Classic Chance

Dance

CALIFORNIA BALLET COMPANY director Maxine Mahon danced in more than two dozen Starlight Opera musicals before she turned 18. But her heart was in classicism, and when the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo made tour stops to the old Russ Auditorium in San Diego, she would pack up peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches and steal backstage for the day.

Mahon watched in awe from the moment the dancers arrived, dressed in feather boas and exotic clothes and speaking different languages. Her most cherished memory was seeing the renowned team of Igor Youskevitch and Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso perform Giselle, the 19th-century Romantic-era ballet conceived by the French poet Théophile Gautier.

“I know what the best looks like,” says Mahon, who is staging Giselle this month in Poway as the first production of the company’s 40th-anniversary season. “And those two were the best of all time. It wasn’t the physicality of the dance; it was the emotion and the tearing of the soul when they had to separate. I can picture that Act II scene, when she came in and he carried her. It was aesthetically unbelievable.”

The principal roles of Giselle and Albrecht alternate between two couples: Jennifer Curry and Andrei Jouravlev and Cassandra Lund and Vitaliy Nechay. The ballet is highly desirable among dancers because it offers the opportunity to demonstrate dramatic ability and the lyricism of the Romantic period. Originally performed by the Paris Opera in 1841, Giselle demands a soft-focus effect that requires dancers to master sustained control. A lift, for example, should suggest the illusion of flying, with a floating back to the floor, as if gravity’s pull is nonexistent.

Then there is the bittersweet storyline, said to be the Hamlet of the dance world because of its range of emotions. Giselle is an innocent peasant girl with a weak heart who is courted by Albrecht, a nobleman betrothed to another. When Giselle learns of this betrayal, she goes mad and dies of a broken heart. In the afterlife, she becomes one of the Wilis, spirits of young women who have died before their wedding day. They force any man who comes into their presence to dance until death. When Albrecht visits Giselle’s grave, the Wilis engage him in their malicious magic until Giselle intervenes and spares his life.

Mahon founded CBC in 1968 and is known for building a repertory of classics, including a full-length Coppelia, Romeo and Juliet and Sleeping Beauty. The new season also features The Nutcracker, staged at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts and at the San Diego Civic Theatre in December. Guest artists Vadim Solomakha (San Francisco Ballet), Gennadi Saveliev (American Ballet Theatre), Evgeniy Lushkin (International Ballet Theatre) and CBC principal Vitaliy Nechay will dance the role of the Cavalier.

In March, the CBC presents the premiere of Cinderella and First View, performed with the German dance company Opus M. “The classics get the biggest audiences, and it’s good for the ballet community and the public,” says Mahon, a fifth-generation San Diegan. “A lot of companies in the ’60s and ’70s dropped their classics, but then San Francisco Ballet and Seattle started adding them back in. Now everyone is doing the classics again.”

Giselle takes the stage October 6 and 7 at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts. More information: 858-560-6741 or californiaballet.org.

Do you like what you read? Subscribe to San Diego Magazine »