As with many of Ms. Copeland’s performances, she was best in low-pressure moments, and more captivating as an actor than a dancer.
The potential oppressiveness of what many people consider to be ideal is something that Misty Copeland most likely considered before becoming the first African-American female principal dancer at American Ballet Theater two years ago. And it’s probably on her mind now, as she tackles more and more canonical roles, working out how to make them her own. At the Metropolitan Opera on May 16, she debuted as Kitri, the female lead in “Don Quixote, ” and on Friday, she performed the title part in “Giselle” in New York for the first time.
“Don Quixote” is essentially about a girl whose father wants her to marry a rich guy instead of the barber she loves, but, like the Cervantes novel from which it’s loosely derived, the ballet is partly about the difference between remote visions and the humbler pleasures of reality. Ms. Copeland has said she is trying to make her Kitri “ seem real.” In this goal, she succeeded, with flickeringly satisfying results.
Her Kitri wasn’ t the fiery Spanish stereotype (an interpretation she has come closer to inthe smaller role of the street dancer Mercedes) . To Ms. Copeland, “real” seems to mean less theatrical, more everyday, an approach that’s winning but seldom exciting.
She was best in low-pressure moments. At the very start of the second act, when Kitri and her barber boyfriend, Basilio (the lucid and likable Jeffrey Cirio) , have run off together, the way Ms. Copeland lay down with Mr. Cirio was freely and frankly sexual, this playful good girl daring to let down her hair and liking it. This was delightfully real, and in other passing instants, Ms. Copeland was wonderfully spontaneous. Her instinct to underplay serves her comedy well.
These relaxed moments, though, tended not to be big dancing moments. Ms. Copeland is a careful, cautious dancer, most comfortable in a middle zone, striking beautiful poses. When the tempos become especially slow or fast, you can see her tense up. Playing Kitri, she managed the role’s more technically difficult passages, not with ease, yet each feat was answered with a roar from her eager fans.
Ms. Copeland has never been a thrilling dancer. I find that she’s less likely to take my breath away than to make me hold it in concern. And so there’s a disconnect between what she does and the response she gets, between the ideal and the real. Is the real struggle something her idealizing fans don’ t see, or is it part of what they love?
Her Giselle (which she will dance again at Wednesday’s matinee) was also more distinguished as acting than as dancing. With a demurely downcast head, she was innocent but not dumb or less mature than her years, as in some interpretations, and definitely not the febrile, psychologically fragile Giselle that has become modish. This Giselle was more normal, more ordinary.
Especially in the first half, Ms. Copeland was terrifically in the moment, reacting freshly to each turn in the story. Albrecht, the nobleman who deceives her, was played by Alban Lendorf, a Danish dancer of gorgeous modesty who is also not given to overemoting. The chemistry between them was muted but there, especially in eye contact, even across large distances. Ms. Copeland was aided as well by having Roman Zhurbin as Hilarion, the village huntsman in love with Giselle. Many dancers play Hilarion as a gruff boor who is merely a hindrance to the central lovers, but Mr. Zhurbin’s solid sincerity inspires sympathy, and this complicates and deepens the story.
The considered quality of Ms. Copeland’s performance kept up through the climactic scene in which Giselle, learning of Albrecht’s deception, goes mad and dies. But in the second half, when Giselle is a spirit, Ms. Copeland appeared to have fewer ideas of how to act her way through, and her dance technique wasn’ t quite strong enough to make her ethereal and floating. Even in the afterlife, Ms. Copeland is more down-to-earth.
