BALLET NACIONAL DE CUBA.

BALLET NACIONAL DE CUBA WILTERN THEATRE LOS ANGELES FEBRUARY 6-7, 1999

Since Los Angeles is the country's second-largest city and the so-called entertainment capital of the world, one would expect to see a touring ballet company here occasionally. But no. Such niceties now grace only the outlying areas, whose open-calendar culture palaces beckon. So Alicia Alonso's Cubans, after a ten-year absence, made a most welcome visit to L.A. proper and reminded us what Giselle, the real, rare Romantic thing, is.

In fact, there was a transporting moment when Myrtha (Laura Hormigon) and her attendants (Yanet Acuna, Ivette Regueiro) seemed to step from an antique lithograph, their shoulders sloping, elbows bent, wrists dropped--a collective Marie Taglioni come to life. And in that eerie twilight they defined the white gossamer of the wili, the bereaved maidens whose vacant souls wander the earth through eternity. When the full corps assembled--an astounding twenty-four--it was a sorority all of a single breath, single impulse, single angle of repose.

This startlingly high level of stylistic integrity, which gives meaning rather than just spectacle to the mystical second act, is a benefit Alonso and her ballet mistress, Josefina Mendez, pass along season after season. True, the worn physical production reflects Cuba's hard-bitten economy more than it does a lavish or even unified decor; taped music replaces a live orchestra; Albrecht's noble entourage wears clashing Day-Glo colors; and Salvador Fernandez's set design is a shreds-and-patches affair. Even among the principals there may be no great stars, but the entirety is still something to treasure.

Alonso shows off her magnificent company in a peasant pas de dix that reveals handpicked men with superb technique and perfect legs, the women just slightly less so here. What's more, she restores the mime that so many productions ignore.

It was only ten years ago that Alonso herself still danced Giselle. While no one now can match her magical way with the role--especially the sense of suspended floating in an overhead lift or the ghostly, partnered cross-stage arabesques, her foot skimming the floor, but not really--there are other kinds of revelations.

Alihaydee Carreno (cousin of American Ballet Theatre's Jose Manuel Carreno), for instance, made a Giselle of aching compassion, one who, as a wili, brought tears to many eyes and whose intercession as a supplicant could only save Albrecht. In the peasant act she danced with buoyancy and boasted fine legato phrasing until an injury forced her to cut short the hops on pointe. The mad scene, carefully choreographed, was affecting, though not suspenseful.

Osmay Molina seemed too much the preening pinup boy at first, but his Albrecht later turned more inward and displayed high-scale virtuosity. By contrast, Jorge Vega's Hilarion was both manly and full of feeling. The ballet-starved audience seemed to appreciate every moment, and before the curtain went up Alonso entered the theater to great applause.