DANCE TOPICS 

A Giselle Timeline & Notes

©Richard Finkelstein, 1996
Giselle, the Ballet has a long and proud history. Read and enjoy! Then read the Giselle Notes  for MORE enjoyment.  This listing may be reproduced as long as proper credit to the editor is included

Giselle Ballet The Major Players
and Assorted Notes on the Ballet

©Richard Finkelstein, 1996
Giselle,  ballet, a dance history. These notes may be reproduced as long as proper credit to the author is included

Adolphe Charles Adam - Composer (1803-1856)

The music for Giselle has a continuity that sets the stage for more modern ballet works. He used a series of Leitmotivs which anticipated Wagner some 30 years later. Others before had used "signal themes" but Adam uses his themes in "a more psychologically effective and descriptive" way. As you enjoy tonight's performance, listen for the following musical themes:

• Giselle loves to dance (Innocence)
• Giselle loves to dance... with Albrecht
• "He loves me, he loves me not". This has its association with flower symbolism so look for the return of the theme in Act II when Giselle throws Albrecht's lillies back to him in a last sign of love. Also listen for the theme in the midst of the "mad scene"
• A "menacing motive of fear"

Jean Coralli - Choreographer (of record) for all but Carlotta Grise (1779-1854).

Coralli was the ballet master at The Paris Opera. The greatest innovation apparent in his contribution to Giselle is in the use of the Corps as a participatory organism and not just as decoration. Scholars believe that even the success of Coralli's choreography which had previously grown stale, owes its inspiration to the influence of Perrot, who even by accounts, conducted the rehearsals.

Theophile Gautier - Libretto (1811-1872)

• Great French Poet and Dance Critic
• It was Gautier who coined the phrase "Art for Art's Sake" anticipating the later work of Choreographers like Fokine.
• This also set the stage for the view that choreography could be "autonomous speech"
• He collaborated with librettist Vernoy de St. Georges who was inspired by Hugo's Orientals where dancers at a ballroom are condemned to dance all night. The Wilis were inspired by a work of German Poet Heine.
• He was smitten with Grisi, but ended up marrying her sister
• He brilliantly combined the two contradictory ideals of Romanticism into one character.

Carlotta Grise - First Giselle (1819-1899)

• Grise was in the corps de ballet at La Scala in Milan at age 10
• She was discovered by Perrot at the age of 17.
• She debuted as Giselle on her 22nd birthday
• and was of course considered to be one of the four great ballerinas of her day.

Jules Perrot - Choreographer for Carlotta Grise (1810-1892)

• Son of a stage carpenter
• Considered by many to be the finest male dancer in the period before Nijinsky
• Trained in theatre tradition and mimicry (he played a monkey for two years!)
• Active in theatre by 12
• Trained as well as an acrobat.
• Trained with August Vestris who also taught August Bournonville
• Partnered Taglioni but the relationship devolved into jealousy of his virtuosity.
• He began to travel and while traveling thru Italy he met 17 year old Carlotta Grisi. They became lovers.
• His work was not credited in the program nor was hepaid for his work on Giselle's premiere. Grisi insisted that he do the choreography for her. He later was to dance Albrecht.
• Other ballets by Perrot (among 50 or so) include La Esmerelda based on The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
• By 1851 He was Imperial Ballet Master in Russia (St. Petersburg). Here he was to inspire then dancer Marius Petipa.
  

Romanticism and Giselle

In the years before La Sylphide, Choreographers had run out of Neoclassical themes. So the move was now away from the heroic and into the fantastical. Since the Romantics still "longed for a simple past" the locations were no longer Ancient Greece but rather the Medieval or Gothic world. The simplicity of Pastoral settings also is reflected in the ballet Coppelia.

Themes and motifs of The Romantic Ballet:

• The "unbridgeable gap between belief in the simple happiness of long ago places and the dark brooding disasters of unattainable love"
  
• The inevitable doomed loss
  
• Woman as Perfect and unattainable. Man is base. (Gautier). This movement placed women squarely center stage in ballet leading to an era of the "tyranny of the ballerina". This was not to change until Nuryev a century later. Also by Coppelia, males were banned from the Ballet stage entirely.
  
• Absolute love devoid of sexual fulfillment. "Passion of enforced chastity"
  
• Opposition to the force of gravity and the fantastical

Fun notes on the ballet and other things to look for when viewing the ballet:

• The Wilis are the lost souls of young women who died betrayed in love
• Note how the image of her hysteria is developed through movement in a disciplined acrobatic display of ever increasing exuberance. This idea was borrowed directly from the world of Opera and parallels operatic singing technique.
• Note that Giselle saves Albrecht by "giving him the strength to continue dancing till dawn".
• His fate is not so nice! Note how he is doomed to lose Giselle a second time. Note the great irony in this and the desperate parting gesture of love as she throws the lillies back to him.
• Giselle marks the transformation of pointe work from gimmick to artistic expression. At this time shoes were also such, that dancers were really dancing on their toes!

The Story in a nutshell.

1. Harvest time
2. Giselle is a happy innocent girl of 15
3. Hillarian, a gamesman is in love with her
4. Prince Albrecht, originally Albrecht stumbles spies her and is enchanted
5. He disguises himself as Loy a peasant and woos her
6. He dances wirth her and swears his undying love
7. She loves me she loves me not.
8. Hilarian jealous
9. Villagers return and declare Giselle queen of the vintage
10. Mother warns her against dancing
11. Bathilda, Albrecht's intended is enchanted by Giselle's tale of love she gives her necklace.
12. Hilarian discovers the sword and clothes and summons the party back
13. Bathilde is amused at Albrecht's dress. He calls it a whim. OOPS.
14. Giselle realizes the betrayal and in delirium re-prises the history of the romance.
15. She goes crazy and dies

ACT TWO Begins at midnight at her grave

1. The Willies -The souls of those maidens who die before marriage of love betrayed.
2. Giselle is summoned to do her deed by the Queen of the Willies.
3. First Hilarian gets it
4. Next it's Albrecht's turn
5. Giselle saves him
6. He witnesses her die again.
7. Last gift of the flowers.

An Outline of the History of the ballet. 

1. Perrot had been a partner of the greatest ballerina then known, Taglione.
2. His skill posed the danger of eclipsing hers so he got the boot.
3. In his travels he meets Carlotte Grisi in Italy. He becomes her lover and brings her to Paris
4. He tries to get work at The Opera but Can't. Lucien Petipa is the danceur and they already have THREE choreographers including Colalli!
5. So...he tries unsuccessfully to sell a package deal with Grisi at the head. His attempts fail.
6. Meanwhile her cousins secretly make the arrangements betraying Perrot horribly.
7. Meanwhile Perrot is working on other ballets with Adolph Adam and is a friend of Gautier.
8. Gautier, a friend of Hein sees Hein's description of the Wilis and is inspired.
9. All see a production of La fille de l'air which has the Wilis
10. Also Hugo's book Les Orientals has a similar subject.
11. Gautier is the poet, but has never done ballet. He partners with a friend, Jules St. Georges a professional dramatist who adds an element of craft.
12. Gautier is smitten with Grisi. They all create this for her. Later he marries her sister.
13. Perrot is selected to meet with Adam to pitch the proposal.
14. Adam is working on La Roserie de Gand but he falls in love with the idea of Giselle.
15. They pitch it to the Opera saying the former ballet could only benefit by Giselle as a sort of warm up act.
16. They win the pitch and as a second betrayal Coralli is placed in Charge.
17. Since the Paris opera and Corelli consider this to be a minor ballet they let Perrot do his stuff with no credit and no pay.
18. A third Perrot betrayal comes in his attempts to marry Grisi, now mother of their daughter. Her parents oppose as do his who also keep his fortune.
19. Meanwhile Adam claims to have been so inspired that he wrote it in a week. (The evidence however shows his work to have been created in more like 3-4 months)
20. Fourth betrayal: The ballet is a hit beyond their dreams. Carlotta is given a real contract, Perrot dejected, receives nothing from the deal.
21. His talent is recognized in England, however, where the next year he restages it and gets to dance Albrect with Grisi.
22. Later he becomes the ballet master in St Petersburg and goes on to inspire the work of Marius Petipa.
23. Adding of the Act 1 solo in 1932 for Spessivtzeva.
24. Spessivtzeva goes crazy for 2 years in 1941
25. 1984 Arthur Mitchel presents his Creole production for The Dance Theatre of Harlem
26. Matts Ek later choreographs a groundbreaking modern interpretation for The Cullberg Ballet.

Lasting innovations of Giselle, a SHORT list:

• Giselle is considered to be "The Hamlet of Ballet"
• Coralli's use of the corps
• "Toe dancing" elevated in this ballet from gimicry to artistry
• Gautier's use of "art for art's sake" Each element unto its own
• Great literary quality introduced to ballet
• Women as supreme, but setting the stage for the re-introduction of the male by dancers such as Nureyev
• Use of Leitmotifs in the music.

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