Tutus and tears as Paris Opera Ballet rounds off turbulent season with major departures

Tears are expected for a farewell, but this week at the Paris Opera Ballet they flowed long before the curtain fell. Shortly after her return in ghostly form in Act Two of Giselle, Alice Renavand — a beloved étoile, or principal, whom a legion of artists and balletomanes had come to celebrate — stopped mid-flight and was forced to hobble offstage, in visible pain.

Ballet companies are well-oiled machines and within minutes an understudy was pulled from her spot in the corps de ballet to make her debut in the most revered role in the French repertoire. When he first laid eyes on Bleuenn Battistoni, Mathieu Ganio, the picture of deeply felt remorse as Albrecht (and himself injured during a world premiere earlier this season), briefly looked dazed. Yet the two of them made it work with remarkable sangfroid.

Renavand walked back onstage with help during the curtain calls and the Paris Opera’s general director, Alexander Neef, announced that she would get another send-off next season. It’s a relief because Renavand’s unusual career deserves a proper tribute. Her breakthrough came in the works of Pina Bausch and in other contemporary repertoire, yet she never shunned the classics, making late debuts in ballets such as Don Quixote and La Fille mal gardée.

Unusually, as a result, her first Giselle run was also to be her last. Her dramatic intelligence served her well in act one, as did her rarely exploited gift for comedy. Her heroine was no wallflower, raising an eyebrow to her friends as if to underline what a catch Albrecht seemed to be. When tragedy struck, she let go of classical mannerisms easily to tap into heartbreak, and even a little anger. Her second act promised much; it’s hard to imagine how she must have felt when it was taken away from her.

The farewell that wasn’t caps an up-and-down season for France’s national ballet company. On the one hand, many dancers have returned from the pandemic-enforced break of 2020-21 with renewed ardour: the velvety polish of the corps in Giselle is proof. Yet the overall artistic direction has been adrift for a number of years, culminating last month in another announced goodbye: that of company director Aurélie Dupont.

Dupont, a former étoile, was hastily appointed in 2016 to steady the ship after Benjamin Millepied’s sudden exit. Her lack of management experience showed early on and, crucially, she never articulated a clear vision for the ballet repertoire, especially POB’s ageing classical productions. Instead, new works often proved all too similar to what was already on offer on Paris’s numerous contemporary stages.

Whoever leads the Paris Opera Ballet next will have the pressing task of clarifying what the company’s identity is. In Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, inherited from the Millepied era and dully revived at the Opéra Bastille, too many in the cast looked as though they had no idea why they were dancing this particular work.

It’s a shame, because the world-class talent is there. Ludmila Pagliero, a ballerina of penetrating musical intelligence, and Marc Moreau were a vision of harmony in Balanchine’s act two divertissement. Dorothée Gilbert and Hugo Marchand, arguably the company’s greatest dramatic partnership in years, filled Giselle in an earlier performance with intimacy and detail — Gilbert hauntingly artless, Marchand enveloping her in eager, conceited lust, and punished for it.

Dancers’ careers are short and risky, as Renavand’s misfortune demonstrated. Showcasing them sensibly is the least the next director can do.

‘Giselle’ ★★★★★

‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ ★★★☆☆

Both to July 16, operadeparis.fr