by Leigh Witchel
Kevin McKenzie welcomed us back to American Ballet Theatre for the first time in two years with a warm curtain speech, and warned us that “in an abundance of caution” some of the performers in “Giselle” would be wearing masks. It did cause a few strange moments (especially when Andrii Ishchuk as Hilarion blew the hunting horn through his mask) but it didn’t stop Hee Seo and Cory Stearns from doing a beautiful job.
Stearns digs into roles by exploring their shadows, and he builds character and narrative with meticulous detail. He seemed to see Albrecht as a cousin to Don Juan, but one who could be saved. In the opening scene where he was showing off his disguise to Wilfred and Wilfred was begging him to stop the charade, Albrecht looked at his servant as if explaining facts to a simpleton. “I know what I’m doing,” the look seemed to say. And he deployed an intimidation tactic for the first time among several: a patient stare, not moving until Wilfred caved. Stearns used the same overpowering stillness on Hilarion; the only one it didn’t work on was Giselle’s mother.
Seo was a soft Giselle in Act 1, the kind who does the entire act with the back of her neck. The emotions were not all-or-nothing as the top proponents of this generation interpret this act. She didn’t seem all that upset at the loves-me-not result of the daisy scene; so the moment read as comic when Stearns abruptly flung the flower. Seo’s approach to her first moment of a weak heart was to try and hide it. She sat quietly to compose herself until she thought she could conceal it.
One of ABT’s strengths in their best full-length stagings is the ensemble casting. It had touch and go moments as the company ramps back up. Isadora Loyola made a clear impression as Bathilde. She played her as vain and not that bright: she knows she’s pretty and shows off her clothing. When Giselle tried to thank her after the gift of the medallion, her smiling “Don’t touch me” reaction was very Regina George.
There was a sprinkling of dancers wearing masks in this Little Village on the Pandemic. The company tried to handle masking as discreetly as possible by matching them to the dancer’s skin tone.
The Peasant Pas couple was not a blessed pairing. Blaine Hoven felt off that performance: he made everything but stuck almost nothing, and saved the ending of his second solo by doing only a single turn. Katherine Williams looked more comfortable dancing without him than with.
It was surprising what you could still see from Ishchuk as a masked Hilarion, but all expression in the face was gone. All you saw were eyebrows. He pulled out the stops to die, and did enough sharp double cabrioles and tours to drop his mask off his nose, so he ended up looking like the subway poster of the pandemic Don’t Bee.
In her solo, Seo added a little fillip by torquing into épaulement in her arabesque balance, a feat that was both subtle and difficult. She did the mad scene like a ghost from a Kabuki play: ashen and still, already gone to the spirit world. The sword woke her up, and interestingly, she aimed it at her neck and throat, not her heart. When it seemed as if she was seeing the wilis, she blocked that so she headed towards Albrecht and he mistook that for her seeing him. But shortly after, she did come to him. He knelt and stroked her face and things almost seemed normal until she recoiled in horror and scrabbled away.
Stearns knew what was happening to Albrecht the whole way, and the detail is what made it seem real. His character worked because he believed in his own game. When Hilarion bowed to Albrecht as his lord in their conflict, you could see a catch in Stearns’ throat: the beginning of him cracking.
His brow clouded when Hilarion produced the sword, and he was incensed at Hilarion when the hunting party announced its return. “You win,” and he tossed the sword at Hilarion with contempt. Right before Bathilde returned, he looked at Giselle and held his arms out in a half-shrug, as if in as much apology as he could manage.
Unlike other Albrechts, Stearns didn’t lose it. If he were a method actor, that would have been his motivation: not to crack. He was stunned, ashamed and annoyed. Not usually at anyone specific, at his excellent plan getting all fouled up.
Stearns showed you Albrecht’s point of transformation in his own way as well. After Giselle died he did what’s standard at ABT: dragged Hilarion to Giselle’s body, and points at him: “You did this!” Hilarion pointed back: “It was you!” And as Albrecht started to plead his innocence to the horrified crowd, he suddenly put his hands over his mouth and stopped as if to say, “My God. It was me.”
In Act 2, Stearns did the usual flamboyant cape tricks – they’re de rigeur. But his princely appearance seemed less like vanity than the care someone might take to show respect for the dead. He fell to the grave, but still shoved Wilfred away when Wilfred tries to convince him to flee. He never stopped being imperious.
Seo was an Act 2 Giselle, jumping and traveling in her opening solo. She was more lively dead than alive: a ghost who needed to die to really wake up and live. The two made the first Act 2 encounter into a true pas d’action. He pressed her skywards in lifts like whispers, then gathered up the flowers she gave him as a token of forgiveness and laid them at her grave.
Devon Teuscher as Myrtha, along with the wilis, looked as if they need a few more performances to power up some energy and height. Working to slow tempos, the jumps were low and the traveling arabesques thumped across the stage. A strange missed opportunity for our strange times: If anyone’s going to perform masked, mask all the wilis. Done with imagination, that could be terrifying.
Part of Stearn’s characterization of Albrect was posture: stay upright, never crumple. In Act 1, it read as cocky bravado. In Act 2, when he was caught by the wilis, it became nobility. He had been purified and faced Myrtha like a man.
Seo and Stearns’ next duet was beautifully shaped with swimming lifts that rocked to and fro. She really went for height in her solo, almost as if to escape; while Stearns hinted at both exhaustion and regret.
You knew what was happening, because they knew. She fought for his life; spreading lilies by Myrtha’s feet and almost made Myrtha hesitate in her fatal task. He jumped higher and higher in his final abbreviated dance until he couldn’t go on and collapsed. But that was when dawn broke.
What you hope for from “Giselle” is to be taken along on a journey of cleansing and redemption. Seo and Stearns gave us that. It was more of a victory than it sometimes is. After Albrecht’s sorrow when he realizes that Giselle has saved his life, but not hers, many times he walks downstage towards us as if that walk could go no further. Stearns walked away from the grave on a diagonal with a purpose that suggested he had a destination: back to life. The curtain call, with a shower of pale petals in celebration, evoked a similar, much yearned-for, feeling.
copyright © 2021 by Leigh Witchel
“Giselle” – American Ballet Theatre
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
October 20, 2021
Cover: Cory Stearns and Hee Seo in “Giselle.” Photo © Gene Schiavone.
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