Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Someday there will be a “relaxed” performance of Giselle and someone will rise up from the stalls and warn the poor heroine that the charming chap in the suspiciously well-cut peasant jerkin is not all he seems. Happily, no one spilled the beans on Wednesday, when English National Ballet began its latest revival of the 1971 production by Mary Skeaping, exquisitely set and dressed by David Walker, a welcome palate-cleanser after a seasonal diet of sugar plums. When ENB danced Giselle this time last year the company looked out of sorts and failed to engage with the simple yet profound tragedy of a village girl who returns from the grave to redeem the heedless aristocrat who betrayed her. This has all been put right for 2025. The excellent opening-night cast was led by Erina Takahashi, giving her penultimate performance after 29 years with the company before taking up a full-time coaching role.Debuts are always very sexy but the seasoned ballerina offers more complex flavours, her portrayal the sum of everything she has learned. The Hokkaido-born star gave a heart-rending account of the heroine. At 46, she retains the sharp pointes and vaporous port de bras so vital for Giselle, with its contradictory blend of the everyday and the ethereal. The same steps recur in the harvest celebration, the mad scene and the spectral second act, but Takahashi modulates her delicate ronds de jambe and late-flowering développés to suit the needs of the drama, aided by the ENB Philharmonic and conductor Gavin Sutherland’s responsive tempi.There was strong dancing and playing throughout. Noam Durand earned cheers for his clean-cut beaten steps and airy ballon in the act one peasant pas de deux. Hilarion, the jealous boy next door who penetrates Albrecht’s disguise, was sympathetically played by Fabian Reimair. The first act is a tricky mix of moods which ENB’s dancers navigate with great skill and the sudden plunge into tragedy was beautifully judged. Peter Wright, forever tinkering with his otherwise splendid Covent Garden production, has reduced act one’s closing moments to Giselle’s mother hugging her daughter’s corpse (© Lady Capulet and Tybalt), but Skeaping is faithful to the original tableau: an entire village united in grief.Takahashi was partnered by Francesco Gabriele Frola, whose easy lifts made his ghostly Giselle appear completely weightless. Although Skeaping’s stringently researched text denies Albrecht some of his act two fireworks — no entrechats, sadly — Frola makes the most of his variations. When the spectral Queen of the Wilis tries to dance him to death, his arcing jetés are so high and handsome you half expect her to change her mind.Precious Adams was on superb form as the vengeful Myrtha. Her shimmering pas de bourrée glides the full width of the spookily sidelit Coliseum stage as if pulled by an unseen magnet and she lands her ferocious jumps with eerie quietness on well-prepared shoes. The corps of 20 Wilis might want to agree on a height for their arabesques during their big stage-crossing set piece but were otherwise well-drilled, the furious embodiment of a woman scorned.★★★★★To January 18, londoncoliseum.org
