Giselle Status

Giselle” is a ballet cut in two: day and night, the earth of peasants and vine workers set against the pale netherworld of the Wilis, spirits of young women betrayed in love. Between these two realms opens a tragic dramatic fracture—the spectacular and disheartening death of Giselle. Yet at the heart of the ballet is a deeper antinomy, opposing those who comply with the social order to those who dare to dream against all odds. The former return safely to their lives, but it is the latter who become immortal. Its poetic, timeless setting, together with the enduring fascination with love’s tragedies, has ensured its lasting success. Often described as the “Hamlet” of ballet, a testing ground for every interpreter, it remains one of the most cherished works in the classical repertoire.

Performance

Paris Opera Ballet: “Giselle”

Place

Palais Garnier, Paris, France, October 17 & 18, 2025

Words

Elsa Giovanna Simonetti

Hannah O'Neill and Reece Clark in “Giselle.” Photograph by Maria-Helena Buckley | OnP

The libretto, written by Théophile Gautier, tells the story of a simple peasant girl from a Rhineland village who falls in love with Loys, a nobleman visiting the countryside in disguise. Through the meddling of Hilarion, her rejected suitor, the truth is revealed: Loys is in fact Albrecht, a nobleman already betrothed to a lady of the court. The shock drives Giselle to madness, and she dies of a broken heart. In the second act (a true act blanc), she is welcomed by Myrtha and her obedient army of Wilis—spirits of betrayed brides who compel men to dance until they die. While Hilarion is not spared, Albrecht is saved by Giselle’s enduring love and survives until dawn, returning to his mortal world as she fades back into eternity.

“Giselle” was first performed on June 28, 1841 at the Paris Opéra—then the Académie royale de Musique, housed in the theatre on the rue Le Peletier—with Carlotta Grisi and Lucien Petipa dancing Giselle and Albrecht, and Jean Coralli officially credited as sole choreographer. Yet we know that Jules Perrot also contributed his genius, particularly to Grisi’s dances, which made her a celebrity after the première. The production performed this season at the Opéra is the choreographic adaptation created by Patrice Bart and Eugène Polyakov in 1991, commissioned by Patrick Dupond to mark the 150th anniversary of the ballet. Its magnificent scenographic framework, enriched with costumes recreated from Alexandre Benois’s designs, together with the excellence of the corps de ballet and the invisible choreographic hand of the beloved Bart, who passed away at the start of this run, all combine to form an alchemical, near-perfect blend: an unmissable performance.

The Opéra Garnier was charged with anticipation on the night of 17 October, when Reece Clarke, the Scottish guest principal from the Royal Ballet, appeared as Albrecht opposite Hannah O’Neill as Giselle. It is unusual for the Paris Opéra, proud of its many étoiles, to invite a guest artist to dance such a defining role as Albrecht. The choice proved right, as the chemistry between the two was palpable: they share a remarkably similar way of dancing, refined and intensely focused on technique. Clarke exuded the effortless charm of a born romantic, capable of making women surrender with a single glance, and O’Neill, though not at her most rested that night, was radiant and joyful. Their pantomime and characterisation stayed within the bounds of tradition—polished, but somewhat restrained. In the rustic celebration of Act I, the peasants’ pas de deux saw Marine Ganio assured in her pirouettes and décalés, showing the confidence of experience in that role, which allows her to handle small setbacks with grace. Andrea Sarri was brilliant and precise, his batterie beautifully executed. This version adds a manège of jumps to the male variation, which he performed with impressive control.

Amandine Albisson in “Giselle.” Photograph by Maria-Helena Buckley | OnP

Befitting the Italian superstition attached to Friday the 17th, the evening proved a difficult one, marked by a few technical mishaps. Hannah O’Neill struggled with a shoe that refused to stay on during her Act I variation, forcing her to shorten her diagonal of ballottés. In Act II, the stage lift that normally allows her to rise so scenographically from her grave malfunctioned, and her appearance had to be replaced by a far less striking entrance. The second act nevertheless redeemed the evening. As Héloïse Bourdon appeared amid the black, tangled branches in the darkness, she looked like a terrifying apparition casting a spell over the entire theatre, and no superstition remained. She is the perfect Myrtha, almost like a statue carved from plaster: regal, authoritative, and seemingly born for the role. It is a part she has danced many times and now commands with complete assurance and devotion; her courus and balances are phenomenal.

The spell worked equally on O’Neill and Clarke, crepuscular natures as they seemed to be, who regained all their power and charisma, and we finally recognised the true stars they are, lighting up the entire stage. O’Neill was so ethereal one wondered how she could defend her Albrecht from the fury of the Wilis. She also replaced the jumps in cambrés en arrière with a curious sequence of pas de chats, both legs moving in unison beneath the tutu, leaving her weightless and almost legless—a puzzling, aerial vision. Clarke, meanwhile, was magnificent in his jumps and entrechats, soaring so high that the orchestra struggled to keep pace with the slightly slowed tempo. Still, it was a beautiful, surreal act, full of atmosphere and intensity.

Amandine Albisson and Guillaume Diop in “Giselle.” Photograph by Maria-Helena Buckley | OnP

The evening of 18 October brought two of the Opéra’s beloved dancers: Amandine Albisson and Guillaume Diop. Albisson dances with a 1990s touch, recalling the brightest stars of the Opéra during the Nureyev era. She moves rather than merely executes steps; her Giselle was drawn with disarming precision, glowing and effortless. Meeting Albrecht, she showed all the tender awkwardness of liking a man for the first time. In the madness scene, every feeling was laid bare: dramatic tension, doubt, fear, disillusion, and desperate certainty.

Guillaume Diop possesses a natural, disarming purity, so that he seems to make Giselle fall with an excess of candour. His virtuosity is remarkable: he shines in his variations, crosses the stage in a single leap, and displays superb turns, clean diagonals, and endless balances, eliciting waves of enthusiasm from the audience. They are two astonishing soloists, not intimately connected perhaps, yet they showed deep emotional intelligence and an acute grasp of the ballet’s dramatic pulse. Éléonore Guérineau and Alexandre Boccara shone in the pas de deux—elegant, supple, and perfectly synchronised, with a quiet, affectionate rapport.

In the second act, Diop entered with a face where sorrow, remorse, and tenderness were clearly visible; once he began to dance, these emotions seemed to expand and radiate through his entire body. When shattered by the spirits, he appeared genuinely overwhelmed, almost exhausted—a detail that made his interpretation profoundly human and believable. Albisson seemed devoted to keeping her partner awake, her love and care unwavering. Clara Mousseigne’s Myrtha was a wisp of a figure, a capricious spirit of the night—dazzling, supple, and elusive; more delicate and unpredictable than Bourdon’s imperious queen.

Amandine Albisson in “Giselle.” Photograph by Maria-Helena Buckley | OnP

On both nights, certain interpreters stood out. Arthur Raveau, as the antagonist Hilarion, distinguished himself through the beauty of his dancing and the intensity of his characterisation. His presence was so commanding that when he sounded the horn to expose Albrecht’s deceit and summon the villagers, we could hardly hate him for it—he had completely captured us. Fanny Gorse on the 17th and Sarah Kora Dayanova on the 18th portrayed Berthe, Giselle’s mother—the former more authoritative and sombre, the latter more tender and affectionate. Berthe’s pantomime of foreboding in the first act, predicting her daughter’s tragic destiny, is a detail absent from many versions and here profoundly moving.

The true highlight, however, was the corps de ballet. The ensemble scenes possessed a spectacular intensity. In the first act, we were blessed with moments of pure bucolic joy. All the harvesters—one could not help noticing Nicola Di Vico, an elegant, finely detailed dancer also cast as Hilarion on other nights, and Manon Baranger, newly joined to the corps—brought freshness and charm. In Giselle’s death scene, the corps’ motionless tableau, standing like wax figures behind the tragedy, added a sense of modesty, reverence, and choral emotional participation that transcended gesture. In the white act, we were stunned by an atmosphere of magic and tenderness: the Wilis formed a disciplined, spectral army, with Alice Catonnet and Éléonore Guérineau outstanding as the two leading spirits.

After two nights of contrasting yet equally luminous performances, we are compelled to reflect on what “Giselle” means to us today. Beyond its exaltation of love and the power of dreams, it is, at its core, a deeply reassuring ballet—one that ultimately restores the status quo. The deaths of heroines we witness in ballets such as “Giselle” and “La Bayadère” are consoling tragedies for the bourgeois imagination: they reaffirm social order rather than challenge it. These stories were born in an era when poor women were expected to submit, to be consumed, and to die—triumphing in art, but never in life. So why do we still love “Giselle” so deeply? Perhaps because the distance of time makes its sorrows safe. Or perhaps, in a world where women now forge their own paths, “Giselle” endures as a quiet reminder of a distant—yet still hauntingly alluring—vision of love shaped by devotion and self-sacrifice.

Elsa Giovanna Simonetti

Elsa Giovanna Simonetti is a Paris-based philosopher researching ancient thought, divination, and practices of salvation at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. With over a decade of ballet training, she studied History of Dance as part of her Philosophy and Aesthetics degree at the University of Bologna. Alongside her academic work, she writes about dance.

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