Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal

Giselle

Reviewed April 4, 2019

NAC Southam Corridor, Ottawa

(Repeat performances April 5 & 6, 8 p.m.)

Giselle is the quintessential stunning basic ballet. Although this Jules Perrot and Jean Coralli creation was first carried out 178 years in the past, Giselle continues to attract audiences internationally as a result of it’s a ballet that’s rife with historical past, drama and, sure, actual dancing.

In reality, it’s concerning the younger village woman Giselle who loves nothing greater than to bounce. And, because the story goes, she dances not solely throughout her quick, candy life, however in her loss of life with the hordes of ghostly “wilis,” younger brides-to-be who’ve died earlier than their wedding ceremony days and who condemn males to bounce themselves to loss of life.

The enchantment is the timeless story: younger timeless love, betrayal, awakening, heartbreak, and survival. And, despite its macabre story, it’s a romantic ethereal dancey work that’s stunning to behold.

The Ottawa efficiency is a world premiere of a re-adapted Giselle, re-staged by Les Grands Ballets Canadiens’ new creative director Ivan Cavallari. Cavallari, who was smitten with the black-and-white tv manufacturing of Giselle he noticed when he was a younger boy – the one that includes Rudolf Nureyev – grew as much as dance in Giselle. And now he thought it was time, after 20 years, to revive the ageless ballet for Les Grands, staying true to the unique’s well-known tableaux of pointes and white tutus.

Cavallari has streamlined the manufacturing considerably, sustaining the traditions of the Marius Petipa 1903 model, together with the well-known ballet blanc of the second act, the place some 20 hypnotically swish ballerinas, clad in full white tutus and floaty sleeves, solid a mesmerizing spell over the shadowy woodland as they dance exactly in union.

This act contrasts with the sunshine and jubilant celebration of the opening act, when teams of younger women and men, wearing brilliant earthy-hued costumes, dance innocently and playfully in a area of flowers.

The music, by 19^th century Parisian composer Adolphe Charles Adam and carried out reside by Nationwide Arts Centre Orchestra, is a fascinating accompaniment, from the elegant and joyful flute interludes of the primary act to the mushy strings and harp of the second.

The set, constructed by the surroundings fabrication store Productions Yves Nicol in Montreal, is pretty minimal – a backdrop on which projections show a area of flowers, a moonlit woodland or, for the dramatic finale, a pure white after which black floor. Nonetheless, the projections are vivid and delightfully efficient.

Yui Sugawara, who danced Giselle on opening evening, is an ethereal protagonist, taking part in via the demanding curler coaster of feelings as naïve flirtatious maiden, besotted lover or defiant craving ghost, even when her descent into insanity and loss of life appears a little bit hurried and unconvincing.