June 28 – Anniversary of the Premiere of Giselle

Posted on June 28, 2016

Do you love romantic tragedies?

I personally do not! I prefer romantic comedies. Everybody lives, everybody laughs! However, there have been many great romantic tragedies among all sorts of art forms – in books, movies, plays, operas, and ballets.

On this date in 1841, the ballet Giselle had its first performance in Paris.

This is the Theatre de l'Academie Royale
de Musique in Paris, where Giselle premiered.

The story is set in Germany.

Giselle is a peasant girl who discovers that the boy she loves is going to marry someone else. She has such a broken heart that she dies. Then a group of supernatural women called the Wilis call Giselle up from her grave. They are going to take revenge on the young man she'd loved by dancing him to his death – it's what they do, apparently! But Giselle's love is true, and she doesn't want revenge; her pure heart saves the young man from the Wilis.

Gisellewas a huge success. It was immediately staged all across three continents (Europe, North America and Asia – as in Russia).

You can check out the entire ballet here, if you have interest and a couple of hours to indulge it; I recommend this super short trailer to get a good taste in a short time.

Also on this date: