★★★★★
There wasn’t a moment during the opening night of the Royal Ballet’s current revival of Giselle when Marianela Nuñez didn’t have me in the palm of her hand. Every step was so laden with intelligence and emotion that her journey from sweet peasant girl to awesomely tragic ghost gave Peter Wright’s compelling production the thrill of veracity.
With a skip in her step (for this is a Giselle who truly loves to dance), Nuñez’s heroine arrived on stage full of the joys of what she thinks is true love with handsome Albrecht. Little does she realise that her dream of happiness will soon turn into a deadly nightmare. Nuñez’s approach to the choreography was to dive straight in — her Act I solos on Friday night were incredibly buoyant and wonderfully precise — and her expressive eyes left you in no doubt what her character was thinking. I’ve never seen a Giselle find so much humour in her flirtation with Albrecht or such realistic vulnerability in her suicidal mad scene. And then came Act II, and an ethereal Nuñez was spellbinding. The generosity of her spirit, the soft caress of her dancing, the luxuriant phrasing, the hushed breath, the opulent musicality: all worked together to make us believe that within this beauteous ghostly vision beats the wounded heart of a flesh-and-blood young woman.
And let’s not forget her Albrecht, either. Federico Bonelli is an accomplished Albrecht, a fine partner, and his performance complemented Nuñez’s nuanced reading perfectly. He looked effortlessly noble on stage, a man of privilege, but his count was also so tenderly affectionate to Giselle that we couldn’t help but warm to him even as we recognised his betrayal. And then at the end, as Giselle slipped quietly away into her grave, Bonelli’s remorse was absolutely heroic.
These two performances were at the heart of an outstanding evening. The Wilis were exciting and fervent in their lust for revenge, dancing up a storm, with their leader Myrtha (scary Tierney Heap) the angriest of all. Bennet Gartside shone as Hilarion (the forester Giselle should have married), Yasmine Naghdi and Alexander Campbell ditto in the Pas de Six, and the conductor Koen Kessels whipped up the drama in Adam’s score.
Nuñez is scheduled to dance Giselle again on February 1, when the Royal Ballet will celebrate her 20th anniversary at Covent Garden, but during this revival all of the company’s female principals will have a go.
Box office: 020 7304 4000, to March 9
