'Giselle' reviews Murru in reviews Guillem in reviews recent La Scala reviews

Sylvie's Giselle - my thoughts. I have to say that I DID read the reviews beforehand, but deliberately didn't read the programme notes until afterwards.

To start at the beginning: the orchestra impressed me right from the start. A good reading of the score throughout, played with conviction (and great speed in the last act! Albrecht's grand allegro variation was stormed through faster than I've ever heard it - and all credit to Massimo Murru for being able to jump that fast!) and accuracy (the horn calls in act 1 were particularly impressive). I loved the on-stage band and the peasant pdd (I noticed that that bit was not in the usual score without having to read the programme notes, so feel very proud of myself as I haven't seen the conventional reading since 1995!). A superb performance by David Garforth and the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, and the rest of the house agreed with me - the most vociferous applause for a ballet conductor that I have ever heard.

When the curtain rose, I was a bit baffled by the stage, which seemed to contain a prefab which, as it was very big and on a revolve, cut the available dancing space in half. This seemed a bit silly to me! I got very irritated in the first 10 minutes or so by the constant revolving of this damn thing, which didn't seem to represent anything much whichever way round it was! I'd have cheerfully pushed it over given half a chance. I felt during this time that there was rather too much mooching around by nondescript characters and not enough dancing, but this was really the only time in the production when I felt things really lagged.

Once "Loys" and Hilarion had established their presence, things started to warm up a bit. I rather liked the costumes (although the little brown socks did look pretty silly…) and the naturalism really worked for me. I did miss some of the "flashy dancing" but I LOVED the way that Sylvie weaved in and out of the dancers with complete plausibility - the "harvest" scene in particular was wonderful. The peasant pas de deux was beautiful, and stunningly danced - my friend Sarah never applauds until the curtain drops, but even she broke her rule for that one! If I were to quibble at all with the first act, it would be because somehow Sylvie both over- and under- did things to a certain degree. She was so keen to establish nuance of character and interact with everyone on stage that she rather came across as everyone's solicitous older sister at times; conversely, her dancing was so "natural" as to seem a little casual. The mad scene and death was fine, but to me no better than danced in more conventional readings by (eg) Durante. But all in all, when the curtain came down at the end of the first act I had been pleasantly surprised and was thoroughly convinced by the production. I felt that what had been lost in dazzling technique had been compensated for by believability. I was very taken by Bathilde's Conran-esque costume, too!

In Act 2, I was pleased to see that the whole stage was to be used! The rocks on the ground were very annoying at first - I kept waiting for Myrtha & her two attendants to trip over them - and the shadows they cast after they rose up were rather distracting, but I managed to ignore them most of the time. I was VERY impressed by the corps - lovely uniformity of line throughout, they all had beautiful feet and a coherence of style. The backwards hops in arabesque were fabulously done! I very much enjoyed the choreography, with the wilis in trios, as well. The formations had been carefully thought out and the effect was fabulous. My only real complaint about the female dancers in this act was that Sylvie seemed a bit too "real", not other-worldly enough. I think she was still taking the naturalism a bit too far - there wasn't that extra dimension to her portrayal. The wilis showed a similarly earthbound approach in their reaction to Hilarion's death (which, I must admit, made me giggle) - they seemed to be saying "Eh? What's up with him? I dunno, lads today, no stamina". I was a little disappointed with Murru's Albrecht in the early stages of Act 2; his vague mooning about Giselle's grave was just that, really, and I couldn't help but think that had it been Irek on stage we'd have felt, lived and breathed his devastation with him. However, he didn't do any worse than countless Siegfrieds have done in countless Swan Lakes… Two special effects that left us wondering were the sudden first appearance of Sylvie (how DID she do that?) and the sudden return of the veils at the end of the act (ditto!)

Overall, though, I enjoyed the production and the performances very much indeed; this version of Giselle deserves to be seen again (and so does the gorgeous Massimo Murru - let's hope he gets the chance to guest over here again!)