Four Casts Spin Nicely Different ‘Giselles’

The fact that San Francisco Ballet featured four different leading casts after the opening night of “Giselle” at the Orange County Performing Arts Center last week shows a lot of confidence in their principal dancers. It was not misplaced--the amount of technical prowess and composure on display with each Giselle-Albrecht combination was remarkable. The production itself supported them, with its clear storytelling and opportunities for displaying beautiful lines. And although not every couple had the dramatic impact to activate the sigh-meter often enough (“Giselle” should touch the heart deeply), they each had elements to recommend them.

On Friday evening, Joanna Berman and Cyril Pierre seemed a bit mismatched at first, which actually made for an exciting courtship--he seemed very princely and swore his love in a boastful way, while she was girl-next-door vibrant and likable. Indeed, she was a bit more robust and confident than Giselle usually is, which made the snap into madness when Albrecht betrayed her a bit harder to understand. In the second act, they had affecting moments but never seemed to connect intimately.

Also seeming a less vulnerable Giselle was Kristin Long on Saturday afternoon--in general SFB ballerinas don’t seem to visibly shatter, which makes the mad scene less electric than it could be. But in Long’s moodier second act, she breathed pathos into many movements, such as her sculptural traveling arabesques. Partnering her, Parrish Maynard was wonderfully stricken by his own bad behavior--stunned and panicked like a hit-and-run driver. His amazingly buoyant leaps and beats worked best when they were not flaunted (kicking higher than Giselle in their side-by-side love duets just seemed like showing off).

On Saturday night, Lucia Lacarra and Yuri Possokhov had a courtship nicely enhanced by small details in the first act. A very athletic couple, they often displayed classically luscious form--but in fact, the athletic feats of Albrecht’s last solos belonged to Roman Rykine, who seamlessly took over at short notice mid-act from an injured Possokhov.

In terms of bringing it all together for a truly inspired performance, no one could beat Yuan Yuan Tan and Vadim Solomakha on Thursday night. Their tenderness for each other was clearly present at the start and by the end, their dances took on the nature of a dual swoon. A coltish, demure girl in the first act, Tan brought all the resources of an astonishingly controlled yet liquid technique to bear as a spirit. Well-supported by Solomakha, she was as awe-inspiring as faith and twice as reliable, making each step into poetry.

In the role of Hilarion for both Saturday performances, Jorge Esquivel took the bombastic spurned-suitor route, as opposed to Peter Brandenhoff’s sweetly misguided Hilarion (on opening night, repeated Thursday and Friday). As Myrta on Thursday and Saturday nights, Muriel Maffre was a beautifully long, cool drink of revenge; and on Saturday afternoon, Julia Adam also made the role smoothly commanding.