Who’s Myrtha, you ask?

It’s a role in the famous Romantic ballet “Giselle,” one of the earliest ballets in existence and still performed today. Myrtha is the head honcho of the Wilis, those spirits of dead girls jilted by lovers, who waylay men in the forest and cast their spell in order to dance them to their deaths.

It’s one of those things that probably was easier to understand back in 1841, when “Giselle” was first produced. The amazing thing about this ballet is that it is still beautiful and still meaningful, once you enter into its world. It’s a tale of betrayal, and then love and redemption.

But back to Myrtha. The Wili leader’s role is extremely demanding technically, which is interesting because although technique has much advanced in the years since this ballet was choreographed and then revived, it’s still difficult for the dancer and maybe even more difficult now that artistry is less emphasized. The roles require enormous acting skill and the creation of illusions rather than pure athleticism.

I’ve seen the ballet many times, mostly with the 20th Century’s greatest dancers. I was very very fortunate in that regard, because “Giselle” without greatness can be tedious. The dancer Martine Van Hamel, who used to dance with American Ballet Theater, was the greatest Myrtha I’ve seen and perhaps even the greatest I can imagine. There’s a somewhat blurry video of Van Hamel in the role, and although it certainly doesn’t capture everything it captures quite a bit.

Van Hamel is perfect: a blend of austere, elegant, and commanding, with a back so strong and expressive it’s a marvel. She is unusually “centered” and despite the demandingly slow choreography at times there is no sense whatsoever of wobbling or even of being human, but without any histrionics about it. Van Hamel is power inside and out, as well as smoothness. You see absolutely no effort and it’s only towards the end of this variation, when the camera unkindly zooms in (at 7:15), that you see how hard she’s breathing although her face stays calm.

Please note in particular the sureness of Van Hamel’s arabesque promenade (circling) and then penchée (dipping down with the head and torso and the leg going up even higher behind) from 3:59 to 4:21. I have watched about ten videos of other famous dancers doing that move and they can’t compare. You can see them practically grinding their teeth in nervous anticipation of the challenge, and setting up with a pause first to “set” their balance for the trip. Van Hamel does none of that; she just plunges right in, boom:

You can find the continuance of Van Hamel’s role as Myrtha here. It’s wonderful as well, but I wanted to emphasize that first portion.

Compare Van Hamel to a more recent dancer who certainly isn’t bad but nothing like as good as Van Hamel. She seems tense, as do just about all of them. It’s hard to be austere without seeming tense, isn’t it? It’s almost painful watching her do that arabesque promenade because you can see the effort and the strain although she tries mightily to disguise it. But look at that supporting leg and the small movements with the ankle wobble, and how she keeps her eyes down on the floor. She only does one circle and then one dip, which is probably a mercy since it seems so difficult for her. She also is too pliant in her torso at certain moments, which doesn’t go well with the sternness. Van Hamel had just the right combination:

Here’s a Russian dancer from 2007. She seems to me to be posing more rather than under a spell or casting a spell. She seems to be concentrating more on her dancing as a physical endeavor. You can sense her thinking, and for some reason she flaps her wrists a lot more, which is both distracting and also makes her seem more human than spirit. There is also more of a start-and-stop quality rather than a single flow. The choreography is slightly different, perhaps to make it easier on her. There’s no arabesque promenade; just the penchée:

There’s very little other video footage available of Van Hamel dancing. But there are stills, and I think perhaps you can see from them what made her special. It was not her legs, although they were fine. Nor even her arms, which were finer. It was her core strength. Every pose emanates from that central core strength. All dancers have to have it to a certain extent, but Van Hamel had it to a remarkable degree and it’s what gave her a unique quality and was the reason she could calmly sail through Mytha (or appear to), which is a fairly brutal role.