Giselle ballet dancers
Gis­elle by the Roy­al New Zea­l­and Bal­let, May 2021. Photo cred­it: Steph­en A’Court.

Gis­elle is a bal­let I know very little about, aside from one epis­ode of Angel and read­ing the syn­op­sis on Wiki­pe­dia:

The ghost-filled bal­let tells the tra­gic, romantic story of a beau­ti­ful young peas­ant girl who falls for the flir­ta­tions of the deceit­ful and dis­guised noble­man Albrecht. When the ruse is revealed, the fra­gile Gis­elle dies of heart­break, and Albrecht must face the oth­er­worldly con­sequences of his care­less seduc­tion.

I was really keen to see it when I heard the Roy­al New Zea­l­and Bal­let were bring­ing it back in its clas­sic form – no new-fangled inter­pret­a­tions or sta­ging here. Unfor­tu­nately on the night I could­n’t make it, so my know­ledge of Gis­elle is still pretty lim­ited. I did how­ever send my friend Sara along  instead. Her review is below. The Wel­ling­ton run is fin­ished, but there’s shows com­ing to Palmy, Napi­er, Auck­land, Christ­ch­urch and Duned­in still, woo!

Gis­elle by the Roy­al New Zea­l­and Bal­let, May 2021. Photo cred­it: Steph­en A’Court.
Have you heard of people fall­ing asleep to bal­let? Well not tonight. Watch­ing 12 prima baller­inas dan­cing in sync was a won­der to the eyes. I was glued the entire time.
The set and cos­tumes were beau­ti­ful with fant­ast­ic syn­chron­isa­tion of music and dance that really brought the story to life .
You could see the amount of work and prac­tise these young per­formers put in to this pro­duc­tion.
Such pre­ci­sion and grace through­out the whole even­ing. It really was a priv­ilege to see the very best of bal­let in New Zea­l­and!
Gis­elle by the Roy­al New Zea­l­and Bal­let, May 2021. Photo cred­it: Steph­en A’Court.