Bolshoi Ballet
Royal Opera House, until 8 August
At the beginning of the second week of its new London season, the Bolshoi Ballet presented the classic Giselle, a ballet which, not unlike other 19th-century works, underwent myriad changes, cuts and choreographic adaptations. It was only after Mary Skeaping attempted to restore the original text in the 1970s that most ballet companies adopted what has today become a sort of standard text. Interestingly, this is not entirely the case with the 1987 Bolshoi production, in which historical originality does not play such a central role.
Although the production follows strictly the scene order prescribed by the ballet’s original musical and choreographic scores, Yuri Grigorovich’s 1987 reading seems to ignore the fact that Giselle premièred in 1841 as a ballet pantomime, as there is very little mime, if any at all.
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