DANCE REVIEW : ABT’s Revitalized ‘Giselle’ Is a Splendid Surprise

Restaging a 19th-Century classic isn’t for cowards. Every triumph, such as the 1992 Royal Danish Ballet “Napoli,” seems accompanied by a score of disasters, such as the 1992 Kirov Ballet “Swan Lake” or nearly all the recent full-evening productions by American Ballet Theatre.

Based on two Saturday performances at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the newly revised Ballet Theatre “Giselle” is an exception. Still using the lush, autumnal Gianni Quaranta sets and rich if fussy Anna Anni costumes created for the film “Dancers,” the company has largely eliminated the gaffes of the previous (Baryshnikov) staging, sharpened the storytelling and abandoned a generalized 19th-Century style for a softer, specifically Romantic approach.

Trouble is, nobody wants to take credit: The program omits any attribution and company representatives hem and haw as if holding a dark secret. Eventually, they reveal that John Taras restaged “Giselle” after Baryshnikov’s departure, basing his version on an earlier one by the late David Blair.

Since then, Elena Tchernichova has reset the Myrta passages of the last act and Irina Kolpakova the Peasant pas de deux of the first (a Baryshnikov deletion). That duet, incidentally, now boasts a woman’s solo with different choreography and music than before.

OK, so it’s a piecemeal restaging-by-committee, but it works as a whole and inspires even non-dancing participants to excellence. On Saturday, Kathleen Moore made a memorably stricken Berthe and both Lucette Katerndahl and Elizabeth Dunn gave Bathilde a compelling edge.

In the afternoon, Wes Chapman became an uncompromisingly proud and selfish Albrecht: the cad aristocrat all the way. His batterie went splendidly, his rapport with Marianna Tcherkassky less so and the ballet became a cautionary tale about the bad boy from the castle.

Tcherkassky no longer dances with her former freshness, but her Giselle still can’t be faulted for warmth, delicacy and wholehearted belief in Albrecht--even in madness, even after death.

In the evening, Cynthia Harvey danced and acted with a new intensity and no loss of her familiar technical brilliance. However, her Act I makeup, hairstyle and, especially, costume made her look decades older than she appeared in Act II.

No virtuoso, Guillaume Graffin built an outstanding Albrecht (opposite Harvey) on partnering skill, acting nuance and consuming passion. This nobleman ran desperately to Giselle from that castle, losing himself in her world--perhaps forever, judging from his final mimed pledge.

Of the two Myrtas, Susan Jaffe had the more unearthly bourrees-of-the-living-dead, although Christina Fagundes danced with imposing scale in the evening. Robert Conn made a more sympathetic Hilarion than his matinee counterpart, Ethan Brown.

The gracious Cheryl Yeager endured a chancy Peasant partnership with the uneven Gil Boggs at the matinee, while Ashley Tuttle and Parrish Maynard made their technical exactitude a highlight of the evening “Giselle.”

Emil De Cou conducted both performances neatly and the Wili corps looked masterly in each.