... I saw Jared Matthews as Gurn Wed Eve and he was very 'danseur noble' most of the time, but did go over-the-top with the lunatic bit--it was very Alain. It also robbed the ballet of its pathos and made it a little hard to take it seriously after that....
Thanks for the welcome
I just looked up what it says in "101 Stories of the Great Ballets" (G Ballanchine and F Mason) about the Gurn role, and here are the first few descriptions:
-- "Gurn, another young peasant, rests in a corner against the fireplace. In his deep sleep, Gurn is not disturbed by the realization of his friend's dream; he himself dreams of Effie, Jame's bride-to-be, and the love he will lose this day." In the ABT production, there is a man resting his head on a table in the background where James is in the foreground in the chair, but I think Gurn enters through the door later and the "other" man sleeping might not have been Gurn. I'm going to check this later. Also, the ABT synopsis says that Gurn is James' counsin instead of friend.
-- After the Sylphide disappears in the fireplace, James "shakes his friend awake rudely. Did he see the beautiful vision? How long have we slept? Gurn is a little embarassed at his own dream and is about to tell James yes, he saw the beautiful girl, but he sees that his friend is not talking about Effie, the bride, but about someone quite different. He wonders at his friend." I'm not sure this happened in the ABT production. The Ballanchine description seems to have James more voluntarily disclosing to Gurn the sylphide than the ABT production portrays, but I'm not sure about this.
-- When Effie arrives, "Gurn greets the bride first.... Gurn can hardly control himself, he is so moved by her loveliness, meekly he presents her with a rare bird he killed yesterday while hunting. Effie accepts the gift...." Did this happen in the ABT production?
It seems like there is flexibility as to what to include in a production.
C Lopez's depiction of Gurn was not at all "danseur noble", although it that might have been particularly difficult to pursue that type of characterization beside Hallberg.
C Lopez was decent in the Gurn role. He came across as a person who thought about life more simply and practically than James, but that is in part due to Hallberg's portrayl of James and the refined aura to Hallberg's dancing (e.g., the elegant and princely, instead of peasantly, way that Hallberg, not unexpectedly, danced the group dance during the part of the wedding before he leaves in pursuit of the slyphide). A minor note (I know I shouldn't think about such things) that Carlos' hair, with the little rounded peak above his forehead, was a bit distracting and made his Gurn look slightly less serious than I would have liked. That Carlos' hair was covered by the pirate scarf tied around his head was why Carlos' costuming for Birbanto in Le Corsaire served him better (May 26: Hallberg as Conrad, Corella as Ali, P Herrera as Medora, Y Kajiya as Gulnare). His hair was hidden.
Anyhow, C Lopez on both Tuesday and Thursday mimicked the la Sylphide in two intentionally funny instances during Act 1. The first was when Gurn recounts to Effie and James' mother how there had been a sylphide, and the second is after James disappears during the wedding scene. In both instances, C Lopez uses his whole body to portray this. He flails his arms in sequence forward, almost like the arm movement in the freestyle position in swimming, but each arm is more arched in shape in a round way as he does this. He takes delibrately clown-like steps forward. These movements are exaggerated, and intended to be funny. I thought Carlos did them well.
The Ballanchine stories summary does not say that Gurn tries to tell Effie and James' mother about the sylphide before Madge enters the picture.