The full-length Romantic ballet “Giselle” will be performed by the OKC Ballet with guest artists from the Boston Ballet, and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic will be in the orchestra pit.
It will be danced at the Civic Center Music Hall at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, February 5 and 6. Regular tickets range from $29 to $45.
Guest artists are principal dancers Misa Kuranga and Albert James Whiteside, who danced, respectively, Giselle and Albrecht in Boston Ballet’s last fall’s production. Kuranga is also a frequent guest artist internationally. Whiteside has performed lead roles in over 30 professional ballets.
“(These artists have) ‘Giselle’ fresh in their minds and their bodies,” said Robert Mills, artistic director of OKC Ballet.
“I wanted to bring in some guest artists because it’s a draw and it creates interest. We have incredibly talented dancers, and they’ll learn a lot from these dancers – watching them dance, and watching their work ethic.
“They’ll be in class and on the stage, and it’s a benefit to the community to be able to see dancers they’d have to go to Boston to see.”
The first classical ballet presented by this company was last year’s “Les Sylphides.”
“The season needed something classical. THR3E by THR3E will have something classical, and ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ had classical ballet steps, but I wanted to bring in a full-length classical ballet, and add ‘Giselle’into the repertoire doing it in a world class way.
“We got the John Lanchbury arrangement of Adolphe Adam’s original score from American Ballet Theatre (for this historical ballet, guest artists,) and the OKC Phil – I liked it so much. This is the closest thing to a world class production this company has ever produced.”
Ballet master Jacob Sparso, in staging the ballet, is following the original choreography by Jules Perrot and Jean Corrali, and including the later restaging by Marius Petipa. It was premiered in 1841 in Paris in the middle of the Romantic movement.
“I don’t claim to be a dance historian,“ he said. “Romantic spans a period of time in classical ballet when women were dancing on point until neoclassical ballet with Balanchine. It’s synonymous with the mid-calf length tutus.
“It’s a style of ballet. For example, everything is delicate, very ephemeral – the arms never got fully extended – now dance is much more athletic. This is why many characters were sylphs and sprites and ghosts. When the first female dancers started to dance on point, the thing that awed people was that they looked like they were floating on the tips of their toes.
In the ballet, Giselle, a peasant girl, is courted by Hilarion, but falls in love with Loys – actually Duke Albrecht in disguise as he sows his wild oats. There is a harvester’s celebration, a challenge for the love of Giselle, Giselle’s mad scene when she discovers she has been deceived, and her defense of Albrecht in her afterlife from the Wilis – ghosts of women scorned by their lovers before their wedding day who seek revenge by dancing any men they come across to death. The ballet ends with a reconciliation and peace for both Giselle and Albrecht “I think people would be awestruck by classical dance if they saw it,” says Mills.
Tickets can be purchased at 848.TOES (8637) or by visiting www.okcballet.com.
