06.09.2012
Giselle, ou Les Wilis: Dancing Emotions
On 13 September, the opening night of the ballet season, the title role in Giselle, ou Les Wilis will be danced by Polina Semionova. It will be the first time that the dancer, one of today’s most celebrated ballerinas, will perform her signature role at the Mikhailovsky Theatre.
After graduating from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, Polina Semionova immediately left for Berlin at Vladimir Malakhov’s invitation. There she became the prima ballerina at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, and in the course of 10 seasons, danced the leading roles in a range of classical and modern ballets. This September, Polina Semionova became prima ballerina at the American Ballet Theater.
The ballerina’s admirers call her “tender, half-ethereal, familiar and comprehensible to everyone, but at the same time a distant, unearthly creature — the embodiment of grace and harmony”, and her name is considered a byword for femininity. Critics remark on her consummate performing style. “Ms. Semionova has an elegant facility. As thin as a reed with luxurious extension, she possesses a solid jump and can hold balances effortlessly. Yet perhaps her finest attribute is her naturalness; rather than forcing emotions, she dances through them”, wrote the New York Times.
On her birthday, 13 September, Polina will perform a role that ballet critic Vadim Gayevsky has called “a romantic crescendo of love”. Her partner will be Marcelo Gomes, the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s Guest Principal Dancer. It will be a duet of two great artists, which is fundamentally important in Giselle, ou Les Wilis. According to Vadim Gayevsky, it is “the first duet ballet in the modern understanding of a duet as a choreographic form and in the romantic understanding of a duet as a union of human hearts”.
After graduating from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, Polina Semionova immediately left for Berlin at Vladimir Malakhov’s invitation. There she became the prima ballerina at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, and in the course of 10 seasons, danced the leading roles in a range of classical and modern ballets. This September, Polina Semionova became prima ballerina at the American Ballet Theater.
The ballerina’s admirers call her “tender, half-ethereal, familiar and comprehensible to everyone, but at the same time a distant, unearthly creature — the embodiment of grace and harmony”, and her name is considered a byword for femininity. Critics remark on her consummate performing style. “Ms. Semionova has an elegant facility. As thin as a reed with luxurious extension, she possesses a solid jump and can hold balances effortlessly. Yet perhaps her finest attribute is her naturalness; rather than forcing emotions, she dances through them”, wrote the New York Times.
On her birthday, 13 September, Polina will perform a role that ballet critic Vadim Gayevsky has called “a romantic crescendo of love”. Her partner will be Marcelo Gomes, the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s Guest Principal Dancer. It will be a duet of two great artists, which is fundamentally important in Giselle, ou Les Wilis. According to Vadim Gayevsky, it is “the first duet ballet in the modern understanding of a duet as a choreographic form and in the romantic understanding of a duet as a union of human hearts”.
