Choreographer: Mary Skeaping
Cheating men beware because the Wilis are back at the London Coliseum for the next three days and anyone whose fiancée has recently died of a broken heart can expect to be haunted by the spirits and potentially forced to dance to death. Mary Skeaping’s extraordinarily beautiful production of Giselle is the reason for their return, a brief revival of for English National Ballet’s 2024 show starring Erina Takahashi and Francesco Gabriele Frola as the fated lovers. And despite their sinister overtones you really do want the Wilis to make the superb Takahashi and Frola dance all night.
In love with someone she believes to be a fellow villager, the innocent Giselle expresses her love for Loys at the annual wine festival as the pair enjoy their romance in the forest. But the arrival of a royal party reveals Loys is actually Duke Albrecht who is engaged to another woman, instantly breaking the heart of the devoted Giselle. Later in the forest at night, spirits, the Wilis, come to punish Albrecht for his transgression, but will Giselle forgive him before it’s too late?
Skeaping’s captivating choreography and interpretation of Giselle offer a very emotional production, one that captures the complex nature of love and the different kinds of pain that its loss can cause. And it is a show of startling contrasts, of high romance and sudden, often deeply sinister, moments that add depth and shape to the unfolding tragedy. What in synopsis may seem like a straightforward case of male betrayal that may have most twenty-first-century women rolling their eyes in knowing despair becomes in Takahashi and Frola’s performance a more nuanced tale of adoration, duty, guilt and the torment of hurting someone you truly love.
Throughout the classic pastoral setting of Act I, Skeaping keeps it light, a series of celebratory segments that welcome the harvest as well as the budding relationship between the clearly devoted couple. On David Walker’s grandly autumnal set, Skeaping stages country dance-inspired numbers for the happy villagers, a true fantasy experience of easy happiness that reflects through the light choreography. The discovery of Albrecht’s duplicity is, then, like a thunderclap, destroying the harmony and allowing Takahashi to convey Giselle’s fatal torment and ultimately the fragility of the contentedness that had dominated the first hour.
Act II is even better, contrasting the fairy-like delicacy of the Wilis with the threat they pose to the cheating men they round up in the woods. There’s some wonderful work from David Mohr in recreating a lighting design by Charles Bristowe, notably in the creation of shadow and shafts of light across the skirts of the company as the Wilis home in on their prey. Skeaping’s work for both the ensemble work and the principals is intricately interwoven, a flow of demon-fairies and beautiful partnering work with Frola finding remarkable precision in the spins and jumps while also digging deep into Albrecht’s overwhelming remorse.
Despite a wobble or two on opening night, English National Ballet’s Giselle is so full of storytelling, palpable emotional range and meaningful interpretation that you really could watch the second act for hours and still be enthralled by its wistful muscularity. A sharp lesson for the cheaters perhaps but also a masterclass in the redemptive power of enduring love.
Runs until 18 January 2025