Looking back

Bolshoi Ballet
Royal Opera House, until 8 August

At the beginning of the second week of its new London season, the Bolshoi Ballet presented the classic Giselle, a ballet which, not unlike other 19th-century works, underwent myriad changes, cuts and choreographic adaptations. It was only after Mary Skeaping attempted to restore the original text in the 1970s that most ballet companies adopted what has today become a sort of standard text. Interestingly, this is not entirely the case with the 1987 Bolshoi production, in which historical originality does not play such a central role.

Although the production follows strictly the scene order prescribed by the ballet’s original musical and choreographic scores, Yuri Grigorovich’s 1987 reading seems to ignore the fact that Giselle premièred in 1841 as a ballet pantomime, as there is very little mime, if any at all. And those accustomed to the more historic productions might find awkward that the entrance of the hunting party — traditionally, a pedestrian parade of armour, dresses and stuffed animals — is actually danced by the Duke of Courland’s guards, with some funny half-hops. They might also object to the removal of the mime recitativo for Giselle’s mother, which causes a musical and dramatic imbalance with the beginning of the second act, and to the somewhat unrecognisable adaptation of the few surviving gestures. Still, this is a grand-scale production, with loads to admire — including Simon Virsaladze’s designs.

Although the cast I saw, led by Anna Nikulina and Alexander Volchkov, was not particularly exciting, this production provides a unique showcase for the company’s soloists and, most of all, for its corps de ballet. Their perfect lines, and their ethereal portrayal of the battalion of doomed female spirits in the second act, counteracted and compensated for the bitter disappointment engendered by a rather uneven rendition of Balanchine’s Serenade, which preceded the performance of Giselle.