The Royal Opera

Giselle is the quintessential Romantic classic, a love affair that begins in the real world and continues beyond the grave.

The ballet’s title role also offers one of the great challenges of the ballet repertory, as Giselle transforms from an innocent peasant girl, duped into love, to a forgiving spirit who saves her lover from death.

For the ballerina this is a role of two contrasting halves: first she must appear naïve and artless, her dancing alive with an earthy enthusiasm; then she transforms into light and air, her dancing so ethereal as to seem weightless.