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The overall structure of the first act is mostly quite conventional, with some added production details which don't all come off: for instance, Giselle makes her appearance much earlier than usual, running outdoors in a white dress and with her hair down in excited anticipation of the day - a pretty idea but not one that adds much to our knowledge of her character. More successful is the way we meet the couple who dance the peasant pas de deux, establishing them as lovers, and friends of Giselle, from the bginning of the act rather than having them appear from nowhere for their big number. Berthe gets her mime scene, but in a much shortened form: she just tells about how the Wilis rise from their graves and then breaks off, crossing herself quickly as she shivers in horror. Very well done by both Eva Klobborg and Lis Jeppesen, it's a chilling moment and one that comes back to mind very forcibly during Act 2.

Hübbe and Englund have encouraged their dancers to choose their own interpretations, within the boundaries of the narrative, and Rose Gad and Maria Bernholdt gave us quite different Bathildes : Gad's a good-natured, kind woman, Bernholdt's much bitchier - an entertaining portrait but providing Albrecht with much too easy an excuse for his philandering. Fernando Mora and Morton Eggert were predictably excellent Hilarions, neither too sympathetic nor totally villainous.

I saw two leading couples, also very different from each other. Silja Schandorff is just starting her last season before the RDB's compulsory retirement policy takes her off stage, and this whole production is widely seen as a farewell gift for her. She came to Giselle relatively late in her career but she's still had time to simplify and clarify her interpretation. She's tall for a dancer so the 'fragile waif' route is closed to her - thank goodness - and her Giselle is a simple, happy girl looking forward trustingly to a future as a happy wife. There's a beautiful, soft amplitude to her dancing. Her mad scene was very carefully thought out but it didn't quite work - a bit too careful, perhaps. Gudrun Bojesen's Giselle looks equally simple on the surface but there's an interesting complexity lurking underneath. She had the advantage of a much more experienced Albrecht in the person of Mads Blangstrup, whose aristocratic good looks make him an unlikely peasant but whose clever, convincing acting let him get away with it - for us as well as for Giselle. Schandorff's partner was Nehemiah Kish, just a few weeks into his first season with the company. He's tall enough to partner her very effectively, but so far his acting is blocked in rather than worked out in detail.

If your idea of Giselle Act 2 runs along the lines of icy glamour, phalanxes of identical Wilis, and melodramatic revenge, you'd be very disappointed by this one. It's very plainly staged - only 18 Wilis, no trapdoor for Giselle to rise from her grave - and much of the usual drama has been toned down or even entirely removed. But what's left is quite remarkably effective. The overall feeling is of silence, stillness, and suspended time, to the point where it's almost hypnotic and when the clock strikes at dawn you feel you really have been watching the events of a whole night. When Myrtha makes her first entrance, she's looking back into the wings as if she's moving against her will: at once you're drawn to watch her face rather than her bourreeing feet; she's enclosed, calm and infinitely patient. When she condemns Hilarion and Albrecht to their deaths, there's nothing personal in it. She's long ago moved on from hatred and vengeance and now it's as if she's just applying the rule: 'You come alone into the forest at night, you die. There are no exceptions'. I've never before been so conscious of the tragedy of the Wilis themselves, sentenced to dance here every night for ever, with no hope of redemption, nothing to do but wait for the end of time.

Giselle, the newcomer, still has a little of her earthly energy left, particularly in Schandorff's interpretation. Her urgency stands out against the impassivity of the Wilis and as the night progresses she becomes almost frantic with fear - she makes the famous exit with the ever-higher jetes into a terrified flight as she despairs of saving her lover. Bojesen is less human, almost pure spirit, her technique stripped of every trace of mannerism or ego: perhaps the simplest Act 2 Giselle I remember seeing but also one of the most moving. The emphasis of the production gives Albrecht less prominence than usual - not for nothing did Hübbe say that this was his tribute to the women of the company - but Blangstrup makes something genuinely noble of the ending. Both Amy Watson and Tina Højlund gave fine performances as Myrtha, helping to make this second act a unique emotional journey, one of the most memorable in my whole experience.