Giselle
Staging: Carla Fracci (2004)
Balletto dell’Opera di Roma
Teatro dell’Opera, Rome
25 & 27 February 2010
How often today do you see a Giselle that is just right? Despite its strong structure and legendary status, it is not necessarily an easy ballet to present to 21st-century audiences. The mime in Act I may bother people who can’t make sense of the action – Act II may just be slightly off, making the army of Wilis on stage look odd or ridiculous. The production Carla Fracci designed for the Balletto dell’Opera di Roma, which she has been heading since 2000, is a gift in many respects. It pleases the audience by adding short scenes to explain the structure and reactions of the court surrounding Albrecht, and provides balletomanes with the elusive experience that has become a myth by now – a Giselle in the true Romantic style, as restrained and moving as you hear it can be. The Italian corps de ballet surpassed itself in Act II, and if the company doesn’t have any world-class principals, Carla Fracci had certainly picked the right guests to lead them. Ballerinas don’t get much more different than Ashley Bouder, the Balanchine-trained American prodigy, and Evgenia Obraztsova, the delicate, lyrical pearl from the Mariinsky Ballet – but I hope Rome knows it was treated to two masterful interpretations, going far beyond technique, and greatly helped by Robert Tewsley and David Makhateli in the role of Albrecht. (…)
» Read the full review in Ballet.co Magazine (April 2010)
Giselle at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma © Falsini
