State Ballet of Georgia: Giselle with Nina Ananiashvili

Nina Ananiashvili showed us what her highly regarded interpretation of Giselle was all about on Saturday night, in a performance with her company, the State Ballet of Georgia. The ballet is a 19th century Romantic classic about the titular young peasant girl, who dies of a weak heart when she finds that her beloved Albrecht has deceived her and is actually betrothed to a noble woman. She spends Act 2 as a ghost, reconciling with a heartbroken Albrecht. Ananiashvili is approaching her 44th birthday, several years after the usual retirement age for ballet dancers, but she was still able to convey a convincing girlishness in Act 1 and a beautiful, ethereal lightness in the ghostly Act 2. Her performance was drawn in broad, highly stylized strokes, very much in the Russian way of Giselle. It wasn't exactly naturalistic, but gives high drama it its own way. In the pantomime that comprises the drama in Act 1, the acting itself was often more of a cartoon caricatures than real people (I much prefer The Royal Ballet way with convincing acting), but Ananiashvili's body language is unmistakably and charmingly girlish. When she goes mad, it's immediate dimensia and dramatics.

The extended dance of the Wilis is where Ananiashvili's interpretation took flight, literally and figuratively. Though her technique is not as easy or virtuosic as it once was, she was still able to sustain a stirring, slow majesty to her movement. Soft poses extended into infinity, jumps paused breathlessly in the air. Her face showed the pained drama of her reconciliation with Albrecht, while her body displayed the poetry of the romance.

The rest of the company showed the same technical unevenness that was seen on Thursday night, but certainly Giselle is a ballet that they looked much more at home in, temperamentally and stylistically. Their caricatured acting didn't elevate the ballet into the passionate drama that Giselle can be - it was more of a light cartoon here, especially with the forced perspective small sets - but at least the dances ended up looking pretty enough. Vasil Akhmeteli partnered Ananiashvili as Albrecht, solidly if unmemorably. But this was Ananiashvili's show, and a real chance to see her locally before she hangs up her dancing shoes at the end of a remarkable career.