One of the most significant films of a full-length ballet was made in 1956. It documented a performance by the Bolshoi Ballet during a tour that took them to the stage of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. The ballet was Giselle in Yuri Grigorovich’s adaptation of the original choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot. The performance itself was significant because Queen Elizabeth II was in the audience.
Clearly, this was a performance at which diplomacy mattered as much as artistic excellence, if not more so. The subtext of the occasion was that shared artistic values might lead to a reconciliation of ideological values. In that context the very selection of Giselle was significant, since its origins were French, rather than Russian. Indeed, first performed in 1841, it is probably the second-oldest ballet currently in repertoire (the oldest being La fille mal gardée, also French, which was first performed in 1789). On the Russian side, however, was the performance by Galina Ulanova in the title role. Her career began at the Mariinsky Theatre, where she became so famous that Joseph Stalin had her transferred to the Bolshoi in 1944! Indeed, in 2000 her face found its way to a Russian postage stamp:
from Wikimedia Commons, not an object of copyright
(Ulanova had died in 1998.)
Like many balletomanes I have lost count of the number of Giselle performances I have experienced. However, the filmed account of that 1956 performance at the Royal Opera House was definitely the first of them. Indeed, by the time the film had been released and was screened in the Philadelphia area, I was probably in high school and barely had any idea of what I was experiencing. All I really knew was the music by Adolphe Adam, which I had on an Angel Records album of two LPs. Ironically, that album was was recorded by EMI during that same Bolshoi tour, with conductor Yuri Fayer leading the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, the same ensemble heard on the film’s soundtrack.
This morning I revisited my “first contact” experience through the YouTube Web page for the film. There are any number of disappointing features in this film. First of all, while Fayer recorded the complete score by Adam for EMI, there were extensive cuts in the filmed version. This may have been the result of creating an offering that could be presented on a one-hour television broadcast. Thus, those fond of the “Peasant Pas de Deux” will probably be disappointed by its absence. Those more attentive to the narrative will similarly miss the scene in which Giselle rises from the grave to join the Wilis. Thus, where Giselle itself is concerned, this is far from an “authoritative document.”
On the other hand Giselle herself gets the lion’s share of the choreography. The real virtue of this film is the opportunity to see just how skilled Ulanova was. There is a consistent other-worldly lightness to every step she executes, almost as if she had made some Faustian compact to disregard the laws of gravity. Furthermore, her chemistry with Fayer could not have been better. There are no end of episodes in which the music is shaped around Ulanova’s interpretative techniques, while the EMI recording gives a more consistent account of steady rhythms. (Gadfly Norman Lebrecht seemed feel that Fayer deserved his own circle in the Inferno, possibly because he thought that Fayer should be leading Ulanova, rather than following her.)
As a result, for all of its shortcomings, this is very much a “must see” YouTube offering. Too many audiences prefer to focus on the present, disregarding any value that the past might offer. Those aware of the many times in which I have invoked John Clifford’s uploads of New York City Ballet performances to YouTube should know by now that I often find the past preferable to the present. Ulanova’s talents may have since been equaled or even surpassed, but I still believe that anyone that takes watching a ballet seriously deserves to see her approach to bringing the character of Giselle to life.
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