Ballet phantastique in zwei Akten – 1841 / 1974
Choreography Peter Wright, Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot, Marius Petipa. Music Adolphe Adam.
Wednesday, 24. May 2006, 07:30 pm o'clock – 10:15 pm o'clock, Nationaltheater.
Duration est. 2 hours 45 minutes
Giselle is considered one of the most important romantic ballets: a seemingly idyllic rural village life by day and, in parallel, an eerie world of ghosts that belongs to the dark side of the romantic era are the motifs that characterise the stage action. Peter Wright choreographed the production for the Munich company in 1974, following the tradition of the classical step material by Marius Petipa, Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot. Peter Wright was not interested in reconstructing the original from 1841, but adapted the staging and choreography to the technique of today's dancers. The result is a Giselle that, on the one hand, is completely committed to the spirit of Romanticism and, on the other, puts the acting skills and virtuosity of classical ballet in the foreground.
Giselle is a young girl who first falls in love, then falls into madness and finally turns into a "Wili". The plot of the ballet goes back to a text by Heinrich Heine, who recounts the legend of these nocturnal elemental spirits as follows: "The Willis are brides who have died before the wedding. The poor young creatures cannot lie quietly in their graves, in their dead hearts, in their dead feet there still remained that desire to dance which they could not satisfy in life, and at midnight they rise, gather, and woe to the young man who meets them! He must dance with them, they embrace him with unbridled frenzy, and he dances with them, without rest or repose, until he falls down dead."
