Giselle just had a sterling performance at the Victoria Theatre. That performance sparked my own memories of Giselle because I had seen Giselle performed at the Bolshoi in Moscow. That was in 1995 while my son James and I were touring Moscow and St. Petersburg. In Moscow, we stayed at the Hotel Metropol (Read this book: A Gentleman in Moscow) which was just a few minutes from the Bolshoi and perhaps a five-minute walk to Red Square and the Kremlin. Thankfully, Nikita, the young and affable concierge at the Metropol was able to get us tickets for that same evening, albeit that a ticket for an American cost about ten times more than the same ticket for a Russian.
Inside the Bolshoi I was struck by the beautiful deep red curtain which was embedded with a montage of hammer and sickle logos, a stunning reminder of the Soviet empire that had collapsed just a few years before. In the same way, inside the Victoria, I was struck by the beautiful emerald solid green curtain, befitting in a very different way its historic image.
In 1995 Giselle was performed on the historic stage of the Bolshoi which had about 1,700 seats, while the Victoria is slightly smaller with about 1,200 seats. In many ways the scenery was comparable at both theaters, although I thought the costumes at the Victoria were far more elaborate, and that they added so much to tell the story than did the more traditional tutus at the Bolshoi. Although there was a live orchestra at the Bolshoi, the soundtrack for Giselle at the Victoria was incredibly good, and the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance should be very proud of its production, both in the theater itself and for the performance of the ballet.
Giselle itself is the masterpiece in the canons of classical ballet. Its tales of love, romance, death and deceit, revenge, and, in the end, redemption, are all as relevant in 2025 as they were in 1841.
For generations, Dayton, as a community, has been incredibly blessed with high quality art, going back for generations. With the merger of the opera, the ballet, and the philharmonic into the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance, we are all blessed with integrated artistic performances that have been created, directed, and staffed by our local artistic directors: Kathleen Clawson at the Opera, Brandon Ragland at the Ballet, and Keitaro Harada at the Philharmonic. It is no wonder that Giselle closed with such thundering applause.
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