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English National Ballet,Royal Ballet ENB: RB: March 2005 Southampton, Mayflower London, Covent Graden © Jeffery Taylor Former dancer, Critic and an Arts feature writer for the |
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London, Southampton – wherever you go for your dose of dance in Britain these days it is excellence all the way. And despite an incomprehensible cutback in the number of performances, English National Ballet is looking tremendous in Giselle, on for just 2 weeks before another 3 months disappearance. In Mary Skeaping’s 1972 back to basics version, Daria Klimentova’s Giselle is a flesh and blood young thing, making perfect sense of the whole baroque extravaganza of thatched cottages and panniered skirts. Much reintroduced original music provides welcome additional dancing from the peasant girl killed by a broken heart and her deceiving aristocrat lover, Albrecht, danced with deep feeling and technical precision by Dmitri Gruzdyev.
In Act II Klimentova creates a powerful force of love from beyond the grave to protect the guilty Albrecht from destruction by the band of vengeful female spirits, Wilis, into whose company she now reincarnates. A moving and superbly judged performance. ENB as a whole looks committed, well disciplined and with the dancers maintaining the company tradition of an upfront contact straight between the audience’s eyes.
 in rehearsals for English National Ballet's Giselle © John Ross
In a partnership made in heaven, Jonathan Cope and Darcey Bussell, long limbed and serene, allowed Wheeldon’s steps and Ravel’s Pavane pour une Infante Defunte effortlessly to flow through their elegant physiques and the evening ends with Balanchine’s glittering celebration of the classical technique, Symphony in C to Bizet’s ubiquitous piece. We dance lovers really are spoiled for choice.
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