Your Favorite Pairing In Giselle (live And On Film)

[nysusan]

... Thank God for the film of Maximova. ..

Is there an actual film out there of her in the full length Giselle?

[omshanti]

Wow Leonid thank you for writing about your memories of Margot Fonteyn as Giselle, that was incredible. Is there anyone out there who has seen Galina Ulanova in Giselle and can share memories of her like Leonid did with Margot Fonteyn. I am so interested.

[bart]

I echo the thanks of others, leonid. I don't know about dance critics, but you certainly have all the fluency in these matters that anyone could possibly want.

I especially love dance writing that describes and attempts to explain the extraordinary effect that certain dancers have on an entire audience, not just her special fans. (This effect, as you say, transcends simple issues of technique.) Here's an example from your post:

In Act II Fonteyn created the allusion of weightless flight without great elevation and her quality of ‘stillness’ emphasized her ‘other world’ life. Again, it was her flow of movement arising from her innate musicality, port de bras and balance in arabesques with no separation of technical expression destroying the characterization of her love being strong enough to go beyond the grave.

I saw Fonteyn on stage as Odile, Aurora and Juliet. Video (especially the blotchy black, white and grey variety and early versions of color) does not do her justice.

As I said earlier, I've always regretted missing her in Giselle. Any doubts about her ability to embody the essence youthfulness always vanished as soon as she appeared on stage.