We had competing versions of the same ballet across the Bay from each other last weekend, each very good in its way, neither great. A great version of Giselle, perhaps the greatest ballet of all time, is a transcendent experience to be talked about for the rest of your life. In Berkeley, the former-Soviet State Ballet of Georgia danced three Giselle s in Zellerbach Hall. They have moved on now, but San Francisco Ballet continues their fine Giselle through this Sunday (Feb. 24) at the Opera House. Both Maria Kochetkova and Kristin Long promise to be wonderful heroines.
Like Hamlet, Giselle is a ghost story, and like Hamlet, it's forever young. As George Balanchine said, every generation has found something of themselves in this ballet, in these themes, this story. Giselle (Paris, 1841) was not the first ballet to exploit the way that toe-dancing and eerie gas-lighting could create the illusion of ghostly spirits, but never before had we become so involved in the life of the girl who died. Giselle is a peasant girl who is seduced by the local nobleman, who has disguised himself but unexpectedly falls in love with her. By accident, the imposture is revealed in front of everybody. She refuses to believe it, and her mad scene can be more upsetting than Ophelia's. In the second act, Giselle's lover visits her grave to beg forgiveness, and is surrounded by remorseless furies who make him dance til he drops. If the ghost of Giselle had not defied them, and taken on some of the burden of dancing, he would have died. Dawn comes up like the cavalry to the rescue, he survives, Giselle forgives him and returns to her grave. Never was there better pretext for telling a story through dancing.
The great Soviet productions treated Giselle as revolutionary propaganda: why should upper-class men have the right to the virginity of the lower-class female? Like the starving child on the Oxfam poster, Soviet ballerinas made you feel you should do something about this. They made the heroine a brave, complex girl, and even today, the best Giselles come out of communist Cuba, where her story remains a burning issue, and ballerinas spend years developing their interpretations.
Both versions we saw are post-communist, and each has a splendid second act, with wonderfully airy, floating, ghostly dancers, but with weak first acts that make our girl one-dimensional. Helgi Tomasson's pretty-pretty staging for SFB includes much new Act I choreography: the steps are brilliant, but they prattle on and achieve at most a brilliant sweetness. By contrast, former Bolshoi director Alexei Fadeyechev's version for the Georgian company pares back the detail. But he, too, falls short, and gives us a blunt peasant girl it's hard to lose your heart to.
Since the break-up of the Soviet Empire, dancers from the great Russian schools have scattered across the globe. A number have settled in San Francisco; Guennadi Nedviguin will probably be our greatest Albrecht, and SFB's new ballerina Maria Kochetkova is a recent graduate of the Bolshoi, and probably will be our greatest exponent of the heroine.
The State Ballet of Georgia was once a great Soviet regional company; it has regained strength under the direction of the native Georgian ballerina Nina Ananiashvili. She's 40-something now, gained prominence in the 80s at the Bolshoi, and is bringing the company back to life. They opened with a mixed bill including an enjoyable premiere of an �urban-folk" ballet by another ex-Bolshoi friend, Yuri Possokhov, who's now resident choreographer here at SFB.
So how was SFB? Opening night, Yuan-Yuan Tan's first-act Giselle flickered between the pathetic and the heroic. Sometimes she simply showed off her legs, which are amazing, but it's distracting. The mad scene was all over the place; I found myself counting. It's not Tan's fault — she is a remarkable artist. She needs stronger direction, a good coach who can work out a coherent interpretation and give her the through-line. Her jumps in Act II were glorious.
SFB's casting was very strong: Tiit Hellimets supported beautifully as her lover, and Sofiane Sylve was magnificent as the Queen of the Wilis. Excellent mime from Damien Smith, Erin McNulty, Rory Hohenstein, and Val Caniparoli kept the story moving. The five brilliant peasant soloists were Nicolas Blanc, Pascal Molat, Frances Chung, Elizabeth Miner, and Clara Blanco. They danced impeccably. The corps and the orchestra were superb.