Hi again! Thanks for another question.
Here is the necessary information you will need while watching the ballet Giselle.
The Story:
1. ?Harvest time?
2. ?Giselle is a happy innocent girl of 15?
3. ?Hillarian, a gamesman is in love with her?
4. ?Prince Albrecht, originally Albrecht stumbles spies her and is enchanted?
5. ?He disguises himself as Loy a peasant and woos her?
6. ?He dances with her and swears his undying love?
7. ?Hilarian jealous?
8. ?Villagers return and declare Giselle queen of the vintage?
9. ?Mother warns her against dancing?
10. ?Bathilda, Albrecht's intended is enchanted by Giselle's tale of
love she gives her necklace.?
11. ?Hilarian discovers the sword and clothes and summons the party back?
12. ?Bathilde is amused at Albrecht's dress. He calls it a whim.?
13. ?Giselle realizes the betrayal and in delirium re-prises the
history of the romance.
14. ?She goes crazy and dies?
ACT TWO Begins at midnight at her grave
1. ?The Willies -The souls of those maidens who die before marriage of
love betrayed.?
2. ?Giselle is summoned to do her deed by the Queen of the Willies.?
3. ?First Hilarian gets it?
4. ?Next it's Albrecht's turn?
5. ?Giselle saves him?
6. ?He witnesses her die again.?
7. ?Last gift of the flowers.?
?A Giselle Timeline & Notes?
http://www.artslynx.org/dance/agiselle.htm
?Giselle: Episode Rundown?
http://www.soundventure.com/web/footnotes/episode2.html
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History of Giselle:
A romantic ballet in two acts
Written by T. Gautier & V. St. Georges.
~ Choreographed by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot.
World Premiere of Giselle Paris Opéra, June 28, 1841
?Giselle?
http://www.artofballet.com/giselle.html
?Giselle set a new course. The ballet was conceived by the influential
French poet, author, critic and possibly the greatest champion of the
Romantic ballet, Théophile Gautier. Giselle was created to honor the
ballerina Carlotta Grisi, whom Gautier not only admired for her
dancing, but with whom he was in love.?
?Gautier turned to Jules-Henri Vernoy, Marquis de Saint-Georges to
perfect the theatrical rendition of his tale. A dandy and a prolific
writer, Saint-Georges had his first work published at age twenty. He
eventually scripted 12 ballets and 80 operas, some in collaboration
with Eugene Scribe. He had already penned La Gypsy and Le Diable
amoureux (1840). Saint-Georges is probably solely responsible for the
first act of Giselle and certainly shared the construction of the
second act with Gautier. In three days Gautier and Saint-Georges
finished the libretto that has remained unchanged, often referred to
as the perfect Romantic ballet.?
?Gautier wanted Carlotta Grisi for the title role. For him, she
combined the poetry of Taglioni with the fire and spunk of Fanny
Elssler. Gautier showed the libretto to the ballet teacher Jules
Perrot, who was also Grisi's common law husband, who agreed it would
be an ideal vehicle for Grisi.?
?The ballet was a success on all levels, gaining critical and public
acclaim for the choreography, music, designs and the dancing of all.
This made Grisi's Parisian debut in a full-length ballet a particular
success. Perhaps even more of an endorsement of Giselle's success was
the fact that a style of hat and a type of fabric were named after the
ballet.?
?The first production included elements rarely seen today, including a
mime scene in which Giselle tells Loys that she has dreamt that he was
in love with a beautiful noblewoman; the entrance of several members
of the hunting party on horseback; and a large and impressive
procession for the vine gatherers in Act I. In Act II missing today
are the huntsmen playing dice at the beginning of the act; an
encounter between the peasants and the wilis; Albrecht witnessing the
demise of Hilarion from behind a tree; and Bathilde returning to
reclaim Albrecht at the end of the ballet.?
?The initial success of Giselle led to international performances,
beginning in London in 1842 with Grisi and Perrot, and Milan in 1843.
Before this London performance, just one year after the Paris
premiere, the ballet had already been mimicked on stage in London as
"A Dramatic, Melo-dramatic, Choreographic, Fantastique, Traditionary
Tale of Superstition," under the title of Giselle or the Phantom Night
Dancers. In the United States an All-American version was produced in
New York in 1842 with the original version being staged in Boston in
1846.?
?Giselle?
http://www.balletmet.org/Notes/Giselle.html
Timeline for Giselle Ballet Productions
http://www.balletmet.org/Notes/GiselleHist.html
Backdrops for the Giselle Ballet
http://www.butler.edu/dance/drops/giselle/giselle.html
------------------------------
The Royal Opera House Production (Covent Garden)
Ballet: GISELLE
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, WC2
Prices: £4-£80
Length: 2h10
Box office: 020 7304 4000
Nearest tube station: Covent Garden
Opens 12 January 2004, Closes 7 February
http://www.bbc.co.uk/essex/going_out/footlights/west_end/miscellaneous.shtml
Production Details
http://info.royaloperahouse.org/PerformingSpaces/Index.cfm?ccs=492&cs=895
Note:
First Performance at the Royal Opera House: 12 June 1946
(but was performed by Vic-Wells Ballet in 1934)
Giselle: Synopses
http://info.royaloperahouse.org/Synopses/index.cfm?ccs=78&cs=83
REVIEWS of the Performances:
?What's immediately special about Cojocaru's Giselle is the way she
inhabits the role so simply and without fuss. Where some ballerinas
draw attention to the ballet's Romantic-periodness, delivering the
hallowed steps as if set between quotation marks, Cojocaru seems to
live right inside it. Thus every step has an impulsive freshness,
springing directly from her situation. For two hours you forget about
dance technique, and you forget about acting. Cojocaru is Giselle ?
and the effect is so apparently artless and utterly convincing that
during the mad scene I felt an urge to rush on stage and cuddle her.?
?A star leaves her sick bed and soars?
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/theatre/reviews/story.jsp?story=280644
?To play it as a tragedy for today, with modern motivations (a girl's
naivety, a man's sexual urges), misses the point; the interpretations
that touch me are not the most "modern" but the most in period, the
ones that hauntingly spin the peculiar social atmospheres and
supernatural beliefs of 1841, however implausible.?
?This is the strength of the Royal Ballet's production. Though it
ratchets up the class-conflict angle with some vivid acting by the
aristocratic party of which Albrecht, unbeknown to poor Giselle, is a
member, it allows the modest beauty of this ballet to rest largely
where it belongs - on its 19th-century choreography, and the skills of
its leading performers.?
?This Giselle is back where she belongs?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=%2Farts%2F2002%2F04%2F02%2Fbtgis02.xml
?In the Royal Ballet's present run of Peter Wright's production,
Giselle's mad scene seems to have acquired extra, set details,
removing the customary leeway for improvisation in performance, yet
also failing to resolve the inherent ambiguity of whether Giselle dies
from a sword wound or a broken heart.?
?In the first act, Wright's long-lasting production thrives on the
naturalistic acting that is a Royal Ballet forte. The second act,
though, could do with more cold inhumanity from the Wilis. Is it the
style of their dancing? Or do they need ghostlier make-up? Otherwise,
Zenaida Yanowsky is an effective air-devouring and man-crunching
Queen.?
?A perfectly formed, two-act jewel?
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/theatre/reviews/story.jsp?story=278979
?When Peter Wright's production began its run in 1985, the Royal
Ballet was so short of exceptional dancers that only Act I was
plausible. Now we have performers of the calibre of Alina Cojocaru and
Tamara Rojo, who can take the second act to another level. However,
male guests still strengthen the home team.?
?Wild women and song?
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,676361,00.html
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Thanks for visiting us once more. Enjoy the ballet!
Regards,
Easterangel-ga
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