by Carol Pratl
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by Carol Pratl |
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That ultimate Romantic heroine Giselle, pictured in Degas's famous paintings is even recognized by people who are unfamiliar with ballet. If there's one tragic tale of love besides "Romeo and Juliet" that has continued to captivate the hearts and jerk the tears of audiences worldwide since it was first performed in 1841, it's the woeful story of the doomed damsel "Giselle," performed this month in Swedish choreographer Mats Ek's irreverent, melodramatic and less-than-classic updated version at the Paris Opera - Palais Garnier. Act I: Simple but charming country girl meets local Prince Albrecht who pretends to be the ordinary guy from the village next door. Giselle falls in love, as does Albrecht apparently, but she encounters his fiancée who parades through town one day in pomp-and-circumstance style. Giselle goes instantly mad and dies in a convulsive dance. Act II's setting is the beyond-the-tomb supernatural wonder-forest of the Wilis, the spirits of all the girls who have died of broken hearts and are awaiting the arrival of their wayward lovers at the graveside in order to trap them in a death-ensuing dance marathon. Albrecht comes right on schedule, but Giselle protects him from the clutches of the merciless Wili Queen, who reluctantly grants him forgiveness after he has repeatedly said he's sorry. Somewhat reminiscent of another current drama on Capitol Hill... Mats Ek's brilliant choreographic "rewriting" of "Giselle," which was initially created for his Stockholm-based Cullberg Ballet Company, centers the action on a hotspot volcanic island in the tropics, some time in the 1980s. "What fascinated me the first time I saw Giselle," Mats Ek said recently in a public statement, "were the contradictions in this ballet, between the realism of the first act which takes place in a village, and the surrealism of the second act with its enchanted forest, mythical creatures and nocturnal magic." In this paradisiacal empire of the senses a whimsical takeoff on the musical "South Pacific" city slicker/playboy Albrecht sails in with a few friends (no doubt on an off-season Club Med package tour), and aims to pick up the attractive but outcast Giselle (danced by 35-year old étoile Marie-Claude Pietragalla who still pulls off the role of a teenage innocent to perfection), who's the laughing stock of this primitive population because of her strange behavior. His version is a parody of the nouveaux riches, as well as a parody of the poor, with the conclusion that every social group has its scapegoats, pointing fingers intolerantly at those who are "different." Mats Ek's distraught Giselle winds up straitjacketed in a psychiatric ward, but Albrecht doesn't desert her throughout all of Act II, which is a disturbing commentary on the fine line between sanity and insanity like in "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest." The focus is on detachment, and isolated body parts come haphazardly into view: a hand here, an eye or a torso there. Wili Queen Myrtha is represented as the contemptuous head nurse, a wicked witch of the west that is as mad as a hatter herself. No one dies, though. After a wild night in the asylum, Albrecht enters naked, reborn into Giselle's world, and comes to peace in a space where he can at last find his true self. Respecting composer Adolphe Adam's wonderful score with its well-known adagios and pas de deux, Mats Ek's "Giselle" ranks as a masterpiece classic. "Giselle" (chor. by Mats Ek; music by Adolphe Adam) ; Oct 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, 23 and 26 at 7:30pm; 18 at 3pm, Opéra National de Paris-Palais Garnier, pl de l'Opéra, 9e, METRO Opéra, tel: 08.36.69.78.68.
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"Giselle", danced by M.C. Pietragalla |
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issue: October 98 |
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