Ballet - Giselle

We published the event with this description:

    Giselle 

A production of the Gärtnerplatztheater. More information can be found here.

About the ballet

Giselle is considered one of the most important romantic ballets: a seemingly idyllic rural village life by day and, in parallel, an eerie world of ghosts that belongs to the dark side of the romantic era are the motifs that characterise the stage action. A text by Heinrich Heine about the legendary characters of the Wilis gave Théophile Gautier the idea of making a ballet out of the material in 1841. Wilis are young brides who have died before their wedding and can find no peace: In the forest at night, they dance to death every man they meet. Under the motto "Morality is not an empty space", Karl Alfred Schreiner presents Adolphe Adam's romantic dance piece as a dramatic battle of the genders and a confrontation with one's own abysses, for which not least the wilderness of the forest stands.

Plot

Giselle is a young girl who first falls in love, then falls into madness and finally turns into a "Wili". The plot of the ballet goes back to a text by Heinrich Heine, who recounts the legend of these nocturnal elemental spirits as follows: "The Willis are brides who have died before the wedding. The poor young creatures cannot lie quietly in their graves, in their dead hearts, in their dead feet there still remained that desire to dance which they could not satisfy in life, and at midnight they rise, gather, and woe to the young man who meets them! He must dance with them, they embrace him with unbridled frenzy, and he dances with them, without rest or repose, until he falls down dead."

The detailed plot can be found here, and as always for ballets it is highly recommended to read through it thoroughly.