By The English National Ballet, at the Oxford New Theatre, Friday 20th-Saturday 21st

Fri and Sat 7.30pm; Sat 2.30pm

“Although mime is heavily relied on in a ballet like Giselle, it is one of the purest and most captivating performances of such a technical form of dance. For adults and children alike, Giselle enchants and whisks away into a realm where physicality and imagination frolic unabashedly.” Judith Frodyma ★★★★★

Giselle ★★★★★

Review by Judith Frodyma

Expressing the complexities and meaning of human emotion only through form set to music poses an unnatural stress on the human body. Ballet is as much acting as it is dance – demanding of its principle roles the concentrated ability to speak without words. Although mime is heavily relied in a ballet like Giselle, it is one of the purest and most captivating performances of such a technical form of dance. For adults and children alike, Giselle enchants and whisks away into a realm where physicality and imagination frolic unabashedly.

The curtain opened to reveal nine perfectly sculpted half-naked men, pleasantly disorienting the audience with their sensually masculine but abstract virtuoso performance set to Rachmaninov. Showing off the male dancers before the perfectly co-ordinated & masterfully choreographed female-dominated performance that was Giselle was a cleverly surprising move, but also a highly successful one. I later learned they cast the men of the English National Ballet Company in a formation wittily called Men Y Men. The contemporary contrast was welcomed juxtaposed next to the very traditional production that followed.

The most tolling role was that of the title character, performed last night by Begona Cao. Frightfully small and timid looking, she manifested a faint-heartedness and fragility that accentuated the poignancy of her performance. It was this weakness (that developed into folly) in Act I counter-imposed with the strength of her character and love for Albrecht in Act II, let alone her physical stamina as a dancer, that evoked an almost religious reverence of such purity of disposition, epitomized when, almost Christ-like, she spread her arms in defence of her lover. The emotion was exceptionally portrayed, however, the story may have been slightly confusing for those previously unacquainted with the plot.

I was lucky enough to have a seat behind a girl of about seven or eight. Each time the music jolted, or the story-telling unfolded, I could hear her gasp or giggle, sigh or hold her breath. The magical elements of the ballet, suspended in a world past the threshold of the mellow lamps of the musicians in the pit, grew more and more alive with her reaction. The entire performance liquefied into one mellifluous manifestation of form – even the patter of pointe-shoes accentuated the melody of the viols or the oboe. To my surprise, I felt warm tears pour down my cheeks for the entirety of the Second Act. Each time Albrecht (Laurent Liotardo) would dance toward Giselle, but blindly passing her ever so slightly, the force of his longing and intensity of his melancholy only became more poignant. Both Cao and Liotardo maintained facial expressions of exquisitely painful tenderness. The intentional lack of eye contact between the spirit of Giselle and her lover gave the impression that the moonlight world of the forest veiled vision but in turn gave clarity to the soul.

To be moved to tears by movement and wordless expression is not a common experience, but a word has to be said about the orchestra – without the music, the performance would not have unfolded the tragic momentum that defined it. Bravo!