Giselle
VMA Arts & Cultural Center
November 15th-17th, 2002
 |
Giselle,
a story of love, betrayal, madness, revenge and forgiveness is the most
famous, revered and enduring of all Romantic ballets. Driven mad by the experience, she dies and enters the graveyard world of the Wilis, ghosts of vengeful brides betrayed by undeserving suitors. |
Driven mad by the experience, she dies and enters the graveyard world of the Wilis, ghosts of vengeful brides betrayed by undeserving suitors. Should any unsuspecting man wander into this place, theWilis force him to dance to his death. Can Giselle's innocence prevail in such a world?
This production features the Festival Ballet Providence
Orchestra, conducted by Edward Markward.
Synopsis
Giselle is the quintessential story of unrequited love. Giselle, an innocent young village girl, loves to dance in spite of the uncertainty of a weak heart, and enjoys a simple life in her village. This story follows her through tender romance, betrayal, heartbreak, death and the afterlife, as she ultimately saves the life of a man who has betrayed her.
Act I (a village in Germany)
On the day of the village wine festival, Prince Albrecht disguises himself as a peasant in order to court the beautiful Giselle. Unaware of his noble birth, Giselle resists his zeal and persistence as he gently tempts her to trust his pledge of eternal love. A hunting party arrives in the village and disrupts his plans. The entourage includes Albrecht's father and the beautiful Princess Bathilde, to whom Albrecht is already engaged.
Upon meeting Giselle, Princess Bathilde is immediately enchanted with her youthful innocence. They enjoy an animated conversation and discover that they are both engaged to marry. Unaware that they are betrothed to the same man, Bathilde gives her a beautiful gold necklace to celebrate their recent engagements. Giselle asks her friends to dance for the hunting party's entertainment.
Hilarion, the village gamekeeper who is deeply in love with Giselle, discovers Albrecht's disguise and is consumed with jealousy. He proceeds to reveal his rival's true identity to the village. Giselle is distraught by the unveiled deception and loses her reason. Uncontrollable and inconsolable, Giselle attempts to kill herself with Albrecht's sword, hears the Wilis summoning her, and dies.
Act II (Giselle's tomb in the forest)
Giselle has been buried deep in the forest and has now become one of the Wilis. The Wilis are ghostly apparitions of folk-lore, girls who have died betrayed by their unfaithful fiances on the eve of their weddings. They haunt the forest, luring wayfarers to dance with them until they die from exhaustion before the dawn.
At the beginning of the act, Hilarion is discovered mourning at Giselle's grave. Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis, summons the maidens and Hilarion is forced to dance until he collapses and dies.
Albrecht, full of remorse, also comes to mourn at Giselle's grave. The Queen commands Giselle to come from her grave and entice Albrecht to join in her dance. Giselle is obliged to obey the queen and dances with Albrecht through the night. Although Albrecht has betrayed Giselle, she still loves him and helps him to stay alive until the dawn - when the Wilis lose their power and will not be able to destroy him.
With the arrival of dawn, Giselle vanishes back into her grave. Through her pure and selfless love, Giselle has been able to protect and save Albrecht's life. Albrecht is left alone with his sorrow.
About Giselle
Giselle is the most celebrated ballet of the Romantic era, and had its premiere on June 28, 1841 at the Opera in Paris. It's creation is attributed to the French author Theophile Gautier who was inspired by the poet Heinrich Hein, who had written of the Slavonic legend of the "Wilis". Wilis are betrothed maidens who died before their wedding day but were unable to rest peacefully in their graves since they could not satisfy their passion for dancing in their lifetime. At midnight they rise up and lure any young man they meet and dance with him until he falls dead.
The ballet was written for the rising young phenomenon, Carlotta Grisi. While the choreography of the ballet is often attributed to Jean Coralli, the Paris Opera's ballet master of the time, it is thought that the choreography for Giselle and Albrecht was created by Grisi's teacher, Jules Perrot. It was created at the height of the Romantic movement, where choreographers strove to escape the subservience of emotions associated with classical traditions, evoking more emotion, imagination and a picturesque world that often entered fantasy.
The music was created by Adolphe Adam, a prolific composer of opera comiques and ballets, and was written in collaboration with Perrot and Grisi, in just over a week; amazing by any standard, and clearly the work of a skilled craftsman with wonderful theatrical effects and originality. During the time of the famous Ballet Russes productions, solos were added in each act for Giselle (attributed to Ludwig Minkus who also created scores for Don Quixote, Paquita, and La Bayadere in the first act and by Cesare Pugni who scored Diana & Acteon and Esmeralda, in the second act).
After its premiere in Paris, versions of Giselle were immediately staged throughout Europe in all the major cities, including at the Bolshoi in St. Petersburg, in London, Berlin and Brussels with Grisi as star (another production even made it to Boston in 1846). Marius Petipa, whose brother Lucien danced the first Albrecht, appeared in the 1847 production in St. Petersburg. Young Marius was assistant to Jules Perrot who had come to St. Petersberg in 1848 to stage productions of Giselle for Fanny Essler in that year and in 1950 for Carlotta Grisi. In 1862 Petipa was named Ballet Master to the Imperial Theatre, and maintained Giselle in the St. Petersburg repertoire for the next 40 years, while the rest of Europe all but forgot about the production. It was not until 1910 when Serge Diaghilev's Ballet Russe presented Giselle in 1910 in Paris with Karsavina and Nijinsky that this romantic masterpiece was rediscovered by audiences outside of Imperial Russia. Subsequent stagings all stem from this St. Petersburg version. The most famous of Giselles includes Anna Pavlova, Olga Spessivtseva, Alicia Markova, Margo Fonteyn and Natalia Makarova. Anthony Dowell may be the greatest and most enduring (1922 to 1950) of Albrechts.
Giselle is often considered a period piece, in which
theme, setting, music and choreographic style all belong to the Romantic era.
Festival Ballet Providence presents this work in a similar historical perspective;
Giselle was the company's first full-length ballet, aside from The Nutcracker,
presented by Christine Hennessy and Winthrop Corey in 2nd season, 1979/1980.
We are pleased to have Milica Bijelic in Providence to stage this icon of
Romantic ballets. In a May 2000 celebration of Giselle's 250th performance
at the National Ballet and Opera of Belgrade where she was a principal dancer
for 20 years, Ms. Bijelic was recognized to have performed the lead role in
50 of those productions. Her knowledge of the role and the ballet have been
integral to the staging and presentation of this production. We hope our audiences
will appreciate the enduring beauty and emotional intensity of this masterpiece.
For ticket information,
please contact Festival Ballet Providence at 401.353.1129.
