A Warm Giselle

Though familiar with the plot and the challenges for the principals and the Willis, outside of good dancing and a decent performance, I didn’t know what to expect. What fast impressed me was unexpected warmth and the dancers’ pleasure, reminding me of the zest and energy from the Christensens.

With two of its taller principal dancers, San Francisco Ballet opened its eight performance program with the 19th century Romantic ballet Giselle. Sasha de Sola and Aaron Robison were the respective Giselle and Loys/Albrecht.Veteran Anita Paciotti was the intuitive mother Berthe, Katisha Fogo as a fleet incisive Will Queen Myrtha and Nathaniel Remez was the hapless Hilario. The statement was made somewhere that the dancers were new to their roles. All have benefitted by Artistic Director Tamar Rojo’s coaching in what has been her first opportunity here in San Francisco to guide a ballet familiar to her. She was ably supported by Michael Melbaye’s handsome settings, designs and lighting commissioned originally by Helgi Tomasson. Rojo and the company did themselves proud.

Sasha de Sola was a fleet adolescent, girlish, transparently glad over her good luck with such a suitor. In a tole allowing him to show off his elevation in a grand jete, Robison tugged his peasant tunic with a dandified air, directing his squire with a simple decisive gesture “Just be quiet and Go!”

De Sola’s heart palpitations were clear and lingered long enough to be convincing, her technical skills a foregone conclusion. Simplicity rose to marked degree in the mad scene, blonde hair streaming to her shoulders, her face a mask, almost Grecian in quality, eyes, two burning black holes, as she faced the villagers and audience.

The encounter between Giselle’s spirit and the penitent Albrecht provided handsome partnering and Myrtha’s determination. Remez’ Hilario seemed to know he was doomed from the minute appeared pushed by the Willis’ hunting fury, projecting more elegiac resignation than pleading.

I will comment on two other casts separately. Unfortunately, I was unable to enjoy the Wona Parkl-Wei Wang partnership.

Katisha Fogo’s Myrtha combined the willowy and delicate with the forceful and commanding, covering her forest glen with a sureness also present in commanding the disappointed spirits in their nightly ritual. The two dozen dancers in their filmy white romantic length tutus hopped across the opera house state with an impressive, steady purpose. In their nightly ritual, managing to evoke the other worldly.