Giselle - Albrecht's Original Approach - 3 excerpts - Lavrovsky, Baryshnikov, Vogel

The commonly held view about Albrecht's solo and coda in Act 2 is that the dancer should portray exhaustion and plead for his life, but there is another possible interpretation: Romantic abandonment and self-destruction.

The second interpretation is actually the first - the original one according to Gautier's libretto. Back in the day Romanticism wasn’t sweetly pretty, but a wild rush of passion with speed to match ("flying, bounding, whirling" in Gautier's own words).

For Gautier the second act was the supreme test for both dancers: acting through dancing - dancing at the outer limits of virtuosity, giving the audience the illusion that the dancer has transcended some basic condition of the body.

This interpretation was still the standard in the 1930's, at least in the Western world. It is hard to say how much of Gautier's original "flying, bounding, whirling" had survived Petipa's restaging from 1884, but reviews of the period (1930's) speak of "love death", "youthful fervor of dancing", and mention how Albrecht's jumps rise in elevation toward the end like "an ecstatic possession". No mention of exhaustion or pleading. In the 40's things began to change, but the original approach experienced a sort of "revival" in the 70's.

For the montage I've selected excerpts from three "Romantic" full-length performances. There's still some pleading going on, particularly in the first and last perf, while the middle one has hints of "ecstatic possession". I wanted to include the soaring grand jetes from the lilies episode, too, but my videos are limited to 15 min.

1975 Bessmertnova/Lavrovsky (Bolshoi)    • Giselle Natalya Bessmertnova Mikhail ...  
1977 Makarova/Baryshnikov (Kirov+ABT)    • "Giselle" ABT 1977 Part 9 (Act II Gra...  
2009 Ueno/Vogel (Tokyo/Stuttgart Ballet)    • Friedemann Vogel and Mizuka Ueno in '...  

The Bolshoi choreography(!) is credited to Grigorovich (Coralli/Perrot and Petipa's revision apparently didn't count for the Soviets, lol). The ABT production is credited to David Blair (with choreo credited to Coralli/Perrot), yet it is different from the 1969 Fracci/Bruhn performance also credited to Blair.