A History of “Giselle” in Warsaw in the nineteenth century, by Adam Huczka
The Polish premiere of Giselle took place at the Grand Theatre in Warsaw (Teatr Wielki) on January 20, 1848. At that time , the ballet company, consisting of over one hundred dancers, was considered one of the best in Europe. It was managed by the great Filippo Taglioni, who acquired the position of Ballet Director of the Warsaw Theatre Directorate in 1843. At over seventy years old and no longer in his prime, he dedicated his work mostly to teaching. Therefore, needing an assistant and future successor, he appointed a young dancer, Roman Turczynowicz, as régisseur du ballet. Turczynowicz <3> debuted as a choreographer in 1846 with his original ballet Okrężne pod Kielcami, after which he became co-responsible for staging new works on the Warsaw theatre’s stage. Frequently sent abroad by the Warsaw Theatre Directorate, Turczynowicz often travelled to other European capitals, in order to choose and study the fashionable ballet works of the era.
One such journey took place between the Winter and Spring of 1847, when Roman Turczynowicz visited Paris and London. Amongst the first titles of the famous Romantic repertoire brought by the ballet master to the stage of the Grand Theatre in Warsaw were Le Diable à quatre and Giselle ou les Willis. The latter, which had originally premiered seven years earlier in Paris, was now staged in Warsaw under the title of Gizella czyli Willidy. According to the playbills and press reviews, the ballet’s original composition was still attributed to Jean Coralli, but the choreography was now restaged by Turczynowicz. The Polish premiere of the ballet met with great success, reaching one hundred and thirty-six performances by the end of 1868.
Adolphe Adam’s original score was adapted by Józef Stefani,a Polish composer and conductor of the Grand Theatre in Warsaw. Besides creating numerous original works, Stefani was regularly commissioned to orchestrate the scores of the newly staged ballets, as well as to compose additional dance numbers that were later interpolated into their scores. The well-known romantic ballets performed in Warsaw, that contained original dances by Stefani, included Le Diableamoureux, La Gitana, Le Diable à quatre, Catarina ou la Fille du bandit and La Jolie Fille de Gand, amongst others. Since no musical scores of the early Warsaw Giselle productions survived the destruction of the theatre's archives during World War II, it is now very difficult to examine whether Józef Stefani added any new compositions to Adolphe Adam's ballet, or how close his adaptation was to the original 1841 Paris version. The décor for the new production was created by Antonio Sacchetti, the costumes by EwaGwozdecka and Mr. Marx.
The lead role of Gizella was portrayed by the Prima ballerina of the Warsaw Theatre Directorate, Konstancja Turczynowicz (née Damse) <1>, the wife of Roman. Her stage partner was Aleksander Tarnowski, who appeared in the role of Duke Albert. While in peasant attire, he would use the name of Konrad (in the place of the original Loys). The other interpreters included: Feliks Krzesiński (Felix Kschessinsky) [n1] as Hilarion; Jan Żurkowski as the Count Rudolf (originally Prince of Courland); Honorata Stolpe as Batylda (Bathilde), his daughter; Paweł Owerło as Wilfryd (Wilfried); and Ludmiła Polichnowska as Berta (Berthe). The second act included Anna Piechowicz as Mirta (Myrtha, Queen of the Willis) alongside Emilia Zagórska, Paulina Piasecka, Franciszka Garczyńska and Filipina Damse as the four solo willis.
The playbill of the premiere performance provides us with information on the particular dances that appeared in the ballet. The first act consisted of:
1. Waltz performed by Gizella, Albert and the corps de ballet;
2. Introduction;
3. Pas de Deux of Gizella and Albert;
4. Pas de Quatre performed by two ballerinas and two danseurs.
The first act Pas de Deux of Gizella and Albert was also referred to as Pas de Bouquet as its narrative centered around Gizella trying to retrieve a bouquet of flowers that Albert teases her with. The pas was greatly acclaimed by Antoni Lesznowski, a Warsaw critic of Gazeta Warszawska(The Warsaw Newspaper), who pointed out that the dance seemed to be “a true song” that lacked any unnecessarymovements and that each of the performed steps was crucial for expressing its charming story.
Lesznowski dedicated a long and very detailed review to the premiere performance of Gizella. Like the libretto of the ballet, his account indicates that the story was based in Thuringia. His precise description of the stage action of the whole ballet confirms that Turczynowicz’s staging followed the original Paris version very closely, at least when it came to its dramatic structure. As to the reasons of Gizella’s death,Lesznowski observed: “(…) Gizella discovers the falsity, and then Count Rudolf and his daughter Batylda, Kondrad’sfiancé, confirm it; her happiness is gone forever; her despair kills her (…) Discovering the truth terrifies her; leads to madness. Her dancing then becomes a recollection of the moments from the past; it is an image of moments she’s lived through just shortly before; it is the strongest expression of despair, now only death follows.” The quote seems to confirm that there was no mention of a suicide in the early productions of the ballet; the program libretto shows that, as in the libretto for the 1841 Paris production, Giselle does play mechanically with Albert’s sword, even trying to throw herself on it, but is prevented from this, and dies instead of heartbreak.
Lesznowski also mentioned the circumstances of Gizella’sfinal disappearance at the end of the second act, confirming that she would vanish into nature rather than go back to her grave: “Albert tries in vain to capture [Gizella’s] waist. Her waist though no longer gives support to his arms; he tries in vain to catch her hand; her hand however, disappears in his hands; her whole figure vanishes amongst branches of a wild bush as Konrad falls to the knees of Batylda who has just arrived at the place with her father”. As in Paris, the ballet ended with Giselle disappearing into a wild bush instead of coming back to her grave, and with Albert being approached by Bathilde and the rest of the court. Giselle's last wish was for him to “give his love and his faith to the good Bathilde, as she can no longer love any man on this earth.”
Ballet performances in Warsaw were not only given at the Grand Theatre but, occasionally, also at the Royal Theatre of the Old Orangery in the Łazienki Park, which sometimes functioned as the second stage for the ballet company. These shows were specifically dedicated to the Russian Monarchs,who used the entirety of the Łazienki Park Complex as their official residence during visits to Warsaw. One such visit to Warsaw by Nicholas I of Russia took place in the Spring of 1849. For this occasion, multiple ballet performances were given on the Old Orangery stage, in order to provide entertainment for the Tsar, his wife, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, and their guests. Amongst the titled presentedwas Giselle - the new jewel of the Warsaw ballet repertoire that premiered at the Grand Theatre a year earlier. In the following years, Giselle was performed many more times on the Old Orangery stage.
As previously said, we can be sure that the dramatic structure of Turczynowicz’s staging followed the original Paris version very closely. However, when it comes to the choreographic differences, we notice for instance the appearance of a Pas de quatre in the first act of the ballet. Performed by Antonina Wiłucka, Józefa Zdanowicz, Antoni Tarnowski and Konstanty Budzyński, the dance must have quite likely been a version of the original Peasant Pas de Deux. That is yet to be confirmed. Another noticeable difference is the number of the soloist Willis in the second act. Instead of the original number of two, Turczynowiczintroduced four soloists as Mirta’s attendants. Despite those slight changes into the scheme of the ballet, the overall result must have been close enough to the original version, so that it allowed the first performer of the role - Carlotta Grisi - to appear in the Warsaw production as a guest just a few years later.
It was in the late Autumn of 1853 that Grisi visited Warsaw,coming from Saint Petersburg, where she had performed as a Prima Ballerina of the Imperial Theatres between 1850 and 1853. She appeared on the stage of the Grand Theatre between November and December, partnered by the two great principal dancers of the company - twin brothers Aleksander and Antoni Tarnowski. Over the period of two months, she performed her signature roles for the Warsaw audiences, including: Ninetta (originally Mazourka, in Le Diable à Quatre; 15, 17 November), Giselle (24, 27, 29 November), Esmeralda (1, 4, 6, 8 November), again Giselle (11 December), Esmeralda (17 December, and Catarina (Catarina ou la Fille du Bandit; 20, 22, 26, 29 December). Grisi also took part in a charity performance, where she appeared in the famous solo mazurka from a Polish ballet of Wesele w Ojcowie (A Wedding in Ojców), which she learned from her Polish colleagues. It was with those Warsaw performances that Grisi retired from the ballet stage, ending her professional career at the age of thirty-four.
As to the other Polish performers of the role of Giselle, Konstancja Turczynowicz passed on the main part to Maria Frejtag <2> in 1854, who in turn was then succeeded by Kamila Stefańska in 1862. It was around this time, that the Warsaw audiences had a few chances to admire the famous Nadezhda Bogdanova who appeared as Giselle during her guest performances in 1855, 1856, 1857, 1859 and 1866. On the 3rd of May 1881, Gizella was revived by Hipolit Meunier,especially for Helena Cholewicka - the first Polish danseuse to hold the title of prima ballerina assoluta. Performed again on the stage of the Grand Theatre after thirteen years of absence, the production did not meet with huge success, as the audience already considered it too old-fashioned. Despite the mixed reception, the ballet received another sixty-fourperformances by the end of 1892. Amongst the other Giselleson the Warsaw stage were Zygfryda Gilska, LudwikaAdlerówna (both from 1883), Teodozja Adlerówna (from 1885), Zofia Mikulska (from 1886). Guest performers of the part included Italian ballerinas Maria Giuri, who regularly performed at the Grand Theatre as a guest between 1883 and 1889, Carolina Elia (1891), and Elena Cornalba (1892).
The nineteenth-century history of Giselle in Warsaw will be concluded with yet another staging of the ballet, produced at the Grand Theatre by Enrico Cecchetti. The great Italian artist took over the position of the director of both the Warsaw ballet company and the ballet school in 1902; he held the title until 1905. Cecchetti revived Giselle in accordance with the Imperial Ballet version he knew from Saint Petersburg. On the opening night of the new revival, which took place on the 6th of December 1903, the title role of Giselle was performed by Olga Preobrajenskaya. The famous ballerina was partnered by a Polish dancer, Michał Kulesza, in the role of Albert. She appeared in the part once again on the 13th of December. Another significant appearance in Cecchetti’sproduction occurred on the Grand Theatre in Warsaw on May29, 1904: the Giselle of the young Anna Pavlova.
[1] The Polish dancer and choreographer Felix Kschessinsky (1821/18233-1905) was the son of a distinguished Polish tenor; the family claimed aristocratic descent. (All the Polish sources give his date of birth as 1823. Yet photographs of his actual grave, located at the Warsaw Old Powązki cemetery - a resting place for many significant people, including Roman Turczynowicz and Fryderyk Chopin's parents – indicate 1821. His birth certificate has not yet been found, leading to all the confusion throughout the years. In 1838, he joined the ballet company of the Grand Theatre in Warsaw. Between 1844 and 1852, he held the position of first character dancer. In 1852, he received an engagement with the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg, becoming a character soloist with the company and an audience favourite. He married Julia Dominska (or Deminska), Polish and a former dancer of the Imperial Theatres, after the death of her first husband, the dancer Ledé, by whom she had had nine children. Kschessinsky’s fourth child – his wife’s thirteenth - was the famous Russian ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya (1872-1971).
@Adam Huczka, 2022.
Adam Huszka is both a dance historian and a professional dancer. As a member of the Polish National Ballet in Warsaw, he recently danced Count Hoyos in Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling; he is now preparing to dance one of the four Hungarian officers in the same ballet.
1.A lithograph depicting Konstancja Turczynowicz as Giselle in 1849. Note the "bras adorés", as Alexei Ratmansky has interestingly called this position of the arms The small bouquet of flowers she's holding refers to the "Pas de Bouquet" mentioned in the text. AH.
3.A portrait of Roman Turczynowicz, circa 1853.
4. The cover page of Giselle's program, 1848.
5. One image of the Grand Theatre in Warsaw from the era of the first Polish “Giselle”.
6. This painting, depicting
the Grand Theatre and the whole of the Theatre Square in Warsaw, is by Marcin Zaleski, circa 1838.