Act II – Giselle – Being There

It is time. I hear the bell toll and the audience gathers to witness the final act of Giselle. I am backstage warming up, going through the jumps, trying to remember all the small bits of coaching that are to infuse my character with life and … death.
Rudi’s face is a mask of sorrow, makeup accentuating his strong cheekbones and bringing his grieving character into focus. Eva is prancing around, warming up her feet and her legs for the exquisite stress that playing a ghost will require from her whole being.
I practice the panche, a difficult step on a rounded point shoe where I stand on one leg while lifting the back leg up as high as possible without falling over. The trick is in not falling over. It takes a type of core strength, perfect center and balance, and a determination that is as unflinching as this character demands.
To say I am nervous is an understatement. I can feel myself on the verge of hyperventilating and my hands are as cold as the icy demeanor of my dead character.
I think inside silently, “This is it! This is the moment that you get to find out if you are worthy or not!”
Performing is one moment that lives and breathes on that stage for that evening. One will determine by one’s ability … if that moment will come again.
I have worked so hard to get here. I have put up with more than I even want to reflect on in this moment. After all, I need to stay focused. There are times when you have to believe in yourself. And I have to believe in the fact that Rudi is giving me this chance. Yes, Gert Reinholm needed to agree and Rudi is very hard to say “No” too but I do not want to let either of them down in this moment.
I glance at Eva out of the corner of my eye. She is the exquisite embodiment of grace, goodness, and talent. While every dancer can be nervous, she holds herself in a way of an artist that has been in this place many times. She knows she has the capacity to do the job well. She is quiet confidence. Whereas Nureyev is impassioned pathos. He is internally tight, and she is fluid and cool like the mist that is coming onto the stage from the dry ice machines to create the dark and ghostly forest.
The other Wilis are filtering in, and the wings become filled with the talent that will become Act II.
The overture of the second act begins and slowly the curtain rises as Hilarion comes in carrying daisies as he is seeking Giselle’s grave. But he is startled by odd sounds and sights in the woods and runs away.
I am in the wings, on point, with a veil over my head, mentally preparing for my entrance. I take a breath and feel the forest and the mist. I have created the mist. I have done this to confuse the mortals that might have wandered too far into my territory. My breath is the fog that lays on the ground as I am cold with anger and the loss of my life to the insensitivity of the man that pretended to love me when he didn’t. I have such loathing for men that I have called to me an army of the dead women who have also lost their lives because of love. I am to create a sacred space upon which these women will dance to the sorrows of the lost lives, the lost loves, the loss of being a mother and bearing children. We are the souls trapped in an endless loop of longing for a love that will never come.
With that thought in my mind, I begin to bourrée diagonally across the stage. My feet are flying as I move like the mist across a lake. It is as if my feet do not touch the ground. I am not walking, as I am not human. I am skimming the surface of life, longing for what will never be.
As I go off the stage, I grab two myrtle branches, which are the symbols of love and immortality and from which most dancers assume the name “Myrtha” comes from.
With these branches I consecrate the ground and call forth the wilis from their graves to come and dance.
This solo of Myrtha is about the power of intention. She is strength but it comes from a cold heart that was broken. After floating around the stage, the next thing is the penche promenades that require such strength and determination. This is something very difficult to do especially as I am facing into the wings and the boom lights are directly in my face. Ballet is about skill … but also will. And I am after all tonight the lead, “Wilis”. It is up to me to accomplish it without falling over.
Everything goes smoothly and we move to the wilis rising up from the grave and beginning to dance together. We are celebrating the coming of a new member to our ghostly legion, Giselle. After bringing her soul forth, Myrtha releases her spirit from the grave and instantly the love of Giselle for dance explodes out of her and she is spinning and leaping, for the moment, alive and feeling once again, the power of her heart that cannot be contained.
I hear a man in the forest, and I send the wilis off to corral him and bring him for judgement.
While we are seeking Hilarion, Albrecht comes out of the forest into the clearing bearing white lilies, the symbol of the purity of Giselle’s love. He is despondent and in terrible grief. Giselle hears his pain and comes to him.
Albrecht feels her before he sees Giselle. He tries to touch her, but she slips away like the mist that she has become. He expresses his deep sorrow to her, and she forgives him and understands. Her love is so strong that even in death, it is intact, and she expresses her undying love to him.
They go off the stage, wandering in the forest fog when the wilis capture Hilarion and bring him into the sanctified ground to be judged. Hilarion begs for his life, but Myrtha holds no love or remorse for any man and has the wilis throw him off the cliff after forcing him to dance to exhaustion.
Then, the wilis ensnare Albrecht and plan to do the same with him, when Giselle flies in and protects and shields him with her love.
Myrtha is stunned and is forced to retreat because of the power of the light of Giselle’s love for Albrecht.
Furious at being thwarted, Myrtha demands that he dance to his death, in retaliation for breaking Giselle’s heart and what he did to her.
Giselle decides to dance with him to keep his spirit up and to distract the Queen and the Wilis at times so he can catch his breath. Repeatedly Giselle asks the Queen for mercy for him but is refused. Giselle asks for mercy from the other wilis with Albrecht, but they all refuse.
But the power of love is so strong that Albrecht manages to dance until the dawn. At the breaking of the dawn, the power of the Queen of the Wilis is broken. As the light breaks through, all the willis retreat back into their own graves.
Giselle and Albrecht are left on the stage and Albrecht admits his true love for Giselle and this frees her spirit from needing to be a wilis any longer. Giselle promises to love him forever and as she fades into the mists never to return, Albrecht is left knowing that true love saved him and that because of Giselle his life has been not just spared but that he has been forever changed.
Alone with the reality of what he has lost, he collapses on Giselle’s grave, looking up into the heavens, knowing that he will never forget that he has lost … true love.
Tears are rolling down Nureyev’s face as the curtain closes and for a moment there is silence from a stunned audience. Then the rising applause and the screams of “Bravo” can be heard booming.
We come out for the curtain call. First the Wilis come out, next the two solo wilis, then Hilarian bows, then it is my turn. I come from the back of the stage, with the swift softness of a panther to the roar of applause escalating and bravos.
I am humbled and so very grateful. I have survived this moment. I have thrived. And I have been seen and recognized.
As I back up Nureyev and Evdokimova come out together from the back to the center and forward. The audience is now on its feet. In the reflection of the brighter lights, I can see the audiences faces. They are enthralled, transfixed, and changed by these two stars of the ballet world.
I have seen art but there is nothing like seeing that art up close and from the stage and the wings.
Ballet is a personal, emotional, sweaty, painful process of expression. It is alive with the blood, sweat, and tears of all those that came before us and all those that will be inspired after us. We all are a part of a co-creation that has continued for hundreds of years.
As the company continues to bow, flowers come out for Eva and myself. Together we take a bow with Rudi in the middle. Nureyev has a smile that lights up the whole theater. Eva has a graceful humility that is sincere and honest. And I am grateful to be standing on the same stage with both of them and all the dancers.
Such a moment is a type of graduation. It is a type of recognition. It is a moment of personal intention that has manifested as perfectly as I was humanly capable of in that moment.
As the curtain comes down for the final time, I walk back to my dressing room, satisfied in a way that I had always wanted to feel.
This was the dream of my inner child at 5 years old. It has become the reality of this young woman that I have become. And it will be a moment that will inspire me to keep seeking magic till the day I die.
~Suzanne Wagner~