<https://balletalert.invisionzone.com/topic/45009-2019-giselle/#comment-419249>
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"Apologies for taking so long to report back...\n \n\n\n\t \n \n\n\n\tOga was a delight... if you ever wanted to explain the difference between the movement signature a principal and someone only able to support  a corps de ballet role, show them Oga's work with steps below 45 degree extensions... so beautiful!!!  No tricks to distract, just beautiful movement.  Truly a charming Giselle.   Her Albrecht, Derek Dunn, I could watch execute jumps all day... that one diagonal run of Brisés would have been worth sitting through an entire performance of mundane work just to catch.\n \n\n\n\tI enjoyed seeing the willies flickering in &amp; out from the wings,  something I don't recall ever seeing before.  The sets were charming.\n \n\n\n\tIsaac Akiba was the best Hilarion I've ever come across (not that I have seen dozens of productions, but I have seen a few).  He held the stage with a brute force that made me want to see him bring life to other roles... has he played a role in Corsaire yet?  He could be very worth seeing in that.  The man is not afraid to act with the energy he puts into his character's sequences of steps.\n \n\n\n\ti hope they do Giselle more often.\n \n\n\n\t-----\n \n\n\n\tThings I would love to see changed..\n \n\n\n\tthe lighting design... in the second act, I did not mind the swirling lights giving the \"other worldly\" vibe, but the erractic xmas lights were just plain distracting.  And the cross on Giselle's grave being upstage did not help Albrecht's entrance (or is that Hilarion's?) this  long slow walk toward nothing in particular with lots of light effects...   the cross was rarely visible... not sure what was up with that... and it almost seemed like they could not afford enough followspots?  Often Giselle &amp; Albrecht were entreating a Myrtha left wholly in shadow.\n \n\n\n\tThe props...  I felt like the props department thought everything must be extra extra because surely we would never \"get it\" otherwise...  so Albrecht has a short red ermine trimmed cape  (might have been borrowed from a Snow White production?) for his first entrance... And his sword looks more like Excalibur than the quivering rapier needed for the snake moment in the mad scene.  Myrtha wears a big crown in case you didn't get that she was Queen of the Willis, and her asphodel sprig is so large that it is terribly distracting when she has to get rid of it off-stage...  also, strangely, the peasants have bright shiny solid gold goblets stored in the cottage in case visiting aristocrats stop by.  I just don't get what the deal was with the props department... they clearly didn't take the job seriously.\n \n\n\n\tCoaching of Albrecht in Act II...  he has to sense Giselle's presence... not just turn and look her immediately straight in the eye... it should be like sensing at the back of the neck that someone is watching...  if he sees her plain as day, why does he miss her when he reaches for her later...\n \n\n\n\tIn the act 2 pas de deux, that lovely adagio was missing legato in the dancers' musicality... i don't know if it were the conductor playing with it or the dancers themselves, but the setting Giselle down on pointe shouldn't be so precisely accented to the note... it's not a moment to express precision... it should be like a dream...\n \n\n\n\tI missed the power of the Willis' rolling gesture of pointing... it was more like a Busby Berkeley wave than the inexorable command the drama requires...  and I have to say that one of the Russian touring pick-up companies did a better job of the willi's arabesque voyagé crossing,.. the willis should not appear to hop, no air time in the chugs... it spoils the magic, they lose that ghostly crossing clouds affect when gravity appears to jar the arabesques, or even merely dancers popping up individualy... floating has to be communicated or the moment is nothing...\n \n\n\n\tSome of the dancers in the ensemble's of Act I were lovely, but many needed more practice with the Romantic style of epaulement and heads... they were trying to get the heads right I guess, but with the slamming force of a leg extension in Forsythe... not with a soft tilt.. \n \n\n\n\tHopefully the Peasant PDD went better in other performances.\n \n\n\n\tCoaching of Giselle's mother... she never so much as looks at Albrecht... which seems a little weird... that she doesn't give this interloper even a passing glance... especially since she clearly is happy with Hilarion's courting of Giselle.\n \n\n\n\tWhy was Bathilde's father younger than Albrecht?  Surely a ballet master could be pressed into service here!  The young man was tall, yes, but he looked barely 18.  And why on earth did the Prince put his mouth on his servant's hunting horn?\n \n\n\n\tAll these things could be easily fixed in future performances... and we would have the  magic that has carried this masterpiece  over 175 years...\n \n\n\n\t------------\n \n\n\n\tI loved Chisako Oga's Act I, though I thought her mad scene could use a little more angst..  she is still so young, perhaps she has not yet had her heart broken to know how to express that desperation? She was so gorgeous in the floating lifts (this might have been all to Dunn's credit, but there is one crossing where he carries her and she seems so light as if he is carrying a spectre not a real woman... and surely she had something to do with managing that).  I don't know if it was a costume problem or what, but I was surprised her line didn't haunt in Act II.  Sure, she is petite, but so too historically were a great many magnificent Giselles, and frankly it should not be danced by a tall ballerina if rules of emploi are followed? Peasants are supposed to be shorter the aristocrats  I believe? So why did her line not extend? There probably isn't a female dancer in Boston Ballet or among the apprentices without line, so surely it isn't her physique... did the costume dwarf her or did she just not emote the extensions?  Did her fingers curve and not suggest eternity? What was the problem?  I could not figure it out, but I hope someone does and corrects it... she was a perfect pre-mad scene Giselle, best I have ever seen... she should be allowed to grow into Act 2.\n \n\n\n\tIn all fairness, this was her debut with Boston Ballet, and not being first or  second cast, perhaps this was her first time on stage with that conductor and that orchestra and in that lighting with that partner... she did a gorgeous job of what could not have been ideal conditions.\n "
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