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February 20, 2005 Giselle:Tina LeBlanc; Albrecht: Gonzalo Garcia; Hilarion: Peter Brandenhoff; Wilfred: Pablo Piantino; Myrthe: Katita Waldo

Both casts:Berthe:Anita Paciotti; Duke of Courland:Val Caniparoli; Bathilde: Pascale Leroy; Peasant pas de Cinq: Sarah Van Patten, Rachel Viselli, Vanessa Zahorian, Sergio Terrado, Hansuke Yamamoto; Solo Wilis: Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun, Sarah Van Patten

San Francisco Ballet’s Giselle, a singularly handsome production, features cod pieces as the sole discordant feature on the Act I male peasants. Juxtaposed with the long clean lines of skin fitting tights, they are particularly strident. What did men wear in those days besides that proclamation of machismo in an era of outhouses and outdoor water pumps for housekeeping?

The production utilizes San Francisco Ballet students, advanced and beginners, creating a village portrait of multiple generations, and older supers, all dressed in garments fashioned after central European folk styles. This sense of period includes the members of the court, although here it seems as if the garments are a handsome, richly executed melange of several periods. In Act II the opening scrim with a wili wafted along wires above dry ice further contribute to a period when Europeans were coping with the demands of early industrialization and an awareness frequently at war with every day challenges.

Of the supporting players there can be no better Berthe and Bathilde. Paciotti is the quintessential discerning, practical and loving mother if prone to superstition; Pascale LeRoy, whose career as a soloist was traded for a teaching career, makes a handsome, totally adroit Bathilde, who looks as if she has a bluff father (Caniparoli) around her little finger.

Add the brief appearance of two totally white borzois, (housed in a mammoth trailer in the Opera House south loading dock), and the scene sets the village excitement just before the tragedy strikes. Damian Smith and Peter Brandenhoff both serve Hilarion admirably. To me Brandenhoff takes the honors in an uncanny capacity to etch the well-intentioned stalwart European peasant, though Smith graciously acknowledged Brandenhoff’s historical knowledge in an audience interview. Both make Hilarion a sympathetic, if doomed character.

Myrthe is well served by Muriel Maffre and Katita Waldo, both artists with a strong comprehension of character and the dimensions of this ruler of a ghostly domain. Their casting with the other principals was absolutely pitch perfect. Maffre softens transitions in her solo. Some of Waldo’s transitions lack a flow before the next phrase, seeming briefly brittle.

This year’s casting of an experienced principal has accomplished much for the younger one. In the previous season of Giselle, Yuan Yuan Tan was paired with Vadim Solomakha, both new to their repertoire; this season they dance opposite Pierre-Francois Vilanoba and Lorena Feijoo. Tina LeBlanc was designated to introduce Gonzalo Garcia to the tradition. It worked, as hopefully it will with Kristin Long for Gennadi Nedviguine.

Tan and Vilanoba possess an elegance, making portraits slightly removed from an immediate connection. Vilanoba’s Albrecht is somewhat introverted, but nonetheless commanding, and certainly willful in his pursuit of Giselle, if capable of restraint. He has to be restrained by nearby folk when Hilarion exposes his sword in front of God and everybody. This restraint suits his dancing in Act II admirably, creating a low-keyed, but pervasive elegiac, portrait.

Tan dances a beautifully phrased, musical understanding of the shape of Act II which is most impressive. I had some trouble believing in hers is a young peasant consumed by love in Act I. The responses to her heart problem were well delineated. Tan’s Giselle seems more a recipient than a young woman whose full-fledged interest in Albrecht provokes her doom. However, with the Act II quality, her interpretive growth is phenomenal.

The LeBlanc-Garcia partnership continues to evoke a particular electricity; it provoked a wel-deserved standing ovation of half the orchestra at the Sunday matinee. She dances like thistle down; even in his exhausting, death-driven Act II variations Garcia elevates like a rocket.

LeBlanc’s Giselle is warm, translucent and therefore totally vulnerable; her mad scene is genuinely unhinged and her rushing through her village friends reflects the dislocating of a mind dimly aware of ebbing energy.

Garcia’s Albrecht is clearly of an impetuous, ardent young aristocrat at the height of his physical prowess. He is given to quite a bit of brow knitting at the points of tension, but his tenderness in Act II is as genuine as his phenomenal elevation. While he doubtless will begin to shade his interpretation, the debut was one I was happy to have witnessed.

The pas de cinq in Act I is handsomely executed. I did wonder why the dancers do not dance to the Duke and Bathilde as well as center front. They are, after all, entertaining the aristocratic audience; their acknowledgement of the stage guests on the stage seemed either perfunctory or almost missing.

A former ballet teacher in San Francisco was my guest February 19 . Flabbergasted over the precision of the corps de ballet in Act II, “Exquisite,” she exclaimed. Led by Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun and Sarah Van Patten as the chief wilis, their lineal progress across the stage, and supple port de corps around Myrthe proclaimed a unity of intent which makes a good performance linger in the memory.