Indelible Shadows on the Wings of History: PNB's Giselle, Round Two

“Of elves in white dresses, whose hems are always damp…of snow-coloured wilis who waltz pitilessly, and of all those delicious apparitions you have encountered in the Harz mountains and on the banks of the Ilse, in a mist softened by German moonlight…”

-Théophile Gautier, July 5th, 1841

The balance of innovative new creations and historical preservation within Pacific Northwest Ballet’s mission has consistently proven the benefits of remaining in relation to the past while strengthening the future of the art form. Nearly every ballet company has a Giselle, but when Pacific Northwest Ballet wished to add the ballet to the repertoire, a beautiful choice was made: to not just “do Giselle” but to create a historically-sourced production that is significant in its preservation, insight, and overall resuscitation of intent.

In the wake of La Sylphide’s 1832 success, Théophile Gautier and Jules Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges were led by their desire for a ballet about wilis, who seemed a fitting matter in the days of newly born flight made possible by the innovation of pointe work. Stumbling upon the mention of “snow-colored wilis” in Heinrich Heine’s “On Germany”, Gautier recalled exclaiming, “Wouldn’t this make a pretty ballet?” and, with Saint-Georges, quickly formulated a story that would lead to that gloriously chilling second act, which is so different from the first that it is almost an entirely different ballet.

At nearly 185 years old, Giselle is one of the oldest ballets still performed today, and thanks to multiple surviving documents, it is a ballet whose original production we know quite a bit about. Countless early ballets fell out of fashion, and thus out of repertory and were lost, but Giselle has defied the hands of time. It was an instant success when it premiered in Paris in 1841, but what is it about the ballet that not only earned its survival, but still lets it resonate 185 years later? As the Courrier des théatres wrote on July 4th, 1841: “There is fire at the box office for Giselle. All the firefighters in the world couldn’t do anything about it.” But before this inspired creation took flight, Théophile Gautier had doubted his instinct, for he thought there was no way to present the “makings of legend and ballad that have so little relevance to our present way of life.” And yet, the coherency of its plot, its pure dramatic poetry and supernatural elements, as well as the morally rich nature of Giselle, is still timelessly impactful today.

Though Peter Boal’s Giselle revives forgotten gestures and scenes, it perhaps most importantly presents characters in their intended hues. As the ballet traveled from its Parisian home, characters were inevitably passed along like a game of telephone, reduced to one characteristic element instead of portraying well-rounded, real flesh and blood characters. If Myrtha is purely heartless, Loys unforgivable, Hilarion only overbearingly cruel, and Giselle nothing but a feeble, shy thing, then we lose the human complexity and the truth of the story.

Much of this character shaping is carried by pantomime, which would explain why productions that have aimed for “pure dance” lack these distinctions of character. Like ballets of its time, Giselle was originally nearly half composed of action and mime, and taking mime out of a ballet that was woven with it as an essential element would be for the ballet to lose its tongue. Giselle’s character grows dulled and weak without her passionate mime. The Titus répétieur shows her miming “Where is he? He will pay!” when Loys is nowhere to be found after he has knocked on her door, instead of having her just look about in vain, as many productions do. Without pantomime, she has no words to stand up to Hilarion with, to rebel against her mother with, or to show us the feist that will eventually save Albert’s life.

Cutting out Berthe’s monologue also negatively impacts the character development of Giselle and Loys, for we do not get to witness the essential moment where Giselle brushes off her mother’s threat of the wilis, only for her to see Loys growing fearful and then, for a brief moment, to be overcome by a quiet concern herself. Myrtha also has an essential bit of pantomime where she tells the wilis that Giselle, like them all, died of love, which gives these cold creatures a layer of humanity and impulse otherwise lost. And how can we know how deeply Hilarion cares if he cannot use clear, impassioned gesture to tell us so? Pantomime restoration alone is a reason why Pacific Northwest Ballet’s production of Giselle presents a vastly richer tale. 

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Clara Ruf Maldonado with soloist Kuu Sakuragi, in Peter Boal’s acclaimed staging of Giselle. Photo © Angela Sterling.

Regardless of sources, reconstruction is about choices. Even Alexei Ratmanksy’s 2019 Giselle for the Bolshoi Ballet, which, like PNB’s production, strove to use both French and Russian sources, did not do much to change the nature of the characters despite claiming to. Though Ratmansky did use Justamant notation to retrieve some pantomime, the details that shape Giselle’s character the most–that is, her musically-aligned moments of defiance, and strong will in Act One–seem to perhaps only land here in Seattle. This character who we know so dearly, the one declaring “he will pay”, who knocks over a basket of grapes in her refusal to work, who argues with her mother, and stands up to Hilarion with both a bout of anger and some light taunting of her love for Loys, is the greatest gift of Peter Boal’s staging, for she is impassioned, and undoubtedly real in her convictions.

It’s hard not to adore Giselle from the moment she springs from her cottage door. There is no other character in the classical canon who undergoes such a transformation in the span of two hours, who blatantly shows us so much of herself, or portrays such an evolution of character. Giselle has gained a reputation for being a glamorization of female oppression, but in Peter Boal’s staging, as in the original production, one could claim the opposite. From the moment she appears before us, she is defiant and headstrong, standing up to Loys when he is late, then pushing back against Hilarion, and her mother as well. In the second act, this quiet, steely strength allows her to forgive Loys, and to be the only character capable of defying Myrtha. She is confident, vivacious, and above all, full of a kind of verve that transcends her every step.

In each hand, the role tells a completely different tale, enough so that when the first Giselle, Carlotta Grisi, left the Opera in 1849 after performing in nearly every performance of Giselle for eight years, the ballet went on hiatus. As Cyril W. Beaumont remarked, Giselle is “to the dancer what Hamlet is to the actor.” Like Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, it’s a role of duality. It tasks a dancer with a portrayal of abundant youth and a ghostly, weightless pallor, as well as a connecting thread of character between these two visions of Giselle that we see. It requires immense emotional intensity, an ability to coincide humor with vulnerability, and a fundamental, unwavering strength that lets technical tests unfold as genuine expression.

Hilarion’s confrontation of Giselle and Loys is a scene that has, quite suddenly, grown to carry enormous weight in my eyes. In every other version I’ve found, Giselle coils from him and moves away out of fear or annoyance. Her brief words are wilting gestures that she barely dares to shape, and she turns to Loys out of helplessness. But at Pacific Northwest Ballet, Giselle is not fearful, but rather enraged. The physical movement across the stage mirrors what is seen in most productions, but the intention is entirely different. Giselle moves away from Hilarion because she is angry, not frightened. This unapologetic anger and clarity of the line she draws is perhaps only matched in the repertoire by Juliet’s refusal of Paris in Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette, (but then again, that ballet is only 29 years old, not 185). Hilarion's confrontation is only a minute long, yet what we learn about Giselle impacts how we see her role throughout the entirety of the ballet.

During Saturday’s matinee, Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan brought such astonishing fury to this brief scene that it was enough to overwhelm one with the implications of portraying female anger and agency in a ballet as classical as Giselle. Though it may seem overdone to say so, the impact of this one small, rarely depicted outrage is, for every young girl and woman alike in the audience, no small thing at all.

It was during this same performance that I realized that the gift of Ryan’s interpretation of any character is that she is led internally, not externally. That is to say, that every reaction, gesture, step, and emotion stems from an authentic inner lucidity of character, rather than prescription. She shows us Giselle’s motivations and intentions in a way that clarifies the character until she is fully real before us, rooted with such verity within the role that watching her, one’s own hold of reality tapers. Just like her Swanilda, Ryan’s Giselle is gloriously strong-willed, and in a ballet laden with implications if one is willing to see them, that is enough to extend the story’s meaning far beyond its threshold. 

With a spring in her step, Ryan’s Giselle has an infectious love of dance that imbues her movement with a roaring sense of life. As Alastair Macaulay once said, “She caught your heart from the moment she came out of the cottage and never let go of it.” And indeed, as Giselle, Ryan wears her heart on her sleeve; deeply feeling, uninhibited, and full of elated spontaneity that all stems from a rich understanding of who Giselle is.

Even on round two, her mad scene is the kind of bold envisioning that knocks the wind out of you. She is wildly overtaken, unrecognizable in an instant, with a boiling might that suddenly renders her wilting and tender under memory’s burden. The authenticity of her alienation from reality and feverish heartache cannot be understated.

In the second act, Ryan does not carry forgiveness lightly, but rather lets it underline the intention of every gesture and motivation. The strength and feeling that survives her death, and the soul that transcends her physical form, fills each inflection with meaning until they are not steps at all anymore. She is unbelievably solid, and from such stability floats a breathless flow of ethereality that slows the hands of time, passionate and steadfast in all she does.

 In Kyle Davis’ Albert, we see his good-hearted intentions, for he is so genuine and charming that one cannot comprehend that he could have any malicious intent. In his dancing, it’s never about show, only a brilliant expression that happens to be precisely witty in its exactitude. He is also genuinely thoughtful, caring, and reassuring enough that, unlike some Alberts, he earns our forgiveness before Giselle even knows there’s anything to forgive. To think that we haven’t seen them together in a full-length since Coppélia is a crime, for their chemistry grazes a deep nerve and makes one forget you’re watching a ballet altogether. In each small, intimate exchange and attention to minuscule detail, it is abundantly apparent how deeply they understand and care about Giselle and Albert, never wasting a moment of storytelling potential to give the tale the weight and truth it deserves. A most heartfelt bravo.

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan and Kyle Davis as Giselle and Albert, in Peter Boal’s acclaimed staging of Giselle. Photo © Angela Sterling.

It’s always a wonderful thing when, in the final stretch of a run, a fresh interpretation makes one realize that artistic choices can make a ballet new again. Madison Rayn Abeo has a decisive interpretation of Giselle’s timing, accents, and musicality that lets familiar steps unfold as entirely her own invention. The upwards, sustained emphasis in the waltz, breath-stillingly slow attitude turns, pique turns that declare the boldness of her spirit, and of course, the placement of her hands and heavenly épaulement give it all a grace that has always been her own. Her bright character sings with youth, with playful jest, a beautiful stubbornness, and details that, even after two weekends of performances, seemed to reshape the walls of the story (peering in the window for Loys, sneaking around her mother with swift delight, a clenched fist for Hilarion, the most grateful deep curtsy to Bathilde, and the humor of her legs flung in the opposite direction at her mother’s tug).

A sous-sus has never been so beautiful as when Abeo finds moments of stillness to extend a breath and hold it there, with a nearly moral elevation. There is also a remarkable naturalness to her lively Giselle; nothing is forced, but simply flows with spontaneity. Such naturalism is what marks her mad scene. There is no light switch of insanity, as many interpretations find, but rather, a slow-building climb to a state of mental drifting from reality. The authenticity of her portrayal stems from nuanced delicacy. She finds a truth that somehow lets us see what her dazed eyes see: a plucked daisy, the embrace of an invisible arm, and the sweet remembrance that coils into frightening, possessed delirium. The drama of the mad scene makes it incredibly easy to project an exaggerated theatricality that almost verges on caricature, but as Abeo finds, the human truth within such a wandering state is hauntingly real when carried with innate verismo.

In Act Two, the elevation of Act One becomes spiritual. In his letter to Heinrich Heine after the premiere of Giselle, Théophile Gautier wrote that in Act Two, Giselle “bounds and rebounds in an intoxication of liberty…no longer being weighed down by that thick coverlet of heavy earth.” Nowhere is that more true than in Abeo’s Giselle, who sheds her human form in an instant, lifted by gossamer wings. Three years ago at her debut, this polarity between Act One and Two stood out as a particular gift of her interpretation, and yet, three years was enough to forget to what extent she becomes a real sylph, spun of air, and mist, and ghostly sorrow. 

Giselle’s second act is full of levity, but Abeo never once appears to push from the earth. Instead, she floats to absurd heights, seemingly drawn from above rather than propelled from below. From her first entrance, this quality reveals her to be from a different realm. It was during this final performance that I realized there are two ways to perform the second act. One can either retain Giselle’s humanity or shed it entirely to spring forth in truly ghostlike form, with an eerie, transcendent calm. As Violette Verdy once reflected, Giselle must be “endowed with the extraordinary understanding of a supernatural being”, and Abeo has a meditative flow that weaves a breathless vision of such understanding. With a heaven-directed gaze and silken limbs that tenderly graze the air, her touch upon the earth is vaporous (echoing a review from 1841 in which Grisi was described as no longer having “the earth below her feet”). There’s also a maturity in the purity of her line and embodiment of unearthly poesy that makes this second act a haunting spell of disbelief.

Luther DeMyer may be a poet of gestural integrity, for his debut as Albert revealed such earnest intention and passion. The longing eyes that only see his dear Giselle soon burn with the raging fury that he unleashes during the mad scene (clutching Giselle’s skirt like he can retain some element of her being, and beside himself with disbelief). He has a beautiful pacing with grief in Act Two, entering with steps that carry the entire weight of his remorse, and delivering heartfelt, flowing mime. When airborne, he pushes himself to immense heights with an inner drive that never seems to falter, even as dawn begins to rise.

Pacific Northwest Ballet soloist Dammiel Cruz-Garrido as Hilarion, with PNB company dancers, in Peter Boal’s acclaimed staging of Giselle. Photo © Angela Sterling.

If we feel for Hilarion by the time he’s thrown into the lake, then the dancer has done his job. Dylan Wald’s Hilarion is particularly well-rounded in a way that lets us see the many sides of his character: that he eventually just wants the best for Giselle, that he’s delighted by his own cleverness, and that what he’s fighting for is the truth. He’s nearly unrecognizable in his gritted tension and might that bursts across the stage, but by the time the wilis have him hostage, we can’t help but feel for him.

Dammiel Cruz-Garrido is a Hilarion of immense presence, whose bold energy is a commanding threat strengthened by his impeccable musical timing and gestural emphasis. He is perfectly crude, ruthless in his fury as he pushes peasants out of the way, and brings a true humanity to Hilarion’s motives.

When Hilarion has fled from the wooded clearing, Myrtha’s entrance is a sacred thing. With an unearthly presence, Amanda Morgan brims with serene sorrow that lifts out of her like a breath. She shows us Myrtha’s layers of concealed humanity, even gifting her a glimmer of joy amidst the zealous ruthlessness that reveals her pleasure in cruelty.

The peasant pas de deux, now a beloved part of Act One, was a last-minute addition before Giselle’s premiere to please the dancer Nathalie Fitz-James and her patron, who desperately wanted her to have her own moment in the sun. As Adolphe Adam was unavailable to supply more music, Jean Corelli turned to music by the German composer Friedrich Bürgmuller, who brings a great deal of authentic, audible German folk characteristics to the “local color” of the ballet. Though four casts shone in this run of the peasant pas de deux, a wonderful surprise arose from the act of putting rank aside for a moment. 

At Yuki Takahashi’s side, apprentice Jory Luther’s debut left me shaking my head in disbelief. He’s got a presence of great stature, with spring, elasticity, and clarity that makes the tightest axis in his double tours look like nothing but nonchalant flight. As for Takahashi, her time-suspended ease makes even the trickiest passage of the peasant pas de deux look effortless. Her airborne calm and lighter-than-air presence are perhaps only paralleled by her exquisitely defined attitude that always seems to carve the air with sharpened clarity.

Adolphe Adam’s score for Giselle might be what paved the way for Tchaikovsky, but this score was composed in an entirely different manner than Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker would go on to be. Adam worked hand in hand with Jean Corelli, Jules Perrot, and Carlotta Grisi, often composing in the studio while the choreography was being set, whereas Tchaikovsky’s ballets were ordered by the measure. Thus, Adam’s music is of a different quality, for it is tightly bound to the movement with audible knocks, the slightest changes in mood or action, and notes that occasionally match the syllables of mimed French words. The music supports the drama like a movie score and strengthens its impact. All in all, the score, laced with leitmotifs, themes, and hidden meaning, was composed within 59 days. As Adam later reflected, “I composed this music with happiness. I was in a hurry, which always fires my imagination.” Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Orchestra, led by Emil de Cou, swells his score to its richest potential, and Alexander Grimes’ viola solo in Act Two spins moonlit sorrow with visceral depth of sincerity time and time again.

Tremendous recognition must also go to the corps de ballet and professional division students for the cohesiveness found within the web of the wilis. Their synchronicity is a powerful force. In a pocket of the woods, winged beings flit through symmetries, canons, and formations of white bells, like lilies of the valley in a row. From the moment they appear, just sixteen shrouded women and their queen, the beauty of their unity and sisterhood evokes a breathless wonder. They are stepping in history, as they rise from their graves, breathing with a sense of not only every dancer who has danced these roles across time, but the significance of a fierce flock of women, waiting in the woods for their prey. 

The only problem with Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Giselle is that it spoils you and makes any other version look like a watered-down copy. The deep woods, glistening lake, dappled moonlight, and mist hanging in the trees, the humanity of the characters developed to an extent that it is painful to watch them slip away...it is all a richly poetic beauty that feeds the soul in some mysterious way.

Until next time, dear Giselle…

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Christopher D’Ariano and Elizabeth Murphy as Albert and Giselle, in Peter Boal’s acclaimed staging of Giselle. Photo © Angela Sterling.

Giselle streams through April 27th for digital subscribers. Learn more here: https://www.pnb.org/season/digital/

Sources:

“The Ballet Called Giselle” by Cyril W. Beaumont

“Giselle: the Role of a Lifetime” by Violette Verdy

“Five Ballets from Paris and St. Petersburg” by Doug Fullington and Marian Smith