Unlike Bell, Camargo looked frozen in panic. In the earlier scenes he had been boyish and charming, caught up in the playfulness of their flirtation. But when he realized that his subterfuge had been discovered—Albrecht is a nobleman posing as a commoner in order to woo a peasant girl—he seemed to think first of himself: “What a bore! The game is up.” It was a subtle and brave choice. It was only at the very end of the scene that the horror of what had just occurred, and his part in it, became clear to him. 

Both Hurlin and Camargo’s characters, were transformed in the second act, he by sadness, she by her experience of betrayal. Her dancing acquired a “ballerina” quality—finesse, precision, amplitude. But her essence remained. If Teuscher’s strength is stillness, Hurlin’s is speed. Her spinning hops at the beginning of the act were a complete blur, and her backward-traveling entrechats and coupé jumps seemed barely to touch the floor. But she could also hold back when she needed to. The audience held its breath as she slowly lifted her leg to the side, pivoted, and began to slowly tilt forward, with aching slowness. 

In this act Camargo’s boyishness was replaced by a powerful sadness–almost a kind of shock. The walk across the stage, accompanied by a (rather out of tune) cello melody, was understated, like a soul wandering through the wilderness.  He seemed not to trust his eyes when he first encountered Giselle’s ghostly presence. It was clear that the lilies he carried to her grave had a strong symbolic meaning—they were Giselle to him. They took on an even greater importance than usual. At the end of the ballet, he scattered them along his path, so that they formed a current connecting him to Giselle’s grave.

 His dancing was wonderful too—lovely turns, neat cabrioles, and twenty-nine entrechats during which he raised his arms to his heart, lowered them, and then slowly raised them at his sides. But the real magic happened in the pas de deux, where the two dancers slipped into what I can only describe as a kind of flow state, in which the bodies seemed to think and feel the same thing as they moved together. They, and the audience, were momentarily suspended in time.