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Bolshoi Ballet's Giselle

Sunday, January 26, 2020, at 1:15 pm

I went to the theater to watch Bolshoi Ballet’s Giselle on screen. The show was live from Moscow, Russia. I found the premiere on Youtube, and it has the same ballet dancers.

The story is in two acts. The first act describes Giselle and Loys falling deeply in love with each other. But Hans also wants Giselle. So, he decides to expose Loys for who he really is—which is a rich Count named Albrecht who is already engaged with Bathilde from his nobility, not the poor village young man who Giselle fell in love with. Hans exposes Albrecht in front of all the village people. Giselle feels betrayed because Albrecht isn’t from her village, and she goes into depression until she dies of sadness.

In the second act, the clock strikes twelve midnight, and Giselle is now a ghost amongst the Willis—who are vengeful female ghosts of disillusioned brides who haunt men to their death. The Willis haunt Hans, driving him crazy until he dies of exhaustion.

While Albrecht goes to Giselle’s grave to lay flowers and pray, Giselle’s ghost begs the Willis not to haunt Albrecht to death. The Willis continue to haunt Albrecht anyway. But the morning clock rings and breaks the spell, which saves Albrecht’s life.

Music is by Adolphe Adam

Choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky, directed by Isabelle Julien, and hosted by Katerina Novikova.

Musical Direction is by Pavel Klinichev

Cast of Performers:

Giselle by Olga Smirnova

Albrecht by Artemy Belyakov

Hans, the Gamekeeper, by Denis Savin

Berthe, Giselle’s mother, by Lyudmila Semenyaka

Bathilde, Albrecht’s fiancée, by Nelli Kobakhidze

Bolshoi Corps de Ballet

The show was around two hours long, with a long introduction for interviews, story description, and story summary as well as long intermission with more interviews, where I bought a cup of decaf coffee, and returned to watch the intermission interviews and act two.

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