GISELLE at Sadler's Wells - Akram Khan takes Giselle into the dark...

Sometimes you see a production that is so unique, it renders it difficult to put into words exactly what it was you witnessed.  Akram Khan's individual take on GISELLE is such a work.

Commissioned in 2016 by Tamara Rojo for the English National Ballet, Khan's first full-length ballet has toured the country and overseas leaving a trail of superlatives, standing ovations and awards in it's wake.  Stripped of it's usual first act bucolic setting and the second act's gloomy forest grave worthy of Casper David Friedrich, what emerges is a raw, physical interpretation which is short on romanticism but packed with otherworldly tension.

GISELLE was an immediate success when it was first staged in 1841 and has been constantly staged ever since, usually utilizing the choreography of Marius Petipa who staged it for the Russian Imperial Ballet at the end of the 19th Century.  The Royal Ballet's production by Peter Wright has stayed in the repertoire since 1985 and is a vision of romantic tutus and princely doublets.  Khan's is very different.

Instead of bouncy, smiley villagers we are presented with glum, faceless workers pushing against a giant wall with a palpable mournful air, Giselle appears from amongst them and dances with Albrecht who is dressed as one of the workers.  The wall rises to reveal the rich people who live on the other side - thank God the programme had a synopsis as none of this was immediately discernible through the production.  Khan's proletariat are former migrant workers in a clothes factory owned by the rich who have closed it down and the migrants live a hand-to-mouth existence.

As the migrants entertain the rich, Hilarion - who loves our heroine  in vain - provokes a fight with Albrecht which leads to the exposing of the latter as one of the rich slumming it for love of Giselle.  He is assimilated back into the rich tribe - nicely done by him donning a bowler hat - and they retreat back to their privileged life behind the wall.  The outcasts close in on Giselle and disperse leaving her dead.

The second act finds us not in the usual forest graveyard but into the desolate, empty factory where Albrecht remonstrates with the uncaring rich; when they withdraw leaving him to his sorrow he is visited by The Wills, the ghosts of dead factory girls, who revenge themselves on the living.  They summon Giselle to join their ranks after first killing the hapless Hilarion.

Myrtha, the Queen of the Wills chases Albrecht off so they can recruit Giselle into their ghostly ranks but he returns to see his lost love; Giselle forgives Albrecht and protects him against the threats of The Wills but she leaves with them, backing into the darkness forever.  Albrecht is on the immigrants' side of the wall, broken.

It's a truly extraordinary work which utilizes a hard-edged score and soundscape by Vincenzo Lamagna which is based on Adolphe Adam's original GISELLE score but constantly keeps you unsettled and on edge.  Khan's work fully utilizes Tim Yip's design and eerie costumes and Mark Henderson's stark lighting either floods the stage with white light or helps you spot lurking figures in the gloom.

There were remarkably vibrant performances from Erina Takahashi as Giselle who was not the usual ethereal wisp of a character but a physically strong presence on stage and she was matched by the rather wonderful Stina Quagebeur as the statuesque, terrifying Myrtha who in one unforgettable image drags the dead Giselle behind her.  I particularly liked how Khan has the ghostly Wills using traditional ballet pointwork for their scenes - acknowledging the original productions but making them seem eerily not of this earth.  The hapless men were well played by Joseph Caley and Ken Saruhashi as Albrecht and Hilarion.  The ensemble are actually the real stars of the show, strong and silent, changing on a dime from slow hypnotic movements to pelting around the stage at full speed.

By setting his GISELLE in a non-specific place or time, Akram Khan's production is now current, mysterious and timeless.  See it if you can and be haunted by Akram Khan's genius.

SONG OF THE EARTH / LA SYLPHIDE at the London Coliseum

Much to my surprise, my first ballet of 2018 was not at the Royal Ballet or a Matthew Bourne at Sadler's Wells, no it was at the infrequently-visited English National Ballet at the London Coliseum who were presenting an intriguing double-bill of Kenneth MacMillan's SONG OF THE EARTH and the classic romantic ballet LA SYLPHIDE.

It all made for a pleasant and enjoyable evening but both ballets seemed to lack *that* spark or *that* bass note that is found in practically all Royal Ballet productions.  It was all very well-danced but the connection of deep emotion and movement just seemed to be lacking.

In 1965 Kenneth MacMillan choreographed his dance version of Gustav Mahler's song cycle "Das Lied von der Erde" for the Stuttgart Ballet at the invitation of the company's director John Cranko who was an admirer of MacMillan's work.  His vision is based around a man, a woman and a figure representing death who slowly perform solos and pas de deux within a larger ensemble until the figure of death claims the man, but as MacMillan said they "find that in death there is the promise of renewal".

His production was a huge success and eventually opened at the Royal Ballet six months later to equal acclaim, a particular triumph for MacMillan who had wanted to stage it at Covent Garden six years previously but was told the music was wrong for a ballet!  SONG OF THE EARTH famously provided the swansong for Darcey Bussell when she left the Royal Ballet in 2007, the event even being broadcast live on BBC2.

Tamara Rojo was captivating as The Woman while Joseph Caley as The Man and Fernando Carratalá Coloma as The Messenger of Death gave good performances too.  I loved the austere beauty of the production and any occasional lapses I had during it I think can be attributed to that indefinable something that separates the good from the very good.  I would definitely see another production of it again.

After the lyrical and austere symbolism of SONG OF THE EARTH, it was time for the over-the-top narrative romanticism of LA SYLPHEDE - it was quite a wrench!

I have two memories of LA SYLPHIDE - seeing HIGHLAND FLING, Matthew Bourne's modernised take on it in 1994 as well as, and I remembered this just as the curtain went up, having a Walt Disney album when I was growing up of famous pieces of ballet music which had music from LA SYLPHIDE included on it... the memory eh?

LA SYLPHIDE first appeared as a ballet in 1832 in Paris by the choreographer Filippo Taglioni whose equally famous daughter Marie danced the lead role.  Four years later the Danish choreographer August Bournonville wanted to stage it at the Royal Danish Ballet but, when faced with an inflated price by the French for the original score, he simply choreographed his own version to a new score by the Norwegian composer Herman Severin Lovenskiold.  Bournonville's version has been the production that has lived on - indeed this production was from the Royal Danish Theatre - while Taglioni's choreography has vanished from public memory. 

Both were based on an 1822 gothic romantic novel by the French writer Charles Nodier which set the template for Romantic ballets with doomed love, winsome heroines, strapping heroes and flurries of ghostly spirits.

James, a young Scottish man, is asleep on the eve of his wedding day but watched over by a Sylph that adores him.  He awakes but she vanishes before his eyes, he questions his friend who saw nothing but readies himself for the arrival of his bride Effie and her family and their friends.  He thinks he sees the Sylph again but it is an old witch who prophesies that Effie will marry James' best friend.  Finally the Sylph appears again and realizing he loves the ghostly creature, James follows her into the woods, leaving the wedding party in disarray.

Once in the woods the old witch conjures up a cursed diaphanous shawl just as James and The Sylph appear.  The Sylph summons her ghostly ensemble of sisters who dance for the couple but they are eventually interrupted by the wedding guests.  They all leave when James' friend proposes to Effie who accepts.  The witch gives James the shawl to wind around the Sylph but when he does he inadvertently destroys her.  After watching her being lifted to the heavens, James dies.

Unlike the more sombre GISELLE which premiered five years after Bournonville's production, LA SYLPHIDE cannot help but look a bit overwrought and unintentionally lame with it's reliance on over-the-top mimed gestures between the lead characters but it has a charm and what's not to love with a stage crowded with a female ensemble, moving as one in long tutus and wings?

Although the performances of Erina Takahashi as the Sylph and Ciro Tamayo as James were full of light and airiness, again I felt I would have gained more if the Royal Ballet had been dancing it; yes it should be lightweight but there should also be some gravitas in the peril James and the Sylph find themselves in which was lacking here.

However, as an introduction to the two ballets, it more than served it's purpose and I enjoyed the double-bill as such... and it was nice to recall the Disney l.p. too!