During the season, and over five nights, I saw each of the five Giselles – Dorothee Gilbert, Myriam Ould-Braham, Ludmila Pagliero, Isabelle Ciaravola and Melanie Hurel, and four Albrechts…
What one does not see much of, at least at first glance, is nostalgia for the motherland. “I never had nostalgia about anything,” Baryshnikov says.
The arrival of the wilis takes one’s breath away. Not only are they individually beautiful, with their soft port-de-bras and milky-white shoulders, but they are all eerily the same, in every way: same size, same build, same arms, same tilt of the head, same gaze, same feet.