BALLETOMANEGIRL'S REVIEW ABOUT RB 'GISELLE'
On Monday I saw the live screening of Giselle performed by the Royal Ballet and starring Natalia Osipova and Carlos Acosta in the principal roles.
I have decided to write a personal review about it :)
First of all, this event was presented by one of my favourite retired ballerinas, The Royal Ballet's former principal Darcey Bussell, who was so excited because of this performance that also said 'I want to go back to the dancing again' and I wished it could be possible! Before the 1st act started short interviews with the main characters of the ballet were showed.
In her interview, Natalia said 'I really feel like Giselle when I'm on stage.' and, believe me, she was really Giselle on Monday night!
Natalia Osipova portrayed perfectly Giselle's character. She was innocent, joyful, light-hearted, and of course really in love with Albrecht. During Giselle's variation in the 1st act, the dancer has to do a sort of little hops en pointe (I don't know how to explain this better, anyway I mean the moves the dancer does from the min. 1:28 in this video) and at a certain pointe Natalia did them spinning! I imagined her saying something like 'I can do this part of the variation even on someone's head and it will still look perfect!' LOL. I think her performance was gorgeous, but what I liked the most in the 1st act was, as many of you could easily guess, the Madness Scene.
Natalia is a brilliant actress, in my opinion. Her face is very expressive, also the producer of this performance, Peter Wright, said the same thing about her when Darcey Bussell interviewed him during the interval between the 1st and the 2nd act. Osipova could portrait Giselle's shock after discovering Albrecht's betrayal so well that I actually believed she was really Giselle, and when she fell to the ground and died, I actually thought she was dead! Natalia made me cry, I think she could have been a great dramatic actress if she didn't have become a ballerina. I also want to say I liked her Madness Scene even more than Svetlana Zakharova's, and I know I may be killed from most of you for this opinion but I really had to express it!
Carlos Acosta was a remarkable performer too. I have to say he isn't one of my favourite male dancers (if you visit my blog and read my "About me" you'll discover who are my favourite dancers) but I appreciated his performance very much, although I am not keen on The Royal Ballet's dancers' style.
Anyway, Carlos was an handsome Count Albrecht and was also able to show his sorrow for Giselle's death in the second act. I am not an expert in ballet, especially for what is about male ballet technique, but I think he is a very manly dancer and has a good technique.
The character of Hilarion was played by Thomas Whitehead, The Royal Ballet's soloist. Although his role isn't very important and he danced just a few seconds in the 2nd act, he could portrait Hilarion's jealousy and anger against Albrecht very well. And when in the first act he knocked on the little house in which Albrecht hid his sword and he made a rake fall accidentally, he just put it away as it was a normal part of the choreography, and that's pretty appreciable. I know professional dancers are supposed to keep calm on stage and don't panick if something goes wrong, but I remember quite well how dancers in my ballet school panicked when, for example, they lost a shoe on stage while they were dancing, and I also remember well that my teachers appreciated how I didn't use to panick but just threw my shoe away and kept on dancing when I understood I was losing it (it was the only thing they appreciated about me, but anyway let's get back to the ballet review!)
Hikaru Kobayashi was Myrtha. She disappointed me a little. I mean, I know I was an horrible dancer and now I don't even dance, but I expected a more expressive Myrtha, that's all. Anyway, she was very graceful in all her movements and at the end of the day her performance was a pleasant one! The Wilis were beautiful: before the second act, the ROH showed a short movie following Annette Buvoli, the youngest ballerina of the company, rehearsing in Giselle's second act as a Wili. In this movie there were interviews with corps de ballet dancers and their teacher, in which they explained why the Wilis have the arms in their characteristic position: they act like they are holding children who were never born from never happened marriages. The corps de ballet was very synchronized, they really looked like one person and this showed they really worked hard on this performance as it was showed by the short movie.
The second act was espectacular, the only contrast made with the firs act was the unreal world of the Wilis' wood and the sad feelings, because the quality of the performance was as beautiful as the one of the first act! :)
I really loved this performance. At the end I was like the only person clapping and almost crying, but I didn't care because I felt like I was actually at the Royal Opera House in London and not just at the cinema... there's only one thing I didn't like about the live screening, but it has got nothing to do with the performance: during Darcey Bussell's interview to the producer Peter Wright and, if I'm not wrong, to the choreographer (?), there weren't Italian subtitles. I mean, I could understand what they said easily since I'm studying English at school and I write only in English on Tumblr (and it makes me improve a lot!) but there were also little girls from Primary School and old people who didn't study English at school and they probably didn't understand anything, and that was such a shame since the interview was very interesting!
Anyway, this is my first review about a ballet performance! :) I hope you like it and please, don't be rude about my opinions. I know I actually can't dislike any dancer in the world lol, but I just think every dancer has something unique inside them to share with the whole world through their dancing.
Here are some pictures I took from the screen, sorry for the quality but I was in the second line of seats and the screen was very high, so it was like I had my head inside it lol and had to turn my head to the ceiling to watch the performance better :P
