Dance Review by Clive Barnes

Many, many years ago I had a schoolteacher who introduced me to the joys of opera and ballet. Luckily, he was both something of a cynic and a realist. He half - humorously told us: «If something is too silly to be acted, it can be sung. And if it’s too silly to be sung, it can still be danced».

Of course he was devoted to the ballet «Giselle», seeing beyond the simplistic silliness of Romantic ballet conventions to its heart and soul of love, betrayal, faith and redemption.

These old ballets, with their potent music alternating melodramatic hearts and flowers with bouncy jollity, have a poetic power far beyond the bare bones of their story. If - and here’s the rub - they are properly presented.

American Ballet Theater's production of «Giselle», which had four performances with three different casts at the Metropolitan Opera House over the holiday weekend, is far from distinguished, and the dullsville scenery and costumes are particularly poor.

Yet with the right cast everything can be forgiven. And ABT put out the right cast not once but three times.