Giselle, London Coliseum, review: Alina Cojocaru has always been a natural Giselle

Mary Skeaping’s traditional production of 'Giselle' is revived by the English National Ballet with Alina Cojocaru in the lead role

Alina Cojocaru as Giselle in the English National Ballet's revival

English National Ballet is on a roll with Giselle. Last autumn, the company triumphed with Akram Khan’s radical update of ballet’s most-loved Romantic classic. Now it revives Mary Skeaping’s traditional production, with spellbinding ghosts and an ethereal Alina Cojocaru as the fragile heroine.

Giselle is the story of a peasant girl who is betrayed by Albrecht, an aristocrat in disguise. She goes mad and dies, only to rise as a ghost, one of the vengeful wilis (witch-spirits), who force men to dance to death. Created in 1971, Skeaping’s staging looks back to the ballet’s 1841 roots, restoring cut passages. Her first act is chocolate-box pretty, with painterly designs by David Walker. The ghostly second act has an effective spookiness and a care for soft, Romantic style.

Cojocaru has always been a natural Giselle. A delicate, fine-boned dancer with a floating jump, she suggests both the character’s vulnerability and her emotional range. She’s always clear about Giselle’s choices: the moment she commits herself to Albrecht, her warm and teasing relationship with her mother. (I love the moment when, crowned queen of the vintage, she pops her own garland onto her mother’s head.) There’s a naturalistic edge to her mad scene, as she stumbles in grief.

Her Albrecht, Isaac Hernandez, dances with clean energy, but could find more depth in the character. Jane Haworth brings heart and authority to Giselle’s mother, chilling in the warning mime. The company’s dancing is bright and attractive.

Everything moves up a gear in the second act. ENB’s corps de ballet are in superb form as the wilis. The dancing is light and fast but implacable, the whole corps moving with a shared impulse and conviction. They’re both airy and scary. So is Laurretta Summerscales as an imperious, predatory Queen of the Wilis. She dances on a grand scale, with big, bold shapes emerging from the windblown flow of her jumps and turns.

Returning as a ghost, Cojocaru has a thistledown lightness. She suggests a woman at war with her new wili nature. Her jump soars, but her soft, clear landings, beautifully phrased to Adolphe Adam’s music, seem to cling to the earth. Fighting to protect Albrecht, she’s also resisting the urge to join the wilis: you can see supernatural power rising in her, a dark temptation.

It’s a fine company performance. Rina Kanehara and Cesar Corrales are lively in the first act peasant pas de deux, while Senri Kou and Crystal Costa are frostily strong as wilis.