The Ballet of the Opéra national de Paris and the season opener 'Giselle
The well-known romantic title with Dorothée Gilbert and Hugo Marchand returns to Paris
by Vito Lentini
With the twenty-four performances scheduled for the opening of the season, the ballet that marks the apogee of early 19th-century French choreographic aesthetics reaches three hundred curtain raisings on the Parisian stage. An edition of "Giselle", the one revived at the Palais Garnier, which revives the original creation by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot of 1841 but with the choreographic adaptation signed in 1991 by Patrice Bart and Eugène Polyakov. Today, this is still the version staged by the Ballet dell'Opéra national de Paris directed by José Martinez and which, for the occasion, teams up with no less than eight casts, employing some of the spearheads of the star-studded line-up of the top transalpine company. Among them Dorothée Gilbert returns to measure herself for the last time with the dramatic efficacy of an "incontournable" character in the history of dance theatre and who, with the French "étoile", enjoys textbook "arabesques" and "attitudes", negligible inaccuracies and a rare temperament capable of drawing yearnings of love, spasms and refined stylisation. At his side is the man who has been triumphing for a decade in technical vigour and powerful authenticity: Hugo Marchand modulates each of Albrecht's "chagrin d'amour" with powerful elegance, brilliantly delivering the technical challenges of the second act.
Full appreciation also for Léonore Baulac and Marc Moreau, who in other performances portrayed the well-known romantic drama: if the technical performance of the young protagonist in the first act is not always excellent, the scene of madness is convincing for the clear emotional probing proposed as well as for the polish given to the multiple forms of the "fantôme aérien" in the second act. Elegance, restraint and sobriety are the choices to be found in the character of Albrecht entrusted to Moreau, who in this case we will also remember for the powerful leaps that seal the young duke's suffering.
Worth mentioning in the pas de deux des paysans is the liveliness of Marine Genio and Andrea Sarri as well as the fine musicality of Elizabeth Partington and Théo Ghilbert. Clara Mousseigne and Hohyun Kang, alternating in the role of Myrtha, embellish the Queen of the Wilis respectively with solemnity and executive care.
Full success for the company, which once again reconfirms that it shrewdly investigates an inescapable repertoire.
"Giselle", choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot, adaptation by Patrice Bart and Eugène Polyakov. Music by Adolphe Adam.
