Giselle’s spinning spirit
A famous moment in the ballet Giselle occurs towards the beginning of Act II. In the first act of the ballet, Giselle – a peasant girl – has fallen in love with Albrecht, a nobleman who is disguised as a peasant. He is toying with her and has no intention of leaving his royal life and his noblewoman fiance. When Giselle learns of his betrayal, she dies of a broken heart, a heart that was already known to be somewhat weak. Then we go to Act II, in which Giselle’s spirit is about to join the Wilis, the ghosts of maidens who were betrayed by false lovers and who died before their wedding days. They are forced to lure men into their clutches and then dance them to death. Giselle’s loving nature triumphs over that grim mission and she ends up saving the man who betrayed her.
It’s a lot to unpack, I know. But it’s a great ballet, giving the lead dancer room to express earthly innocence and joy in the first act and mature transcendent otherwordly love in the second.
In the “spirit spinning” sequence I’m about to show, Giselle has already died and is “coming out” for her first evening as a Wili. The Queen of the Wilis, Myrtha, is calling her forth from the grave, and then commands her to dance. Giselle’s frenzied spinning at the beginning is not of her own volition; an outside force is pulling her around and around like that. It’s difficult for the dancer playing Giselle to hide the impetus for the movement and make it seem as though it’s coming from outside.
Some dancers are especially good at giving this impression and others are not. The same is true for Giselle’s subsequent jumps, which are supposed to be weightless, which means that no physical effort can be shown.
Enjoy:
I think your judgement of tiucker calson is harsh
steve57:
Not harsh enough, actually.
But I think you meant to comment on the Tucker Carlson thread, not the ballet thread.
and whats this Giselle’s position on price controls?
Do top-tier dancers just…know…how to express such nuances? Or do they spend hours in front of a mirror or a coach?
Richard Aubrey:
Coaches are generally very important. And it takes a long long time to prepare for a major role, ordinarily.
I’m embarrassed to admit that I knew of the German, woman’s name pronounced “Geese-a-lah” (hard G) for years before realizing it was just a Germanic pronunciation of the name, Giselle. I think Giselle (soft G) is a beautiful name. Giselle (hard G) is not beautiful.
In a similar vein, until someone told me, I didn’t figure out Jurgen is a form of George. (Which the Germans also pronounce with two hard Gs “gay-org.”)
And, of course, Diego is Spanish for James. Lots of confusion with those j and g sounds across languages.
Thanks – after all your dance posts I now feel I understand what I am am seeing, what the artist is doing.
The idea of being possessed takes me straight back to your clips of Plisetkaya and your comments about her flexible spine and “imperfect” vertical alignment.
Some of these dancers get a bit of that wild abandon in the initial spin, but only Vishneva and Osipova (the last one) continue it naturalistically into the turns that follow, as if in a dizzy trance. She also gives some impression of being jerked around in the jumps jetes(?).
Cojocaru and Nunez are also somewhat convincing. Nunez seems slow and trancelike – is there a dance equivalent of “rubato” in music? And she dances up to the Queen Walli as if still in her thrall – a nice touch.
The rest of them are hampered by being plumbline vertical – too perfect.
You have also pointed out the extreme extensions – I thought this might be exploited to give an otherworldly feeling, with limbs whipping around. But again – the arms are too perfect for someone possessed/frenzied.
Thank you again for the education!
Very interesting. It’s amazing how some of them manage to convey the impression of their being on marionette strings. Impressive!
The music kept playing in my head after watching that video!
I thought Natalia Osipova looked the most frantic…? Certainly she spun the fastest, but she also looked to me to be the most upset about it.
I also found it interesting that the orchestral tuning changed round about #5.
I’ve seen a few major ballet productions but not this one. While I know of it, I’d never heard the plotline which is quite clever and fantastic.
And the video is amazing. I watched it some detail before reading any comments and came up with the same two outstanding performances as BenDavid did: Vishneva and Osipova. While I would probably rank Osipova higher overall, the Vishneva spin seems uniquely special. There’s a mechanical precision to it, or something…, that makes her seem like a spinning top.
The Osipova spin is very quick, and one can hear her heel plants. Plus, I noticed that the conductor started with a beat that was considerably slower than her heels plants, then he quickly upped the tempo to match. Also, the music tempo matched her leaps.
I’m no ballet aficionado, but all the leaps seemed ho-hum to me except for Osipova’s which really did capture that weightless & beyond her control feel. In addition to being an outstanding dancer, I suspect her dress was a factor in the visual impact of it.
Excellent find
Do you know how much I love these postings of yours? I just spent hours exploring the different variants of the P-38 Lightning and the RAF Mosquito like it matters. If anyone asks I don’t know.
Debating the best twin engine fighter aircraft is interesting to geeks like me but your interests are permanent
It happened.