ABT'S GISELLE, MET OPERA HOUSE, NYC, JUNE 2, 1999

Conducted by Charles Barker

A knee injury sustained by Guillaume Graffin necessitated a change of partner for Nina's sole performance as Giselle this season--and the assignment went to Jose Manuel Carreño. This proved an inspired pairing, with the two dancers sparking each other in an exciting and memorable performance.

Carreño has come a long way since his days with the U.K.'s Royal Ballet. He has obviously worked hard to refine his technique and stage deportment--and has become one of ballet's most notable danseurs nobles. He carries himself with nobility and elegance, but also displays an exhilirating command of bravura technique. In short, he is a worthy partner to Nina.

In Act I, the interplay between the two was delightful---Nina's Giselle was shy but eager to love, Carreño's Albrecht was a willful aristocrat--who, disguised as the peasant Loys, seemed genuinely attracted to Giselle. Their bouyant side by side steps mirrored their growing affection--and for Giselle, her growing trust in Albrecht's love. A touching vignette had a concerned Albrecht making Giselle sit on his bended knee to rest when she stops in mid- dance, clutching her chest. Later, when Giselle danced for Albrecht, her hops on pointe seemed an expression of delight and exaltation.

Giuseppe Picone and Ekaterina Shelkanova did the honors in the peasant pas de deux--with Picone demonstrating growing confidence in his neatly finished, and excitingly timed jumps and turns. He still sometimes misjudges his placement on stage--his jumps are so big that he sometimes has to tone down the last of a series so as not to shoot off the stage.

Christine Dunham was a credible Bathilde, ready to condescend to Giselle, but haughtily miffed when she finds out they share the same fiancé. Nina played the mad scene with an affecting combination of subtlety and unsettling concentration--and she made it clear this Giselle died not of a weak, but of a broken heart. Carreño, instead of running off at the end as most Albrechts do, threw himself remorsefully on Giselle's body.

ACT II began auspiciously with Gillian Murphy's swiftly airy bourrées across the stage. Her Myrta is certainly promising-- already technically secure, but needing more refinement in transitions and a more commanding aura. Ethan Brown did more acting than dancing in this act--skimping on his turns during his fatal encounter with the Wilis. The Wilis themselves were exemplary, led strongly by Michele Wiles as Moyna and Veronica Lynn as Zulma.

Nina's Giselle seems to grow more poetic with every performance. Underpinned by her strength and impeccable technique, her interpretation is free to soar. Partnered attentively by Carreño who imbued his manège of turns and diagonal brisés with passion, her Giselle seemed truly a creature of the spirit world-- only anchored to earth by her attachment to Albrecht and her desire to save him. Her fleet entrechats and splendid jumps, interspered with adagio movements into deep arabesques, carried all of us in the audience into a world of transcendent beauty. No amount of curtain calls seemed adequate to thank the artists for such a performance.