Giselle, National Ballet of Japan review - return of a classic, refreshed and impeccably danced

A new Giselle? Not quite: the production that Japan’s national company has brought over for its first British visit isn’t a radical Akram Khan-style makeover. What it offers is a tasteful refreshing of a great classic, like meeting an old friend with a new haircut. 

This is a Giselle with many local connections. Behind it is the company’s artistic director, Miyako Yoshida, a favourite principal at both Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Royal Ballet, where she danced the title role many times. Staging and additional steps are by the Royal Ballet dancer turned choreographer Alastair Marriott, assisted by another Royal Ballet alumnus, Jonathan Howells; set and costumes are by Dick Bird, lighting by London-based Rick Fisher. And in the pit is the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, conducted by Paul Murphy.

Those familiar with the Royal Ballet production may feel Yoshida hasn't altered the piece that much. The basic shape of the storyline is the same: sunny peasant girl goes mad with heartbreak and dies when she discovers her lover is really an aristocrat with a fiancée, then, as a ghost, protects him from vengeful spirits intent on making him dance to death. The first act, barring the looming birch-tree forest, is set in a familiar half-timbered medieval village. Yoshida has added a cherubic boy representing Bacchus, whose festival Giselle’s village is celebrating, but little else.

What stands out in her production is the level of artistry she has created in her company since she took over in 2020. The first night’s Giselle and Albrecht, Yui Yonezawa and Shun Izawa, were models of effortless competence, light and playful in their happier Act 1 moments, serenely tragic in Act 2, executing their big moments perfectly. Yonezawa's mad scene (pictured right), hair loosened and dishevelled, was a poignant and plausible study in heartbreak, without a trace of melodrama. Izawa was especially boyish and endearing in the sequence with the flower petals, where he rigs the game to “prove” he loves her, and is appropriately distraught at her death.

The dancers performing the Act 1 “peasant” pas de deux (a remodelling of the pas de six), Risako Ikeda and Shunsuke Mizui, were equally impressive, lively and athletic, with rock-steady technique but also a nimbleness that could tackle anything the variations required of them. Footwork throughout the company, especially their bourrées en couru, is exquisite; ditto its acting, which employs many of the conventional mimed gestures but adds a layer of realistic psychological detail. Giselle’s devoted local suitor Hilarion (Masahiro Nakaya) and nervous mother Berthe (Yuna Seki) are projected as fully formed individuals without descending into stereotypes. Tempi were a tad stop-start at times on opening night, but the viola soloist accompanying Giselle’s Act 2 slow solo was exemplary. 

Even more impressive as actors were Ayako Ono and Yudai Fukuoka on the second night. Ono's Giselle has a delicate vulnerability, ideal for this tragic plotline; she visibly lost her mind when Albrecht's betrayal became clear. And Fukuoka's Albrecht perfectly caught the ambiguity of the character, an ignoble noble, visibly shifty, but genuinely pole-axed by Giselle's death. Both he and Izawa have the true stature and grace of the danseur noble, while the women combined wit and bounce with the dignified control their slow Act 2 solos require. 

Sealing the deal, though, is the corps. In Act 1, as peasants dressed in various russet shades, or In darker colours as the male followers-on at the hunt, they are given a lot to do, all of it exuberantly executed. As a group they leap and spin in unison. When they form lines that cross through each other – a faster version of the Wilis sequence in Act 2, who do the same in hopping arabesques – they are moving so rapidly, they almost become a blur. Marriott also employs a formation where the front rank of the corps is joined by the others, line by line, each longer than the one before, as a thrilling visual correlative to the swelling music. 

This well drilled uniformity is even more obvious when the Wilis arrive: one of the best corps I have seen (pictured bottom). As with the Russian companies, the dancers are precision-matched in height and build, and they move as one – except for an unusual moment rather like a Mexican wave where they twist around one by one, then raise their arms in a lovely ripple effect. Their Myrtha on both nights was Akari Yoshida, who made this strenuous role look easy; she projected her power and anger without losing her gracefulness. 
The relative newness of this production is especially obvious in Bird’s exceptional costumes. The aristocrats in the hunting party sport opulent fur-trimmed robes in dark neutrals, with a radiant pink and red palette for Albrecht’s regal fiancée that commands the attention. Similarly, Giselle and her mother stand out in traditional white and blue among Act 1’s autumnal tones. In Act 2, adding to the Wilis’s impact are their whisper-light Romantic tutus, whose ample gauzy layers fly up around them, enhancing the sense of their lack of corporeality.

The only slight disappointment in this fine production is the decision to stage Act 2 in a weird hollow on the edge of the woods, where a handful of trees and ridges are dotted with multiple crosses. Bird has raised up the trees on one side so that the dancers can enter and exit comfortably through their roots, leaving a wide-open space for the performers in the middle, with the cliff Hilarion will be driven to jump off visible in the distance. But I missed the sense that we are deep in the dark heart of an ancient forest, where the terrifying spirits of women who have been jilted and died before their wedding day gather to exact their revenge on men. It’s eerie without being claustrophobic. (Pictured above, Yui Yonezawa)

The little trills signalling the Wilis’ presence, thrilling little flashes of white among the trees in the Royal's version, aren’t possible here; instead, lightning flashes ominously in the background. Myrtha, first to arrive, is given a suitably ghoulish entrance, rising up on some kind of hydraulic lift on top of a bank and pointing menacingly at the hapless Hilarion, but her veiled followers simply walk slowly on at either side of the stage, rather than apparently appearing from their graves.

The Wilis amply fill the available space, though as Giselle performs her solos in it, begging for Albrecht to be spared, Myrtha is positioned far over to one side, where her imperious raised-hand gestures saying “no” don’t seem as focal as usual. Yonezawa’s acting is perhaps a little too serene and contained here, though Ono gave her Giselle an ideal balance of yearning and courage, now expressing physically her love for Albrecht in a way she couldn't when alive.Yoshida has one more tweak in these final moments, despatching the Wilis as Giselle magically fades back into her grave. The programme synopsis has it that she, like Albrecht, has been spared, no longer doomed to death-long membership of the Wilis, and is now a spirit at peace. It's a fitting generous moment in what was all too short a visit, and a fine introduction to a company of excellent actor-dancers. Long may they return with more of their repertoire.  

• Giselle at the Royal Opera House until Sunday July 27
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