Yuan Yuan Tan has dominated the start of San Francisco Ballet's 75th anniversary season, which should be no surprise. With her liquid limbs and cool glamour, she is a wonder of the ballet world. Yet Saturday, at the opening of the company's "Giselle," Tan's first-cast prominence began to smell a little fishy.

In physicality and temperament, Tan is hardly a dancer you'd typecast as the title role's rustic peasant girl - her arms are so long, they practically can't help unfurling in aristocratic flourishes, her natural demeanor so elegant, it seemed she'd be right at home in the courts of Albrecht, the deceptive prince who breaks Giselle's heart.

But the bigger problem was that Giselle must be a flesh-and-blood character, and Tan didn't seem to have thought out who, beyond a pretty flirt, her Giselle was. And so Saturday, with the corps women in top form as the ghost maiden Wilis of Act 2, this revival of Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson's 1999 production - the best of his many story ballet stagings - remained a finely danced vessel awaiting a worthy heroine to reveal its full pathos.

SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - Balletomanes in the ornate lobby of the San Francisco War Memorial seemed busy Saturday evening, discussing what will happen in a few days.

Instead of focusing on the business at hand, the opening of the "Giselle" revival with the "A cast," talk was all about the coming role debut Tuesday of Bolshoi's/Royal Ballet's Maria Kochetkova, to be partnered by Joan Boada.

A promising show, indeed, but in the meanwhile, Yuan Yuan Tan and Tiit Helimets danced Giselle and Albrecht for the ages, surrounded by fine soloists and a spectacular corps de ballet.

All in all, it was a wonderful performance of a classic, which is beginning to look like once again what Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot and - above all - Marius Petipa had wrought.

It wasn't always so.

When San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson first put his stamp on "Giselle" in 1999 - responsible for both production and the choreography "after Petipa," etc. - I found "a static, slow, impersonal, Icelandic stirring of white tutus, the lovers never connecting, time running out on the impassive, uncaring willies, Giselle leaving, Alberich surviving... If you can't get romantic with `Giselle,' what does it take to do the trick?"

Apparently, it takes time. In eight years, much has happened, all for the good.

From the first act story ballet (sliced and diced just right) through the second act's white ballet, all went swimmingly, and this time the finale had not only Tan's and Helimets’ athletic strength and superb artistry, but also a romantic, heartbreaking connection with each other and the audience.

This grown-up, re-revised "Giselle" speaks to the heart.

Anyone been to see it yet? No comments posted to date.

The SF Chronicle did not seem too impressed with Yuan Yuan Tan. This is the cast I am going to see next Saturday so I'd be interested if others agreed, and also what anyone thought of other casts.

Any words on Kristin Long as Giselle? Vanessa Zahorian?