This weekend, I took a break from the endless process of setting up my new computer and watching Oscar hopefuls to attend the opening night of Giselle at the San Francisco
After being relatively disappointed with my last outing to the Nutcracker, I was glad to see the San Francisco
One of the reasons I first sought out the ballet is that it was co-written by one of my favorite nineteenth-century authors, Théophile Gautier. Virtually unknown here in the States, Gautier is a jack-of-all-cultural-trades: painter, critic, poet, novelist, and dramatist. His most famous legacy is probably his espousal of the phrase “l’art pour l’art,” that is, art for art’s sake, or, as adapted for MGM’s Leo the Lion logo, Ars gratia artis. I love him for his supernatural short stories involving vampires, mummies, and all manner of ghostly appearances, which is probably why he was so attracted to the legend of the vengeful ghost-like Wilis.
The music helps enormously in telling the story, with a heavy use of leitmotif to heighten the drama. While not as overtly dramatic as something like Swan Lake, for me, Giselle is one of the strongest ballets in conveying the story through music. This may be because its composer, Adolphe Adam, was primarily a composer of operas. However, he did compose another ballet in the repertoire, Le Corsaire (ballet with pirates!), which I was lucky enough to see at Lincoln Center
4 comments:
Although I'm feeling angry at the Ballet these days (WTF with the outrageous standing room prices, people, you get money from the city government so you should at least subsidize poor balletomanes, you assholes), they're an incredibly deep company and there are more than a couple better Giselles dancing this week than Ms. Yuan Yuan Tan, as "experienced" as she may be. First among them is Maria Kochetkova who is a major goddess. Catch her in anything and you'll understand what I'm talking about.
Well, I can't speak to their standing room prices, but they do have subscriptions with seats as low as $20, which seems pretty reasonable to me.
Dear Sylvie: The back of the top balcony is fine for opera, but for the ballet it's fairly absurd. And one of the joys of standing room is that you can decide to go at the last minute if you're in the mood unlike those pesky subscriptions where you have to go on a specific date or forget it.
Well, I get wanting to go at the last minute, but it sounds to me like it's mostly that you want better seats than you are willing to pay for. I'm not sure why the SFB, or any cultural organization, should subsidize the people that, on the surface, are the least committed to them.
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