Svetlana Lunkina and Harrison James with Artists of the Balletin Giselle. Photo by Aleksandar Antonijevic
(program)
The National Ballet of Canada presented Giselle on Wednesday November 6th, 2019 at The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.
Cast:
Giselle — Svetlana Lunkina
Albrecht — Harrison James
Hilarion — Piotr Stanczyk
Queen of the Wilis — Heather Ogden
Choreography: Sir Peter Wright
Music: arr. by Joseph Horovitz
Set and Costume Design: Desmond Heeley
Lighting Design: Gil Wechsler
Pure Magic: The National Ballet of Canada Presents a Thoughtful, Crystal-Clear Giselle
Giselle is emotion, from the gut out. it is execution, from head to toe. it is machinery – minus machines. this classical dance staple is futurism at its most Romantic. and - with the right cast and crew working in unison – it can amount to unadulterated magic. ringing in the 2019/2020 season, The National Ballet of Canada’s dancers and artists took on the challenge this ballet poses to engineer a balancing act between an imaginary future and past, between earthy reality and airy fantasy, between life and afterlife.
today’s audiences are well-acquainted with illusions, both onstage and in everyday life. vivid special effects surround us everywhere: in movies at the local Cineplex, on hi-def billboard ads peppering the sky, and inside our glimmering smartphone universes. but for all the technological wizardry to which we have grown accustomed and which leaves us more and more unphased, little can prepare our eyes for the visual spell of Giselle.
Svetlana Lunkina and Harrison James in Giselle. Photo by Aleksandar Antonijevic.
this Giselle is simple and distilled, with everything in its place and very little in the way of distraction from total concentration on its technical momentum. the production had its high moments (the dancing!), and they stood out from the rest (the design), which was mainly plain and uncomplicated. overall, the team managed to create a suspenseful and immersive experience loyal to the economy of its original, proving that glimpses of magic can be conjured here and now in an utterly human form, sans gimmicks and gizmos.
the setting opens with a soft ode to the month of october: the homey, golden one of the southwestern ontario variety. the backdrop is bucolic: a modest little country house to the left and its tool shack to the right, real-looking tree trunks forming pathways toward centre stage, and a crisp mountainous painted landscape, all surrounded by a frame of disproportionately large, tawny autumn foliage. a palette of dusty greens and browns is suddenly offset by Albrecht’s billowing emerald cape as he parades to the stage, marking the start of Giselle’s undoing. tossing the cape aside, principal dancer harrison james introduces his Albrecht swiftly and with impetus – moving like a rolling jewel – in a steadfast élan which will permeate his precise dancing style from start to finish.
the first act is designed to be uniform and quaint. at the beginning, it is not especially emotionally provoking because of its down-to-earth costume, set, and lighting choices. as a candid Giselle (svetlana lunkina) frolics zestily in pale blue chiffon, only the splashes of rustic red on several corps members’ trousers and vests suggest the subtlest feeling of incoming unrest. that is, up until the moment Bathilde (tanya howard) appears to dispel the romance. she is swathed in a jarring coral crinoline gown which looks almost like a fresh flesh wound against the neutral set. representing the show’s midpoint and the final trigger that will drive Giselle mad, howard performs her character work in Bathilde coyly, ever-so-calmly, and with unattainable poise – a spooky contrast to lunkina’s giddy girlishness, which she transforms seamlessly into tragic frenzy.
parallel to Giselle’s foil in Bathilde is Albrecht’s opposite in the effortless pantomime delivered by Hilarion (piotr stanczyk), which is imbued with flecks of subtle humour behind a sorrowful melodrama. if any comedic relief is possible in Giselle, it is in the relatable, nuanced execution of this character. where other characters – besides the fragile Giselle – lack sensitivity, stanczyk infuses so much soul and empathy into his Hilarion, and with such flawless athleticism, as to compensate for any superficiality elsewhere. one other soloist stood out with a profoundly-felt performance: siphesihle november was brilliant, bringing both virtuosity and heart to his role as one of Giselle's friends.
Artists of the Ballet in Giselle. Photo by Aleksandar Antonijevic.
Act Two flips the world upside down and turns it inside out. atmospheric woods envelop the stage in dusk, showing how october has turned into november. the dancing takes over completely in this second half: character work is replaced with footwork, and ground-level choreography seems to levitate a few feet in the air. with the impeccable heather ogden as Queen of the Wilis gliding across the stage so delicately that the hem of her tutu stays motionless, and with the Wili corps forming synchronized architectural shapes with their bodies to capture Hilarion and Albrecht like mousetraps, the magic of a floating otherworld is achieved. lunkina, now noble in snow-white tulle amid her sea of sisters in off-white (they are a little dirtier, a little crueller than she is) completes the mirage with masterful ease. caught in the charm of her long penchés, we forget she is dancing, and we forget there was ever a first act where she was anything other than a whisper of a spirit.
Svetlana Lunkina and Harrison James in Giselle. Photo by Aleksandar Antonijevic.
if only the set (desmond heeley) and lighting (gil wechsler) had been finessed a notch to look more realistically eerie and match the miraculous choreography, the illusion would have been total; at times, the design felt sketched-on with its surrealistically large autumn leaves, a cartoonish lighting bolt effect, and a too-clean ultramarine hue washing over the Wilis’ woods. that said, sir peter wright’s traditional staging of marius petipa’s 1841 masterpiece still holds up in 2019. this was made clear during the premiere when not one but several absolutely delighted viewers could be heard shouting “Exceptional!” and “Bravo!” mid-show over adolphe adam’s tender music – almost as if despite themselves – from the edges of their seats. to wrap up the evening, a roaring standing ovation went on for minutes and minutes…and then some more.
nearly 180 years into its lifespan, Giselle continues to conjure shock and awe with its technical detail and emotional force, creating a supernatural reality with nothing more than the use of dependable human bodies moving together in solidarity like a phantasmagoric army. not only is it a testament to the power of dance to move souls, but it is also a perfectly haunting, non-sugar-coated post-Halloween treat in anticipation of the spectre of winter.
Anna Paliy is a doctoral student in the Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation work explores various cultural intersections in Russian ballet costume reception between the years 1890-1930, with a focus on the storytelling potential of theatrical textile design. Her writing has been published in the journals Kino and Semicolon (University of Western Ontario) and Transverse (University of Toronto), and most recently in the magazines The Dance Current and The WholeNote. Formerly a competitive rhythmic gymnast in Ukraine, France, and Canada, Anna now enjoys practicing circus acrobatics and painting in her spare time.
Visit Anna’s Website
Instagram: @rococompost