margotfonteyns: Sally Gilmour in Giselle, presented by the Ballet Rambert at the Sadler’s Well

margotfonteyns:

Sally Gilmour in Giselle, presented by the Ballet Rambert at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre, 1946. Photo by Roger Wood.

In 1946 the London ballet scene was seemingly haunted by an endless visitation of Wilis, with no less than five different productions of Giselle being staged, and what looked on paper like the least spectacular turned out in many ways to be the most interesting. Though lacking the resources of more prestigious companies, Marie Rambert’s production achieved a level of sincerity and simplicity that was deeply affecting, while Gilmour’s interpretation of the lead part was lit by a sense of spirituality that none of the four other Giselles (Fonteyn, Chauviré, Alonso, and Inglesby) were able to match. For that reason–in a year that saw the debut of Frederick Ashton’s Symphonic Variations, the re-opening of the Royal Opera House, and visits to London by multiple foreign stars–it was to this production that the founder of Ballet magazine awarded their bouquet for the most memorable moment of 1946:

“Why was this Giselle so successful? Hugh Stevenson’s designs were not outstanding. The small orchestra under Arthur Oldham did not play Adam’s tinkling music at all well. Neither Gilmour nor [Walter] Gore are pre-eminent as dancers. I think the secrets of Marie Rambert’s triumph are feeling, thought and care. Instead of ‘running up’ a revival of the old ballet from what she remembered of previous productions, she would seem to have cleared her mind of preconceptions and, attacking Giselle with a fresh point of view, to have realized the qualities which originally made it so moving a work. … Just as when Toscanini conducts some hackneyed piece–say ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’–we seem to be hearing it for the first time, so, at this moment, do all previous productions of Giselle evaporate from our memory, and we become personally involved in the present tragedy of a betrayed girl. … One no longer analysed or compared or distinguished between the work of librettist, composer, producer or dancers, because one was living Giselle. Art had somehow triumphed.” - Richard Buckle