La Scala’s ballet company is in California, warming up for tomorrow’s opening night of Giselle at the Segerstrom Center.

The company’s resident principal dancers will only be seen at the Saturday matinee, though for the three evening performances Roberto Bolle will play Albrecht and, although he is a guest artist at Milan’s opera house, he is a La Scala product through and through. He graduated from La Scala’s dancing school, and has danced with the company in the 23 seasons since. His partners are also guest principals with the company: American Ballet Theatre’s Misty Copeland, who appeared at the opening of the current season in Milan as Bolle’s Juliet, and The Royal Ballet’s Marianela Núñez who has danced several roles with the company, and in September she’ll be back for five performances of Onegin with Bolle.

Giselle Roberto Bolle photo Brescia e Amisano Teatro alla Scala

Misty Copeland Giselle photo Gene Schiavone

Giselle Roberto Bolle photo Marco Brescia Teatro alla Scala

Misty Copeland Giselle photo Gene Schiavone (1)

Copeland will be dancing on the opening night, and the performance is sold out. Her selling power is well known. Apollinaire Scherr writing about her Giselle for ABT in May wrote in the Financial Times,

The first impressive thing about Misty Copeland’s Met debut as Giselle was the audience…

…The new, more inclusive crowd did not materialise on its own. Copeland has devoted herself to a “Yes We Can” campaign that encompasses a Misty Barbie dressed in Firebird red, an uplift circuit that runs from Chicago’s South Side to Harvard, and a nutrition and fitness book that gives us a taste of the iron discipline behind the Misty magic.

So she shifts seats, and not only to a ballet crowd. Good news for any management. However, as Scherr says,

There would be no cause for outreach, though, without the dancing, of which there is no test like Giselle.

Here there are diverse views about Copeland who is seen as a good actress, but some spy a less than secure technique.

Brian Seibert, for the same Giselle performances, wrote in The New York Times,

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.

He remains puzzled by what he sees and how her fans react,

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?

Yet Marina Harss’ review of the same performance for Dance Tabs states,

Copeland proved, once again, that she is one of the most versatile and highly polished dancers in the company. Her Giselle offered no surprises in interpretation, but she uses her eyes and upper body with grace and intelligence, augmenting the beautiful line of her face, neck, and shoulders.

A sensible Misty Copeland told the Los Angeles Times

…Whenever I’m going [to be a guest artist], I’m sensitive to having been on the other side. I try to be as respectful as possible and be friendly and introduce myself. I think it’s important when you’re coming into someone else’s ‘home’ to be open and to share your art with them and learn from them.

Something she will have been doing during the last couple of rehearsal days with the company.

Núñez and Copeland are the same age, but whereas Copeland became a principal two years ago, Núñez has been a principal at The Royal Ballet since 2002.

Núñez, an exemplary Myrtha, only made her debut as Giselle in 2009. Debra Craine in The Times wrote,

From the moment she appeared on stage she was in total control of her surroundings and she quickly established her character as a flesh-and-blood young woman enjoying the flush of first love. The felicity of her solos took the breath away and made her subsequent descent into insanity and death – you could see the madness slowly rising in her like an unstoppable tide – all the more tragic.

In January 2011, she appeared in the role in The Royal Ballet’s first live cinema relay with Rupert Pennefather. Last year at Covent Garden she danced it with Vadim Muntagirov, and once again it was relayed live in cinema. Judith Mackrell in The Guardian wrote,

If the acting is superb, it’s given real authority by the dancing… she, at her finest moments, can combine an absolute mastery of the choreography, with the illusion that she’s dancing it for the first time.

Roberto Bolle has danced not just the Jean Coralli / Jules Perrot choreography — at La Scala in a version staged by Yvette Chauviré — but also Mats Ek’s Giselle where his nude scene caused a stir on social media after he danced the role in Naples in 2010. His many performances as Albrecht at La Scala, mostly with Svetlana Zakharova, have been sell-out affairs. After seeing a performance with Darcy Bussell at Covent Garden in 2006, Zoë Anderson in the Independent wrote,

Roberto Bolle isn’t a deep or subtle Albrecht, but he fills his place in the story. He looks princely and dances with polish.

More than a decade later he has grown into the part. American audiences will be able to judge over the next three days.

The Saturday matinee is the chance to see two excellent La Scala Ballet principals, Nicoletta Manni and Claudio Coviello, in the two main roles.

Manni will also dance Myrtha, with Virna Toppi dancing the part for the matinee; Marco Agostino and Massimo Garon are Hilarion, and the peasant pas de deux is danced by Vittoria Valerio with Antonino Sutera, Denise Gazzo with Federico Fresi, and Alessandra Vassallo with Nicola Del Freo.

The Mikhailovsky Orchestra is conducted by Patrick Fournillier.

Giselle, La Scala Ballet

Friday 28 July at 7.30 pm
Misty Copeland (Giselle)
Roberto Bolle (Albrecht)

Saturday 29 July at 2.00 pm
Nicoletta Manni (Giselle)
Claudio Coviello (Albrecht)

Saturday 29 July at 7.30 pm
Marianela Nuñez (Giselle)
Roberto Bolle (Albrecht)

Sunday 30 July at 1.00 pm
Marianela Nuñez (Giselle)
Roberto Bolle (Albrecht)

Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
$29 to $159

scfta.org