or to see the company rehearsing the production in ENB's London studio - an unforgeable experience.

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ENBTalk on Giselle

Erina Takahashi, Elisa Celis and Arionel Vargas
© Richard Haughton

The competition for once is not to do with the picture but to invent a new ending for the ballet - an Act 3 of Giselle. Most other ballet's are in 3 acts so why not Giselle - and you can be as inventive as you want.

Back on the 1st April 2000 Ballet.co actually had a piece about the Rediscovery of Act 3 Giselle so its not as daft as it sounds(!!)

The competition runs until the 2 March 2005 with the result announced on the 3 March - not long so get your skates on....

In Boise, we have Boise State University. Obviously, BSU has its nicknames..... Now that would be where the department is located, no???

Anyway, moving on, this is a thread to come up with new Giselle endings, so can we please be having some enties folks...

How about if you can come up with amusing names for dances that should be in Giselle - as examples we've already had the "Grape Pickers' pas d' action, the Two Parrots pas de deux and Giselle's Party Polka!. There must be many more...

The instructor was announcing to the class her frustration with "losing wilis", first too many, then not enough.... She went on and on and the British girls were trying not to dissolve into giggles. My daughter was completely unaware of the slang term so one of the other girls had to clue her in.

Isn't it great what the kids learn at summer programs!

ha! That sounds good. Those wilis need teaching a lesson how dare they kill Hilarion! lol

"Then Albrecht returned to the village and said he had danced
with Giselle all night. Nobody believed him so he went back to
the graveyard and got the rosebud Giselle had given him and
showed it to the villagers. Still no-one would believe him so
he kissed the rosebud and because Giselle's love was so strong
the rosebud was transformed into Giselle. Albrecht was so happy
he gave up his royal life and married Giselle."

Let's just say to an 8 year old anything is possible! These days it seems you can have both a royal life and a marriage of your choice!

There are lots of magical things we accept in ballet.

The prologue: the local police question Albrecht & Hilarion about Giselle's death, which they now regard as suspicious, since the reports say that she started dancing around like a mad thing and telling people she loved them before collapsing in a heap - pretty typical of Silesia on a saturday night these days.

When they go to exhume the body, they just find a sack of potatoes, because what really happened was that Giselle wanted to go off and train in New York, but didn't have the heart to tell Albrecht, so she got her mother to put the idea in everyone's mind that she had a weak heart, so she could fake her own death and go and pursue her real love - ballet.

Act III proper then begins with Giselle waking up in her dressing room at the Met - she is relieved to find that the whole Romantic Period was a bad dream, Albrecht, Hilarion and all those dreadful girls from the ballet school (the wilis) long forgotten and far away. The lights go up properly, the set transforms and so begins a pot-pourri numbers from Who Cares, On the Town and Chorus Line, all starring a very leggy Giselle.

A typical divertissement takes place, danced by peasants and courtiers in turn. Albrecht appears to be happy, although not entirely at ease, but his face fills with fear when some of the dancers appear as sylphs in a danse des fées. Bathilde cannot understand what is wrong with him, but he seems to recover when a group of tumblers entertain the guests. Suddenly a horrendous clap of thunder is heard, followed by lightning. A storm breaks, and the night sky grows very dark. A mysterious figure appears on the scene; it is Myrtha. Albrecht is terrified. However, it is not him she is looking at, but the Duke of Courland. Myrtha points an accusing finger at him; in a notorious mime sequence she indicates that they were once betrothed and it was he who jilted her, causing her to become a Wili, and others to be brought into her net. She has come to haunt him. The Duke is so shaken by this intervention that he suddenly has a seizure, and dies. Bathilde is now triumphant, because by the laws of the dukedom she will inherit her father’s wealth and rule as duchess in her own right. Bathilde forswears love, and she and Myrtha confront each other over the dead body of the Duke, the one having forsworn love and the other having been turned into a Wili by having love wrested from her; if looks could kill, both ladies would be murderers. The courtiers are petrified; many faint. Albrecht runs from the scene, followed urgently by Wilfred, his squire.

The scene change that follows is one of the most famous that reached the stage. In dim light, courtiers, peasants, and oddly mysterious forms move across the stage, often in apparently random fashion. A few disconcerting bumps and strange groans are heard. Columns from the duke’s courtyard are seen moving in peculiar ways, and float away to the wings, attended by dark, almost human forms. Walls break into sections and move horizontally out of sight. The orchestra meanwhile plays one of the musical highlights of the score, the beautifully crafted and very descriptive intermezzo, though it is not particularly well known because it has rarely been heard. The lights eventually come up; we have returned to the forest scene of Act 2.

The Wilis are once again dancing in their cold, impersonal manner; as Myrtha returns, they welcome her in deep arabesque. The dance continues. Suddenly, strange shapes appear behind the Wilis. It becomes clear that these are the figures of three men, emerging from the lake in the forest. The Wilis pose in a threatening line, but it is soon obvious that these shapes are not real; they are the ghosts of Albrecht, Hilarion, and Wilfred. Albrecht was so distraught after the events at the duke’s courtyard that he ran to the forest thinking only of Giselle, and threw himself into the lake. Wilfred, running after his master, dived into the lake and gallantly tried to save Albrecht, but drowned in the process. Hilarion looks as if he has been there for a long time.

The presence of male ghosts makes Myrtha shudder; she is clearly losing her powers. The dances of the Wilis become more fluent and warmer. Myrtha vanishes (in the original version of this act she was flown from the stage). Giselle and Albrecht are now re-united in the spirit world in a tender pas de deux. They are then joined by the ghosts of Hilarion and Wilfred with the two Wilis who were attendants of Myrtha for an engaging pas de six, after which Hilarion, Wilfred, and their partners dance a more intense pas de quatre. There then follows the glorious grand pas de deux for Giselle and Albrecht. A general dance concludes the ballet, at the end of which Myrtha re-appears, bringing with her the ghost of the Duke of Courland for the final tableau. The apotheosis is complete (for those who like it sweet).

PS adults do make life complicated, compared with a child's imagination!

I would really like to see that as an addition and then we would have the true completion of the ballet.

Giselle as hitherto done is not complete - but now it is.

The judges have consulted and if there could be 3 prizes, they would go to Jonathan S, Richard Jones and Grey Rabbit. Alas there is but one and the winner of it is Grey Rabbit. We particularly loved "dance of duck lake - mistranslated as dunk in some versions'...

My daughter now wants to enter the competition to meet McFly - no accounting for her diverse tastes(!) However we will be going to see the English Youth Ballet performing Nutcracker in June when they come to our local theatre so looking forward to that.