Program 3 - Giselle

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In celebration of the choreographer’s 95th birthday anniversary, Program 3 brings Sir Peter Wright’s potent and enrapturing production of the classic Giselle to the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, after the ballet’s sold-out 2019 performances. Performed across the globe by many of the great ballet companies. Wright’s production is considered by many to be one of the most faithful and artistically rich, perfectly bringing to life this tale of young love, unrequited romance, and loss.

Ballet Synopsis (Spoiler Warning!)

Count Albrecht of Silesia, in disguise as the peasant Loys, romances a young and sensitive village girl, Giselle, who falls completely in love with him and rejects her jealous admirer Hilarion, a village hunter, despite his suspicions about her new beau and her mother Berthe’s concern that the girl is over-exerting her delicately-balanced emotions. Their alarm is justified with the arrival of an aristocratic hunting party including Bathilde, the Count’s beautiful and gracious fiancée, whose kindness to Giselle is brutally followed by Hilarion’s revelation of Loys as the Count. The despairing, overwrought girl sees his sword on the ground and in her madness, she stabs herself and dies.

Act Two takes place near Giselle’s forest grave, haunted by the Wilis and their Queen, Myrtha, the ghosts of jilted brides who revenge themselves by dancing to death any man they meet. Both her suitors visit Giselle’s grave and Hilarion falls victim to the Wilis. But when Albrecht is about to suffer the same fate, the spirit of Giselle intervenes and saves him from Myrtha’s merciless revenge, and the ballet ends with Giselle’s spirit finding peace by rejecting the Wilis and forgiving Albrecht.

Click here to read our Giselle performance program book!

Giselle
Production by Sir Peter Wright
Original Choreography by Jules Perrot and Jean Coralli
Music by Adolphe Adam

CLICK HERE for the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall seating map