Silly after all: Giselle at the ROH
Giselle
The Royal Ballet
Royal Opera House
Royal Box, general rehearsal
19 January 2018
ROH page
Giselle is one of those ballets I know people complain of as being very silly, but until now I have never felt it to be so. I vividly remember the first time I saw Giselle’s suicide, Lauren Cuthbertson provoked by Federico Bonelli, and feeling aghast, tears pouring down my cheeks by the curtain. Since then I have had the same feeling in performances by Natalia Osipova, Sarah Lamb and Marianela Nuñez, each individual but united in their emotive power. But this time I glimpsed what riles the haters.
Francesca Hayward is a beautiful dancer. Her face is beautiful, her body is beautiful, her grace and the arch of her back are more beautiful still, and it is a delight for the soul to see her move across the stage. Her MacMillan performances have also shown she draws on a rich palette of dramatic nuance to colour that beauty of movement, portraying Juliet and Manon with devastating immediacy; while her Lise in La Fille mal gardée was almost absurdly loveable.
So it is not for lack of ability that her Giselle is lacklustre, and I wonder if Hayward herself is one of those people who thinks Giselle is a bit silly. Whereas previously I have only marvelled at the perfectness of the story for its form, I am now beset by doubts: is Giselle’s weak heart relevant to anything in any way? why does Berthe choose that moment to tell everyone about the Wilis? isn’t suicide a bit of an overreaction? doesn’t the second half go on a bit?
But hey. Maybe the time was ripe to see these things. Silly or no, the ballet and this performance still contain much to enjoy. It’s lovely to see younger dancers excelling in the pas de six, particularly the women (Beatriz Stix-Brunell, Mayara Magri and Chistato Katsura). One can never complain about an opportunity to worship again at the shrine of Elizabeth McGorian’s masterclass of mime. Hopping Wilis will never get old. And last but not least is Olivia Cowley’s exquisitely frosty Bathilde, the complete manifestation of disdain.
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