27 replies to this topic

[Giselle05]

Personally I can't imagine Giselle with something before it! It is my favorite full length ballet, and I like to sit down and prepare myself, and as soon as I hear the strains of those opening measures, I am transported into a different world. :-)

[drb]

I remember a great pairing:  Makarova in Voluntaries (Shibata in the pas de trois), followed by Kirkland in Giselle.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That was a memorable pairing, and it was apt, as this quote from choreographer Glen Tetley suggests: “although there is a fall into gravity or into death,” there also is “a continual lifting, a continual trying to soar, like angels, in what is almost a constellation of light.”
But as you also point out, Baryshnikov had excised the PPD, so that Giselle wasn't "whole." One wonders why Tetley, and especially Voluntaries, has vanished from ABT. It was certainly a hit. Perhaps the problem is that it requires an organ? In any case, I'd like it back into the rep, even though I don't feel ABT's current version of Giselle needs an intro piece.

[atm711]

In the days when Ballet Theatre had an opening ballet before Giselle---there was no peasant PDD in the first act, which made the ballet considerably shorter, and, IMO, made for a better flow of the action.

[rg]

as i recall when ABT's david blair production of GISELLE, danced alternately at the start of its life in nyc in 1968 by either serrano(?) & fernandez and fracci & bruhn, the curtain raiser at the new met op house was michael smuin's PULCINELLA VARIATIONS.

[Paquita]

On a side note: In the NBoC's upcoming fall season, there will be another pairing of a full length ballet and a one-act piece- The Cage and La Sylphide!

Giselle and Stravinsky Violin Concerto were enjoyable but made for a very long program, especially considering that Kudelka presented his "Contract" alone, even though it is just under 90 minutes and has no intermission.

[carbro]

ABT always adds a second ballet to LaSylphide.

Now, pairing The Cage with Giselle -- some would call that redundant!

[richard53dog]

as i recall when ABT's david blair production of GISELLE, danced alternately at the start of its life in nyc in 1968 by either serrano(?) & fernandez and fracci & bruhn, the curtain raiser at the new met op house was michael smuin's PULCINELLA VARIATIONS.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yup, I saw this at the The NJ Arts Center(it now has been privatized and has some other name) in Holmdel in early Summer 1969.

As I recall, in three nights I saw Fracci and Bruhn in Copellia and Giselle and Serrano and Fernandez in Swan Lake. I would have guessed that Pulcinella
Variations was a curtain raiser for Copellia, but I'm sure rg's memory is much more reliable than mine.

I saw all these dancers quite a few times, EXCEPT Toni Lander danced with Bruce Marks in Pulcinella and it was the only real ballerina role I saw her do. She retired pretty soon after that.

Would Lander have done Myrtha? I no longer have the program but it doesn't ring a bell

Richard

Edited by richard53dog, 08 August 2005 - 10:34 AM.

[atm711]

I saw a performance of 'Giselle' with two 'closing' ballets The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1950) opened with Chauvire's Giselle and followed with the 3rd Act of Paquita with Danilova, and closed with a ballet called Birthday with Mary Ellen Moylan......

[Mel Johnson]

Remember, La Sylphide opened as with a curtain-raiser of Act III of Rossini's Moise, which has its own fifteen-minute ballet!

[MinkusPugni]

Although I think it is unnecessary, if it does have a curtain-raiser it should be something of Perrot's like the Pas de Quatre.

[carbro]

I think something contrasting would be better.

I once attended a program at NYCB of all-Balanchine, all-leotard ballets. They were great ballets (I think both Barocco and 4Ts were on the bill), but by the end, I was longing for pink tutus. Variety is important. That's why Petipa mixed character with classical, with processions and mime mixed in, to vary the mood and texture of his evening-length works.

[MinkusPugni]

Just because they are the same choreographer, doesn't mean they are exactly the same. I believe the Pas de Quatre is completely different from Giselle. Plus the two acts of Giselle are also completely different so there is quite a lot of variety. I think that a mixed programme that includes a full-length ballet should always be of the same choreographer. For example, the Australian Ballet just performed La Sylphide and selections from Bournonville ballets were curtain-raisers (Le Conservatoire Pas de Trois, Flower Festival Pas de Deux). This was good because you could see other aspects of the choreographer's work.

[Hans]

Giselle was revised heavily by Petipa, which is probably one reason they're so different.