Giselle ou les Wilis

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Giselle celebrated an unparalleled triumph at its premiere at the Paris Opera in June 1841, with choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot. Since then, nearly every renowned ballerina of the 19th and 20th centuries has performed the role, establishing the ballet as the epitome of Romantic ballet and a staple in the repertoire of major ballet companies. Remarkably, while the libretto and music have been preserved, no original choreography notation had been found until now. Current performances are based on the St Petersburg tradition, where the ballet took its definitive form in the 1880s after reconstruction. This absence of a consistent written tradition suggests significant changes to the choreography from 1841 to today. A fortunate development for the global reception of Giselle is the acquisition by the German Dance Archive in Cologne of a previously unknown transcription, likely from the 1860s in Paris, just before the original performance tradition ceased. This manuscript by Henri Justamant documents the choreography through figure and floor pattern notations, making it the only such record of Giselle discovered to date. This facsimile edition aims to provide access to researchers and ballet masters, aligning with George Balanchine's insight that “the work is such a good one that we always discover something in it we hadn’t seen before.”