And Giselle
inhabited us
Mireya Castañeda /
Photos, Courtesy: National Ballet
THE 70th anniversary of Alicia
Alonso’s debut in Giselle is to be celebrated
with seasons, exhibitions and publications which
will bring back the prima ballerina assoluta
in this jewel of romantic ballet.
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Alicia in her
memorable Act I.
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This 2013, for example, is abundant
in its celebrations: in 1948, Alicia Alonso and her
brothers Fernando (1914-2013) and Alberto Alonso
(1917-2007), founded the company now known as the
National Ballet of Cuba (BNC). Sixty five years of
vertiginous and sustained success.
During the last Havana International
Ballet Festival it was announced that the
traditional BNC tour of Spain in September, is to
have a special Gala in Seville’s La Maestranza
Theater on November 2, the exact date of Alicia’s
debut in Giselle, a role considered by
critics as the height of her interpretations.
In terms of exhibitions, much
awaited are 70 imágenes de Alicia,
photographs of her in different moments and eras in
Giselle; Nelson Domínguez, National Visual
Arts Prize, has compiled Divertimentos, an
approach to ballet from contemporary visual arts;
and Palpitar, comprising eight sculptures in
copper, silver, bronze and steel by the artist
Alberto Valladares.
In the context of publications, the
BNC has announced the publication this year in Spain
of a book compiling all the evaluations of Alicia’s
Giselle, and the book Giselle, Alicia Alonso-Vladimir
Vasilev, with images of the performance and the
unique meeting of the two in Havana in 1980,
compiled by Pedro Simón, director of the Museum of
Dance.
With her sense of humor, the dance
diva noted in a press conference in Havana’s Cohiba
Hotel, "Seventy sounds old but I feel them as very
young."
That is not surprising. Giselle,
the romantic ballet par excellence, in a version by
Alicia herself, has been maintained alive and with a
unique tradition, and it has been danced, and of
course is danced, by all the leading figures of the
National Ballet. Moreover, when one is talking about
Giselle, the name of Alicia invariably
appears and always in the present.
And much is said because, together
with Swan Lake, Giselle is the ballet
most desired and in demand by the public and
ballerinas, who consider it both a dream and a
challenge. It is a sign of approaching the heights.
The work has been called the Hamlet of
ballet, perhaps because, with her, it is or is not?
Alicia achieved it since her
historical debut in the leading role as the peasant
girl-Willi in 1943 at New York’s Metropolitan Opera
House. On November 2, she was given the role as a
substitute for Alicia Markova. Her partner was Anton
Dolin.
With the passing of time, Alicia not
only enriched her personal role, but made it hers in
her rigorous, beautiful and polished version of the
classic which has become part of the repertoire of
important companies, among them the very Paris
Opera, where Giselle was born.
The first performance was in 1841.
The script was by the poet Théophile Gautier, with
librettist Vermoy de Saint-George, based on the
German myth of the Willis, described by Heinrich
Heine in the book Popular Traditions. Music
was by the composer Adolfo Adam and the choreography
by Jules Perrot, for his wife, the exceptional
Carlota Grissi.
From the first performance, it was a
ballet touched by the grace of the gods. A work
which must be in the repertoire of any classical
ballerina who aspires to technical perfection and
dedication. Fanny Elssler and Anna Pavlova are some
names that literature and dance critics still recall
as authentic Giselles.
In 1966, the critic Olivier Merlin
wrote in Le Monde, "Olga Spessivtseva, Alicia
Markova, Galina Ulanova, in the past; Margot Fonteyn
and Ivette Chauviré, in the present: here are the
unique great and moving Giselles. However, Alonso,
through what mystery I do not know, has succeeded in
maintaining her rank of first in that Milky Way."
When Alicia choreographed and
interpreted the central role at the Paris Opera in
1972, accompanied by the danseur etoile Cyril
Atanassoff, the great writer Alejo Carpentier wrote
a detailed commentary on the theater, the audience
and the performance. Just a few lines: "And Alicia
appeared… And Giselle, once again, was made flesh
and inhabited us."
Those who have not had the fortune
to enjoy her everlasting art have a hope. In 1963,
the filmmaker Enrique Pineda Barnet made Giselle.
For glory and memory, it shows Alicia in the double
role, first dancer Azari Plisetski as Albrecht, and
prima ballerina and jewel of the company, Mirta Plá
(1940-2003) as Queen of the Willis.
Alicia Alonso (Havana, 1920) "retired"
from the stage in 1995, but dance is her life, and
"dance in all its contexts, such as technique, as
dance, as a professor, a choreographer, as
everything."
Two names enjoined and inscribed in
the history of ballet. Giselle, one of the
most beautiful and majestic pieces of romanticism,
which can still move the public, and Alicia Alonso,
a legend, one of the great figures of ballet.
