Teatro Alla Scala Handles This ‘Giselle’s’ Subtle Challenges

The role of Giselle in Sylvie Guillem’s new cinematic staging for the Teatro Alla Scala Ballet is no longer bravura in the traditional way--the mad scene is more internal than melodramatic in the first act, and there are no endless balances in the second. But the challenges aren’t gone; they just require more subtlety than usual to achieve the depth of feeling the ballet can sustain.

On Saturday afternoon, the only Orange County Performing Arts Center performance in which Guillem herself didn’t dance Giselle, soloist Gilda Gelati provided some of the necessary details, especially in the first act, when she and an empathetic Riccardo Massimi, as Albrecht, established a believably playful and intense relationship. She was contained while losing her reason after being betrayed--this scene is less histrionic than usual--and might need more time to find her own pathology in the fairly minimal choreography.

Thrust among the generally robust and pert Wilis that clear the fog in this production’s second act, Gelati seemed to fit in, never traveling too far into melancholy and not achieving the full-body ache that Guillem herself adds to an arabesque. Massimi’s desperation played out well in his double turns and endless beats, his fluid line compensating for the occasional uneven landing.

*

The trousers that replace Albrecht’s tights in this version seemed to impede swift footwork in the air ever so slightly, and it wasn’t the only costume that might have sacrificed mobility for design. As head Wili Myrtha, Emanuela Montanari had such a voluminous skirt, the weight of it seemed to drag down her circle of spins. Otherwise, she had the vim and vigor necessary to lead what in this version looks less like a coven of spirits and more like a dead-bride social club.

Gelati gave a creditable performance, youthful and assured in the mime. For more poetry to arise in Giselle’s afterlife, it may take more time--and a deeper understanding of the subtle swoon.