Artists

Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse

Kader Belarbi, director

Programme

Giselle

Ballet in two acts

Libretto by Théophile Gautier and Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges, based on Heinrich Heine

Version by Kader Belarbi, from Jules Perrot and Jean Coralli (1841)

Choreography and staging: Kader Belarbi

Music: Adolphe Adam

Assistant to the choreographer: Laure Muret

Sets: Thierry Bosquet

Costumes: Olivier Bériot

Architect-jeweler: Marc Deloche

Lights: Sylvain Chevallot

Running time: two hours and 25 minutes with one intermission

Giselle, the great romantic ballet

A perfect ballet in which the duality between the first earthly act and the second spiritual one, displays romanticism’s preference for folklore and supernatural tales. Giselle was premiered at the Opéra de Paris in 1841 and, after Petipa’s recovery in Russia and its first performances in Europe by the Ballets Russes, continues to be present on stages all around the world. The director of the Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse, Kader Belarbi, was a star at the Opéra de Paris with Nureyev, who has ever since inspired him when adapting the classic titles of the repertoire. In this version, he has designed a first act with more contemporary coral dances, leaving the second act intact, when the main character has transformed herself into one of the Willis, the phantasmagoric maidens who make men who have not been nice to them dance to death.