Ballet Review by Anna Kisselgoff

MYSTERIOUS FIGURE, STRONG AND TENDER

American Ballet Theater attracted large audiences with three different casts in Giselle over the weekend at the Metropolitan Opera House. A major debut came on Saturday afternoon when Nina Ananiashvili, partnered by Guillaume Graffin, danced the title role for the first time with Ballet Theater...

Ms. Ananiashvili has deepened her acting and dancing since she first performed Giselle in New York with the Bolshoi Ballet a decade ago. The better the dancing, the better any Giselle is as a whole, and Ms. Ananiashvili’s magnificent performance stood out for its power of technique as well as for its detailed mime.

Tall and long-legged, she channeled her forcefulness into surprising delicacy in Act I. Her village girl was eager and charming, quick in her joyful dancing. After Albrecht, her seducer, betrayed her, Giselle’s mad scene was beautifully refined into a study in mental disintegration. There was no hysteria, only hurt.

Giselle’s major solo in Act I has been unfortunately simplified by all the ballerinas this season, but Ms. Ananiashvili did hop on toe as required, and the same strong ankles sustained her arabesques in Act II. There was a marked contrast between the innocent girl of Act I and her transformation into Giselle’s ghost or wili. Ms. Ananiashvili’s large powerful leaps, her elongated line and supple torso created a magical Romantic image.

Yet the same supernatural creature could turn tender. When chimes signaled the dawn that would save Albrecht from being danced to death by the wilis, both Myrta, the queen of the wilis, and Giselle harkened. This double image, of each dancer placing hand to ear, was striking: Myrta saw failure, Giselle saw salvation.