Allen Yu (余能盛) decided last year that he would stage Giselle for his Chamber Ballet Taipei (台北室內芭蕾舞團) this year. He remained undeterred when he began to get telephone calls back home in Graz, Austria, at the end of the year from the Metropolitan Hall and others, who told him that this was going to be the year of Giselle in Taipei, with the State Ballet of Georgia performing it in February and the Royal Ballet bringing its full-stage production last month.
The Taiwanese choreographer knew his small company would not be able to compete with the larger foreign troupes in terms of technique or production value — although his ticket prices are a bargain compared with the others — so he decided to update the story a bit and change the setting to present-day Taiwan.
Instead of a forest village somewhere in the Rhineland in the Middle Ages filled with young peasant girls and boys, an aristocratic hunting party and a noble with a roaming eye, the first act is set in a factory, with Giselle as the company’s “office girl,” the general manager (GM) as her love interest and the dancers in more modern dress.
Photo Courtesy of Sandy Ouyang
“She is the young girl who cleans the GM’s office; she’s the xiaomeimei (小妹妹, literally “younger sister”) everybody loves. She likes to dance, but has a heart problem. The GM is the prince; they fall in love. Another colleague falls in love with her, but she doesn’t know it. In the family that owns the factory, the daughter is engaged to the GM. It’s a very typical Taiwan soap opera, but I kept the classical ballet style,” Yu said in a telephone interview earlier this week.
“I have an introductory act to show the relationships between the four [main characters] ... so before the story starts the public will understand it,” he said. “The story happens at the end of the work day; the colleague sees them [Giselle and the GM] through the door, then the director comes and tells everyone they have been working so hard they will get more money ... Everyone dances ... they’re having a party. The GM is usually reserved, but he dances one pas de deux with her [Giselle].”
The jealous colleague then forces the showdown that reveals the GM is already engaged, triggering Giselle’s mad scene and heart attack.
Yu said the problem with the traditional Giselle is that Act I “is really boring,” and the love affair between Giselle and Albrecht isn’t believable (“They meet once and then they’re in love”), which is why he wanted to update it and give a bit of a backstory. That his production overlaps the start of Ghost Month and comes just before tomorrow’s Lover’s Day (七夕情人節) is an added bonus for a ballet that is centered on star-crossed lovers and ghosts.
Yu admits the production is a big stretch for his young company — expanded to 36 this year, 24 of them women so he can do a proper Act II in which the Wilis, the ghost-like spirits of young women who died before their wedding day or of unrequited love, take revenge on men by making them dance themselves to death.
As usual with Yu’s now-annual summer shows, the main leads will be danced by imports from Europe: Frenchwoman Julie Gardette, who is with the Finnish National Ballet, will dance Giselle, while the rivals for her hand are Russian Alexandre Katsapov, a principal with the Czech National Ballet Theatre, and Michal Stipa, a soloist with the Czech troupe. They have been in Taipei for several weeks rehearsing with the company.
“Honestly, this company is still not able to do this, it’s not the size, but the quality. Over the last five years we have been building up the company,” Yu said. “Giselle is the most famous romantic ballet. It’s not bad for the company to push forward ... almost no [Taiwanese] company is doing purely classical ballet here.”
Yu said that he also played around with the Adolphe Adam score, changing the placement of several numbers — something directors and choreographers have been doing with it almost from the beginning. The show is a bit longer than the normal Giselle at 100 minutes. However, he said he couldn’t go too far because a lot of the movements are important, which is why he didn’t change too much of what he calls the “white ballet” of Act II.
For the three Taipei shows, the dancers will be accompanied by the Taipei Symphony Orchestra (台北市立交響樂團), conducted by Marius Burkert, a colleague of Yu’s at the Opera House in Graz. However, when the company heads south next week for Taichung and then two shows in Tainan, it will leave the musicians behind and use recorded music.
Yu sounded his usual cheerful self, but he said this year has been intense and that it was about to get worse. The day after his last show in Tainan he will fly back to Austria to spend six weeks at his main job as deputy ballet director and choreographer in Graz before heading to the Czech Republic for seven weeks to rehearse with the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava, which bought his 2008 Taiwanese production of La Dame aux Camelias. He has to do a new piece for the Graz troupe for Christmas and another one for January, while two other European troupes have expressed an interest last year’s The Door (門) and 1998’s None But the Lonely Heart.
He’s proud that more companies are interested in ballets that he created for Taiwanese audiences, but added, “I don’t know if I can take more time from my job [to work with other troupes] ... I don’t think the people in Graz would be too happy.”
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