477/html

 

I'm unsure if it's as ludicrous as Swan Lake,  I'm weighing up the pros and cons. 

 

[Sim]

46 minutes ago, Roberta said:

Going against the grain here, but I do like to know about magical stage effects and how they are achieved.  Demon traps to raise Giselle from her grave, often quite thrillingly at speed? Yes, I have in the past quietly smiled at a turbo charged resurrection. I suspect many a Giselle has been surprised at how rapidly she has been propelled from the bowels of the earth / theatre, summoned by Myrtha's wands of rosemary (for remembrance), still with her tutu pristine.  (Not only this production has magic, there are others with varying 'SFX'.)  Mary Skeaping, of course, had a good grounding during her varied early career (which included panto) and at Drottningholm, with all the preserved stage machinery. 

 

Knowing how things work doesn't, for me, at all detract from the fact they do.

 

We must face it, Giselle is actually pretty ridiculous, designed to give 19th century audiences a thrill of vampirism, ghoulies, ghosties and things that go bump, as well as a love story, a story of dastardly (or not) betrayal, a villain in Hilarion, and a splendid 'mad scene' and death. That we leave the theatre wrung out by the drama, the music, the acting, the mime, the dancing, doesn't alter the fact it is so (wonderfully) ludicrous.   https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781400832477/html

 

I'm unsure if it's as ludicrous as Swan Lake,  I'm weighing up the pros and cons. 

 

Well, in that case all fairy tales, fables, myths and legends are ludicrous.  Except they aren't, because they all have something to say, and to teach us, and to remind us.  Those messages are as relevant today as they were when these tales began.  How the messages are imparted is via vehicles that entertain us, either by reading about them in books or experiencing them as art.  It makes it much easier for messages about the human condition to get through that way.  

[bridiem]

Speaking personally, I do believe that Giselle flies.

[Roberta]

3 minutes ago, Sim said:

Well, in that case all fairy tales, fables, myths and legends are ludicrous.

 

Of course they are, most of them.   And still they endure, for whatever reason you think they do. 

 

Love conquers all etc. I hope audiences will still be watching Giselle and the SXF in the next century, though I still enjoy knowing that in the age of computers, and doubts about the existence of the afterlife, she flies from her other world in this one with the theatrical, time honoured trick of being aided by a bloke in black, and her veil is whisked off by wire. 

 

[Roberta]

1 minute ago, bridiem said:

Speaking personally, I do believe that Giselle flies.

 

Of course. And Santa bring us all presents at Christmas, otherwise how would our stockings be filled? 

[bridiem]

4 minutes ago, Roberta said:

Of course. And Santa bring us all presents at Christmas, otherwise how would our stockings be filled? 

 

Yes - Santa or St Nicholas, aka Love.

[Irmgard]

5 hours ago, Emeralds said:

I've always wanted to know who the dancer/s doing the unseen lifting was/were! Thank you @Irmgard.  Kudos to Junor Souza and his other colleagues who did it - if you know, please let us know who the other dancers so that we can give them a shout out too. Junor and his colleagues did it so well that at every one of the 3 performances I attended it looked (without the benefit of opera glasses or binoculars turned up to maximum focus) like she was flying with the aid of wires. All the guests who came with me couldn't figure out how it was done and were fascinated by it. So well done to the dancers! (And also the ballerinas also played their part in creating the illusion). 

 

I  think we have a good number of members and readers here who would love Skeaping's production to come back very soon (within 2 years please!) And certainly many people love this traditional version- to sell that many tickets in a huge opera house in London during a limited 11-day run in harsh weather conditions is actually very impressive. 

The other men in black were Skyler Martin with Emma Hawes and Vsevolod Maievskyi with Sangeun Lee.  Souza accompanied the other Giselles. It would be lovely to acknowledge them on the cast list but of course that would definitely shatter the illusion!

[Irmgard]

3 hours ago, Fonty said:

@Irmgard I would like to second the comments by @Sim above.  Your wonderful posts really did add to the whole experience of watching this marvellous production.  I hope I can remember them all when ENB performs the ballet again.  Next year might be a bit too soon, but the year after perhaps?  By that time, I hope the dancers in the lowest ranks who gave such splendid solo performances will have been promoted, as they richly deserve.  On that topic, I forgot to mention Anna-Babette Winkler, who really caught my eye as Moyna in the second act. 

 

I must confess I misread Mr Paluch's remarks about how Giselle flies, as I was going through it very swiftly with mounting irritation as I read it.  No idea why he felt the need to let everyone know how it was done, or the sarcastic way in which he said it.  Surely it is a sign of the skills of the performing artists that we get so involved in the story that we don't care about the methods used.

 

 

 

 

Glad you noticed Anna-Babette Winkler, who has such a lovely, serene quality to her dancing.  She also made a beautiful Bathilde, and I cast her in that role on the strength of her Mother in "Nutcracker", as I thought she made the most wonderfully gracious hostess in the party scene. 

[Irmgard]

Thank you so much for all the kind comments about my posts on this thread.  I am delighted if I have been able to enhance your enjoyment of the beautiful Mary Skeaping production which I am so lucky to look after.  

[Roberta]

12 minutes ago, Irmgard said:

Thank you so much for all the kind comments about my posts on this thread.  I am delighted if I have been able to enhance your enjoyment of the beautiful Mary Skeaping production which I am so lucky to look after.

 

Thank you, for bringing this lovely production to life again with such clarity of purpose and, well, love, and treating us to these detailed explanations.

[Emeralds]

2 hours ago, Irmgard said:

The other men in black were Skyler Martin with Emma Hawes and Vsevolod Maievskyi with Sangeun Lee.  Souza accompanied the other Giselles. It would be lovely to acknowledge them on the cast list but of course that would definitely shatter the illusion!

Skyler Martin and Junor Souza are heroes of so many performances I've watched-either portraying the Nutcracker with a mask that makes it so difficult to see with, partnering their ballerinas so beautifully in Three Preludes, or other roles. I haven't seen Vsevolod Maievskyi much apart from the demi soloist couples in Theme and Variations but am looking forward to seeing him in the rest of the season- I couldn't do the dates that Emma and Sangeun danced. Yes, it is a difficult dilemma as to how to credit them on the cast list without giving the game away or if one should. Kudos to the three of them for helping our Giselles take flight! 👏