By PABLO A. TARIMAN
MANILA’S balletomanes could have watched their last Filipino Giselle when Lisa Macuja Elizalde danced what she said was her last crack at this ballet masterpiece Sunday night with Mikhail Martynyuk of Kremlin Ballet and with the Manila Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Alexander Vikulov of the Marinsky Theater.
Macuja’s performance recalled the earlier Filipinos who excelled in the part among them, Maniya Barredo (now retired from Atlanta Ballet) and Anna Villadolid (also retired from the German ballet scene).
Barredo, then based with Atlanta Ballet, danced the first major Giselle at the CCP in the late 70s with the Albrecht of Burton Taylor. The same performance was watched by England’s Dame Margot Fonteyn who – touched by the performance — conferred on her the title, prima ballerina.
The next Giselle to emerge in the 80s was Germany-based Anna Villadolid and followed by Lisa Macuja Elizalde. Ballet Philippines’ Cecile Sicangco danced the part with Fernando Bujones who remains the best Albrecht seen in Manila’s ballet scene.
The excitement for more Giselle performances tripled with the arrival of Japan’s Yoko Morishita in the 80s who danced the part with Nonoy Froilan. Macuja, Villadolid and Sicangco were fans of Morishita who inspired them to be the dancers they turned out to be.
This month, Ballet Manila announced Macuja’s Swan Song series and after the successful re-staging of Don Quijote, the Filipino prima plunged into the part of Giselle, resigned to the inevitable: it was her last.
For the record, Macuja danced her first full-length Giselle with the Kirov Ballet in 1986, a mere six weeks after she debuted as Kitri in Don Quixote also with the same famous Russian company. “Giselle is one of the most dramatic ballets that a ballerina can be privileged enough to dance in, and also one of the most exhausting,” she says.
The Filipino prima reflects on the irony of dancers saying goodbye to the art they have breathed and lived for many years. “Retirement for all dancers comes way too soon. Just when you finally understand the many layers behind portraying the tragic heroines of Giselle, Juliet or Nikiya; just when you develop the wisdom to pace yourself in a stamina demanding role such as Kitri in Don Quixote; just when you feel capable enough with experience, artistic maturity and technique to be able to give those spot-on performance of Odette/Odile, Medora, Cinderella or Swanilda – your body becomes, in a word, uncooperative.”
At the beginning of her career, the prima doesn’t hide the fact that she wants the opportunity to dance all the major classical ballet roles at least once. “The problem with getting what you want is you end up wanting a repeat performance in order to deliver a better and better one. My father keeps track of my performances and it surprises me that now, at the age of 46, even after dancing Giselle 37 times and Kitri in Don Quixote 46 times – I still want, no, crave for that repeat performance in order to improve myself.” Sunday night at the Aliw Theater, Macuja was a picture of focus as she essayed what could be her last in this role. Her Act I entrance was greeted with applause and from the way she portrayed the country maiden, Macuja was saying this portrayal would be different. While her eyes sparkled at seeing her Albrecht ( Mikhail Martynyuk), there was a hint of sadness as she went through the solo variations with dispatch.
As it was, Macuja’s mad scene elicited both veiled sadness on the part of the audience and acceptance on the part of the dancer.
When the curtain went up for the second act, Macuja instantly showed total contrast with a gaunt face straight from the graveyard. Her first pas de deux with Mikhail Martynyuk was delicate yet luminous. When she bid adieu to her Albrecht and, went back to her grave, you realize that the prima once more hurdled the challenge of Giselle considered the Hamlet of ballet. Because in this ballet, you are not just expected to perfect your dance steps. You are equally required to be a first-rate actress.
And so Giselle ended with the competent Myrtha of Seihee Wong, the marked Hilarion of Francis Cascano and the vibrant conducting of Vikulov leading the Manila Symphony Orchestra.
Restaged by Natalia Raldugina, Osias Barroso, Mylene Aggabao, Eileen Lopez and Jonathan Janolo, this last Giselle of Macuja also witnessed a memorable ensemble dancing of the corps de ballet in Act I and a surreal, if, magical one in Act II.
The audience gave her a standing ovation.
Macuja will metamorphose into a Bizet heroine when Ballet Manila stages her last Carmen on October 26-27at the Star Theater.
Carmen is special to the ballerina as it uses the choreography of Eric V. Cruz, Ballet Manila’s first artistic director.
“The Bizet opera is a poignant retelling of the immortal opera by George Bizet, about an ambitious and manipulative woman whose lust for life, love and luxury ends in bitter heartbreak and misfortune. Carmen charms her way into the heart of the corporal of the guards, Don Jose, then later forsakes him for a dashing matador,” Macuja said as she prepares for another memorable performance.
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