POB "Giselle" - television broadcast January 1st 2007 at 10 pm


Those with a television (unlike the author of these lines), and access to cable, satellite or whatever, will be well-advised to watch FR3 (French national television), on January 1st 2007 at 10 o'clock in the evening.

The broadcast is, I believe, taken directly, without splicing or cutting, from last week's performance on December 14th, while the production, not of the cheeriest , is by Patrice Bart.

Persons who have seen the Mary Skeaping version for ENB will not be happy campers with the way the corps de ballet is deployed in Act I (and if anyone have a spare tape of the Skeaping production, I should be eternally grateful !), so it will be most interesting to read what they have to say following this broadcast.

(A cut-and-spliced version will shortly be made for commercially-available DVD, based on the performances of 14th, 20th and 21st December, so this particular broadcast on January 1st will be the closest to actual performance that we are likely to have on tape.)

The title role is danced by Laetitia Pujol, which fact alone would make it worth watching from beginning to end.

Regret as one may that Elisabeth Maurin was filmed in none of her great roles, including this one, Mlle. Pujol is nonetheless truly admirable, both in her dancing, and in her acting, by far its most truthful interpreter amongst the present étoiles. She means, what she says.

Albrecht is M. LeRiche. As he has countless admirers in the English-speaking world, let us put the lid on our reserves in relation to his naturalistic (sloppy?) acting and agreeable, if not excessively-committed dancing. The same can be said of Hilarion, danced by M. Wilfrid Romoli, with a naturalism that personally, I find irritating to an extreme, but again, that opinion is shared by few.

The two great Wilis are Emilie Cozette and the inspired, visionary Laura Hecquet, and as for the pas de deux, it is Myriam Ould Braham and Emmanuel Thibault, who dance as though they had stepped from a painting by Francisco Goya, transforming a slight divertissement, into a page in the history of art.

I am frankly delighted that the world will have a chance to see this, and so, jadies and lentilmen, remember, remember January 1st!

Actually it will be broadcast at 11.30 !