Love and betrayal – these are the great themes of Giselle, still one of the masterpieces of the Romantic ballet repertoire. The peasant girl Giselle not only loves dancing but also the nobleman Albrecht, who conceals his true identity from her. The young man courts her, even though he is already promised to another. When Giselle learns the truth, she loses her mind and dies.

After her death, she is accepted into the community of the Wilis, supernatural beings who, like Giselle, died as brides before their weddings. Together with her companions, Giselle is condemned to seduce men into dancing until they die of exhaustion. Myrtha, the Queen of the Wilis, watches over this. Albrecht also comes into the forest to visit Giselle’s grave. The desire to depict ghostly floating fairy beings on stage inspired choreographers in the 19th century, first in Paris, to literally elevate ballet en pointe. In mostly eerie settings, dancing elves and fairies roamed – in the ballet Giselle, it’s the dance-addicted Wilis around whom the libretto revolves.

In homage to the grand French tradition from which he himself hails, Patrice Bart has created a version closely based on the original choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot, while also expressing the freshness and timelessness of the language of Romantic ballet. Peter Farmer’s stage design also reflects the aesthetics of this tradition. Patrice Bart‘s Giselle premiered at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in 2000.