GISELLE

Review by Celia Ipiotis

American Ballet Theater’s Giselle sails into the Met Opera House featuring multiple casts. Known to require extraordinary stamina on the part of the leading ballerina, the 19th century classic ballet Giselle, challenges a dancer’s dramatic and technical capabilities. 

Giselle (Devon Teuscher)  energetically greets the sunny day in a bucolic Rhineland village only to end in the shadows of the ghostly Wilis.  Albrecht (Joo Won Ahn), a nobleman disguised as a local, is a bit of scamp flirting with the naive, plucky lass.

Woefully, the doomed Giselle, falls in love with Albrecht only to see the romantic games become deadly when it is revealed that Albrecht is engaged to another.

Energetically youthful, Teuscher hardly betrays physical frailty, even when her mother Claire Davison pleads with Giselle to rest due to her weak heart.  Enthusiastically wooed by the handsome Albrecht, the only way to express her happiness is through dance.Together they buoyantly leap side by side, like two colts chasing each other in a sunlit field. Finally, when  they sit on a bench and Giselle pulls apart a daisy to the rhyme “he loves me, he loves me not” it lands on a sour note until Albrecht sneekily plucks another petal and pretends it landed on “he loves me.” Both Teuscher and Ahn’s mime interpretations are expansive external gestures, not delicate expressions delineating a sense of internal angst. 

Unhappy about Albercht’s flirtation with Giselle, Hilarion (dramatically strong Patrick Frenette) the gameskeeper blows Albercht’s cover by calling back the noble party that visited earlier. Giselle becomes undone.

Giselle sails into a whirlwind of emotions. Hair disheveled, she searches the villagers faces for answers, questioning reality. More contained than many who have interpreted this role, Teuscher steps into Giselle’s deep disappointment rather than falling into madness from the emotional jolt. Spent, Giselle collapses at her mother’s feet and Albrecht, taken aback by her demise, races off.

American Ballet Theater’s Giselle sails into the Met Opera House featuring multiple casts. Known to require extraordinary stamina on the part of the leading ballerina, the 19th century classic ballet Giselle, challenges a dancer’s dramatic and technical capabilities. 

Giselle (Devon Teuscher)  energetically greets the sunny day in a bucolic Rhineland village only to end in the shadows of the ghostly Wilis.  Albrecht (Joo Won Ahn), a nobleman disguised as a local, is a bit of scamp flirting with the naive, plucky lass.

Woefully, the doomed Giselle, falls in love with Albrecht only to see the romantic games become deadly when it is revealed that Albrecht is engaged to another.

Energetically youthful, Teuscher hardly betrays physical frailty, even when her mother Claire Davison pleads with Giselle to rest due to her weak heart.  Enthusiastically wooed by the handsome Albrecht, the only way to express her happiness is through dance.Together they buoyantly leap side by side, like two colts chasing each other in a sunlit field. Finally, when  they sit on a bench and Giselle pulls apart a daisy to the rhyme “he loves me, he loves me not” it lands on a sour note until Albrecht sneekily plucks another petal and pretends it landed on “he loves me.” Both Teuscher and Ahn’s mime interpretations are expansive external gestures, not delicate expressions delineating a sense of internal angst. 

Unhappy about Albercht’s flirtation with Giselle, Hilarion (dramatically strong Patrick Frenette) the gameskeeper blows Albercht’s cover by calling back the noble party that visited earlier. Giselle becomes undone.

Giselle sails into a whirlwind of emotions. Hair disheveled, she searches the villagers faces for answers, questioning reality. More contained than many who have interpreted this role, Teuscher steps into Giselle’s deep disappointment rather than falling into madness from the emotional jolt. Spent, Giselle collapses at her mother’s feet and Albrecht, taken aback by her demise, races off.

ACT II represents the spiritual realm — a moonlit landscape shining on Giselle’s grave. Arriving with white lilies in hand, Albrect is taken aback by Giselle who is transformed into a Wili (the spirit of a virgin woman betrayed by her lover who forces men to dance to death).

Consistently engrossing, Frenette is thoroughly believable as the lovelorn fellow who follows Giselle to her gravesite only to be forced to dance to death by the Wilis. The stage is flooded with the ethereal ballerinas dressed in filmy tulle white dress. Silently and extravagantly, the corps express their loss and fury through the intricate patterns and unison choreography.

Albrecht strains to contain himself when Giselle appears. Their love duet draws them together breathing as one. In this section, Giselle returns as an ephemeral spirit, so the thud of her toe shoes on the floor was a bit disconcerting. Her jumps however, were puffs of vertical bobs as if Teuscher were bouncing on a trampoline. Tight, trilling bourees transport  her between the human and the spirit world accented by fluttering frappes. However, the weightless lifts and exaggerated arabesques defined by the torso’s reach beyond the standing leg, are less ethereal and more  modern day maiden.

Commanded by Myrta to dance to his death, or until the sun rises, Ahn deploys a series of leaps and turns ending in wonderfully flamboyant collapses to the ground until successfully making it to daybreak. He lives, saved by Giselle’s support. 

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis