Giselle

Giselle

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here is the third review in this special #TheatreWeek, with the review of one of the most iconic and romantic ballets : Giselle.

Giselle : When love saves lives

The very first point I'd like to talk about is the character of Giselle herself. Right from the beginning, she is described as a poor, young farmer living with her mother. When she meets Albrecht, a nobleman in disguise, and falls in love with him, she dances for him despite the warning from her mother not to do so because of the myth of the Wallis. That's the reason for which this is very romantic, in a way that love prevails and ends up winning the conflict against, on the one hand, Hilarion, Albrecht's concurrent for Giselle's hand, and the myth of the Wallis, their queen Myrtha, and Giselle's mother, who had warned her of the consequences of her dancing.

The second point is about Hilarion, a hunter who's also in love with Giselle. He is the one who reveals Albrecht's true identity : he is the duke of Silesia, and he has a fiancée, the daughter to the duke of Courland. Despite all this, Giselle remains fixated on her love for Albrecht as much as he is in love with her, and that love ends up saving Albrecht's life thanks to Giselle dancing until the very dawn, when the Willis go back to their graves. In the meantime, Hilarion, who has danced until death just like Albrecht, isn't saved and dies, when the duke of Silesia survives.

The third and last point I will talk about is the myth of the Willis itself : the Willis are the spirits of the women abandoned by their lovers and are doomed to lurk for their fiancés and make them dance until they die, just like they danced to death and died themselves. In this ballet, they are led by their queen, Myrtha, who is inflexible about the men she wants to die. There is also a poem written by Victor Hugo, a French writer, called Fantômes, that tells the story of a Spanish woman who danced until she died.

Conclusion : Probably the most romantic ballet, Giselle is a must-have for all theatre aficionados like me, and tells a powerful story about love, secrets, betrayal and redemption. I would recommend it for a quite audience mature though, since there are hints of death and stuff like that.

Okay, that's it for today, I hope that you liked this post and I will see you very soon with another one, I hope !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !