Giselle

Giselle
Carlotta Grisi as Giselle, 1841
Choreographed by	Jean Coralli Jules Perrot
Composed by	Adolphe Adam
Libretto by	Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges Théophile Gautier
Based on	Heinrich Heine's De l'Allemagne Victor Hugo's "Fantômes" from Les Orientales
Date of premiere	Monday 28 June 1841
Place of premiere	Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique
Original ballet company	Ballet du Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique
Characters	Giselle Albrecht Hilarion Myrtha Bathilde Prince of Courland Berthe Wilfrid Peasants, Nobles, Wilis
Designs by	Pierre Ciceri (scenery) Paul Lormier (costumes)
Setting	Rhine Valley Renaissance
Created for	Carlotta Grisi
Genre	Ballet-fantastique
Type	Romantic ballet

Giselle, or The Wilis is a romantic ballet in two acts. Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Théophile Gautier wrote the story of the ballet. They based it on a short prose passage in Heinrich Heine's De l'Allemagne, and on Victor Hugo's poem "Fantômes". Adolphe Adam wrote the music. Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot designed the dances. Carlotta Grisi performed the role of Giselle in the first production.

The story is set in Germany of the Renaissance. Giselle is a peasant girl who falls in love with Albrecht, a nobleman pretending to be a peasant boy. Giselle is shocked to discover Albrecht is going to marry the princess Bathilde. Her heart breaks. She goes mad (insane, crazy) and dies. One night, she rises from her grave to protect Albrecht from the Wilis, the spirits of dead girls who force men to dance to their deaths.

The ballet was first performed in Paris on Monday 28 June 1841 at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique. It was a great success. It was almost immediately staged by other ballet companies in Europe, Russia, and the United States. Grisi was declared another Taglioni, the period's greatly acclaimed ballerina. Ballet historian Grace Robert writes "Giselle ... is the archetype of the ballets of the romantic age".

Background

The French Revolution (1789–1799) produced a French middle class which rejected aristocratic tastes and values. These tastes and values had influenced French art and literature since the reign of Louis XIV. The power of the aristocracy had been broken with the Revolution. Thousands of aristocrats had died on the guillotine, in massacres, in prisons, or had fled France for safety in other lands.

In the early years of the 19th century, French ballet directors and designers shifted their focus from stories based on the Greek and Roman mythologies loved by the aristocracy. They turned instead to the stories that appealed to the middle class. These stories were based on real life, real places, past times, everyday people, and the supernatural.

Two ballets with such stories caused great excitement in Paris in the 1830s. In November 1831, Meyerbeer's opera Robert le diable received its first performance. It offered a novelty ballet called The Ballet of the Nuns. In this scene, dead nuns rise from their graves to dance in the moonlight. The public was enthralled. The next year, in March 1832, the ballet La Sylphide was performed. This ballet is about a beautiful sylph (fairy) and James, a young Scotsman. The two dally in a woodland glade before the sylph accidentally dies at the hands of her human lover.

This ballet introduced Marie Taglioni to the French public. She was the first to dance en pointe for the sake of art rather than spectacle. She was also the first to wear the white, bell-shaped, calf-length ballet skirt now considered an essential feature of the romantic ballet. Poet and critic Théophile Gautier was present on the first night of La Sylphide. About ten years later, his concept for Giselle would display elements of La Sylphide. It would be set in a real place and in the past, for example, and would be about everyday people and supernatural women.

Plot development

Vernoy de St. Georges, date unknown

In an 1841 news article announcing the first performance of Giselle, Théophile Gautier recorded his part in the creation of the ballet. He had read Heinrich Heine's description of the Wilis in De l'Allemagne, and thought these evil spirits would make a "pretty ballet". He planned their story for Act 2, and settled upon a verse by Victor Hugo called "Fantômes" to provide the inspiration for Act 1. This verse is about a beautiful 15 year old Spanish girl who loves to dance. She becomes too warm at a ball, and dies of a chill in the cool morning.

Heine's prose passage in De l'Allemagne tells of supernatural young women called the Wilis. They have died before their wedding day and rise from their graves in the middle of the night to dance. Any young man who crosses their path is forced to dance to his death. In another book, the Wilis are said to be jilted young women who have died and become vampires. This is assumed to be the reason that they hate men.

Gautier thought Heine's Wilis and Hugo's fifteen year old Spanish girl would make a good ballet story. His first idea was to present an empty ballroom glittering with crystal and candlelight. The Wilis would cast a spell over the floor. Giselle and other dancers would enter and whirl through the room, unable to resist the spell to keep them dancing. Giselle would try to keep her lover from partnering other girls. The Queen of the Wilis would enter, lay her cold hand on Giselle's heart, and the girl would drop dead.

Gautier was not satisfied with this story. It was basically a succession of dances with one moment of drama at its end. He had no experience writing ballet stories so he called upon Vernoy de St. Georges, a man who had written many stories for the ballet. St. Georges liked Gautier's basic idea of the frail young girl and the Wilis. He wrote the story of Giselle as it is known today in three days, and sent it to Léon Pillet, the director of the Paris Opéra.

Pillet wanted to present a beautiful young Italian dancer named Carlotta Grisi to the public. He considered La Sylphide, but Adèle Dumilâtre reminded him that the role had been promised to her. A ballet in preparation, La Rosière de Gand, was suggested, but Grisi objected. The role was too long and the story was not suitable for dance. Pillet needed a good story, and he found it in Giselle. Grisi liked the story as much as Pillet did, so Giselle was put into development at once.

Music

Adolphe Adam about 1835

Adolphe Adam was a popular writer of ballet and opera music in early 19th-century France. He wrote with great speed, and completed Giselle in about two months. The music was written in the smooth, song-like style of the day called cantilena. This style is exemplified in Bellini's opera Norma and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

Adam used several leitmotifs in the ballet. A leitmotif is a short, recurring musical phrase that is associated with a certain character, event, or idea. A leitmotif is associated with Giselle, and another with Albrecht. Hilarion's motif marks his every entrance and suggests the Fate theme in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Another leitmotif is associated with the "he loves me, he loves me not" flower test in Act 1. This leitmotif recurs in the mad scene, and in Act 2 when Giselle offers flowers to Albrecht. The Wilis have their own motif. It is heard in the overture, in Act 1 when Berthe tells the story of the Wilis, in the mad scene, and again in Act 2 when the Wilis make their first entrance. The hunting horn motif marks sudden surprises. The revelation that Albrecht is a nobleman is one such moment.

While the music was completely original with Adam, a critic noted that Adam had borrowed eight bars from a romance by a Miss Puget and three bars from the huntsman's chorus in Carl Maria von Weber's opera Euryanthé. Additionally, two pieces by Friedrich Burgmüller were inserted into the ballet: a waltz called "Souvenir de Ratisbonne" and a suite of dances performed by Giselle's friends and their two leaders. It is unknown who authorised the inclusion of these pieces.

One dance historian writes:

By no stretch of the imagination can the score of Giselle be called great music, but it cannot be denied that it is admirably suited to its purpose. It is danceable, and it has colour and mood attuned to the various dramatic situations ... As we listen today to these haunting melodies composed over a century ago, we quickly become conscious of their intense nostalgic quality, not unlike the opening of a Victorian Keepsake, between whose pages lies an admirably preserved Valentine—in all the glory of its intricate paper lace and symbolic floral designs—which whispers of a leisured age now forever past. For a brief space the air seems faintly perfurmed with parma violet and gardenia. The music of Giselle still exerts its magic.

– Cyril W. Beaumont, from A Ballet Called Giselle (1996), p. 58

Dance and pantomime

Perrot and Grisi on a sheet music cover

Jocelyn Vollmar as Myrtha posing en arabesque in a dress typical of a "white" ballet (1947)

Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot designed the dances for Giselle. Perrot and Carlotta Grisi were lovers, and Perrot designed all of Grisi's dances and all of her pantomime. Everyone in the Paris dance world knew that Perrot had designed Grisi's dances, and Coralli said so, but Perrot was given no official credit in the printed materials such as posters and programs. This was most likely done to prevent Perrot from collecting royalties (money, profits) on the ballet. Perrot liked bold touches and planned several rapid aerial swoops on wires in Act 2 for Giselle. Grisi was afraid of these swoops. A stage hand was brought in to test the swoops. He crashed face-first into the scenery. The swoops were abandoned.

Cyril Beaumont writes that Giselle is made up of two elements—dance and mime. Act 1 features short mimed scenes, he points out, and episodes of dancing which are fused with mime. In Act 2, mime has become fused entirely with dance. He writes that the choreographic vocabulary is composed of a small number of simple steps:

• Movements: developpe, grand rond de jambe
• Poses: arabesque, attitude
• Gliding steps: chasse, glissade, pas de basque, pas de bouree
• Hopping steps: ballone, temps leve
• Turning steps: pirouette, petit tour, tour en l'air
• Leaping steps: (vertical) ballotte, entrechat, sisonne, rond de jambe en l'air saute, (horizontal) cabriole, jete, grande jete, soubresaut

Beaumont speculates that the simple steps were deliberately planned to allow the "utmost expressiveness."

Parts of Giselle have been cut or changed since the ballet's first night. Giselle's Act 1 pantomime scene in which she tells Albrecht of her strange dream is cut. The peasant pas de deux in Act 1 is cut back a bit. The Prince of Courland and his daughter Bathilde used to make their entrance on horseback, but today they walk on. In the original production, the Prince and Bathilde were present at Giselle's death, but now they leave the scene before she dies. The machines used to make Giselle fly and to make her disappear are no longer used. A trapdoor is sometimes employed to make Giselle rise from her grave and then to make her sink into it at the end of Act 2.

At the end of Act 2, Bathilde formerly entered with the courtiers to search for Albrecht. He took a few unsteady steps toward them and collapsed into their arms. This moment was an artistic parallel to the Act 1 finale when the peasants gathered about the dead Giselle. Now, Bathilde and the courtiers are cut, and Albrecht slowly leaves the stage alone.

Ethnic music, dance, and costume

Ethnic music, dance, and costume were a large part of romantic ballet. At the time Giselle was written, people thought of Germany when they heard a waltz because the waltz was of German origin. Giselle makes her first entrance to the music of a waltz, and the audience would have known at once that the ballet was set in Germany. Adam wrote three waltzes for Giselle: two for Giselle and one for the Wilis. Adam wrote that the "Giselle Waltz" in Act 1 has "all the German color indicated by the locality." People agreed. One critic wrote: "A lovely waltz ... in the Germanic spirit of the subject".

At first, Gautier thought that some of the dancers in the Act 2 waltz for the Wilis should dress in ethnic costume and dance ethnic steps. Adam put bits of French, Spanish, German, and Indian -sounding music in the waltz for this purpose. Gautier's "ethnic" idea was dropped as the ballet developed however, and it has not been picked up by modern producers. Today, Act 2 is a ballet blanc—a "white" ballet in which all the ballerinas and the corps de ballet are dressed in full, white, bell-shaped skirts and the dances have a geometric design.

Costumes

Albrecht by Paul Lormier

The historical period for Giselle is not indicated in the story. Paul Lormier, the chief costume designer at the Opéra in Paris, probably consulted Gautier on this matter. It is also possible that Pillet had the ballet's budget in mind and decided to use the many Renaissance-style costumes in the Opéra's wardrobe for Giselle. These costumes were said to have been those from Rossini's William Tell (1829) and Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini (1838). Lormier certainly designed the costumes for the principal characters. His costumes were in use at the Opéra until the ballet was dropped from the repertory in 1853.

Giselle was revived in 1863 with new costumes by Lormier's assistant Alfred Albert. Albert's designs are closer to those of modern productions than those of Lormier and were in use at the opera until 1868. The ballet was revived again in 1924 with scenery and costumes by Alexandre Benois. He wanted to revive the costumes of the original production but dropped the idea, believing the critics would charge him with a lack of imaginative creativity.

Sets

Pierre Luc Charles Ciceri, chief set designer at the Opéra from 1815 to 1847, designed the sets. Gautier was not specific about the locale but placed it in "some mysterious corner of Germany ... on the other side of the Rhine". This was the east side. The original designs are possibly lost, but illustrations from the book Les Beautés de l'Opéra (Paris, 1844) give an idea of what the sets were probably like.

The Act 1 illustration shows Giselle's cottage with its roof made of straw on the spectator's left and Albrecht's cottage on the right. Ancient trees on either side arch over these cottages. A road runs between them and disappears into the background. The backdrop displayed a castle in the distance on a rocky hill crowded with vineyards. Ciceri's set was in use until the ballet was dropped in 1853. At that time Gautier noticed that the sets were falling apart: "Giselle's cottage has barely three or four straws on its roof." This idea of the Act 1 setting has remained in use since its 1841 debut.

Act 2 from Les Beautés de l'Opéra

The Act 2 illustration shows a dark wood with a pool of water in the distance. The branches of aged trees create an arch overhead. Beneath these branches on the left is a marble cross with 'Giselle' written on it. From one of its arms hangs the crown of grape leaves worn by Giselle as Queen of the Vintage. On the stage, thick weeds and wildflowers (200 bulrushes and 120 branches of flowers) marked the undergrowth. The gas jets of the footlights and those overhead suspended in the flies were turned low to create a mood of mystery and terror.

A circular hole was cut into the backdrop and covered with a transparent material. A strong light behind this hole represented the moon. The light was occasionally manipulated to suggest the passage of clouds. Gautier and St. Georges wanted the pool to be made of large mirrors. Pillet rejected this idea because of its cost. In the 1868 revival, the mirrors were finally acquired for this scene.

Adam thought Ciceri's backdrop for Act 1 was "not so good ... it is all weak and pale" but he liked the set for Act 2: "[Ciceri's] second act is a delight, a dark humid forest filled with bulrushes and wild flowers, and ending with a sunrise, seen at first through the trees at the end of the piece, and very magical in its effect." The sunrise also delighted the critics.

First performance

Original poster

The balletomanes of Paris became very excited as the opening night of Giselle approached (neared). News reports kept their interest alive. Some reports said that Grisi had had an accident. Some reports said that the conductor was ill with a tumour. Still others said that the stage hands were worried about their safety.

Hopes that the ballet would be ready in May were dashed. Opening night was postponed several times. Grisi was absent for a few days and her return was delayed to protect her health. Lighting, trapdoors, and scene changes needed further rehearsals. Cuts were made in Grisi's role to spare the dancer's health. Instead of returning to her tomb at the end of the ballet, it was decided Giselle would be placed on a bed of flowers and sink slowly into the earth. This touch preserved the romantic mood of the Act 2 finale.

At last, on Monday 28 June 1841, the curtain rose on Giselle in the Salle Le Peletier. Grisi played Giselle with Lucien Petipa as her lover Albrecht, M. Simon as the gamekeeper Hilarion, and Adèle Dumilâtre as Myrtha, the Queen of the Wilis. The ballet was preceded by Act 3 of Rossini's opera Moise. This was a common practice at the time. In spite of the chief machinist shouting orders to his crew that could be heard by the audience, the ballet was a great success. Grisi created a sensation, and was regarded as another Taglioni.

Characters in the first performance

Giselle is crowned Queen of the Vintage in an illustration from 1845

• Duke Albert of Silesia, in the attire of a villager
• The Prince of Courland
• Wilfride, the Duke's squire
• Hilarion, the game-keeper
• An Old Peasant Man
• Bathilde, the Duke's fiancée
• Giselle, a peasant girl
• Berthe, Giselle's mother
• Myrtha, Queen of the Wili
• Zulmé, a Wili
• Moyne, a Wili

Story of the ballet

Grisi as Giselle, 1841

Act 1

The ballet opens on an autumn morning in Thuringia. The grapes are being gathered. Giselle and Albrecht are in love. Hilarion is in love with Giselle, too, but she does not love him. He grows jealous, and promises to get his revenge. Albrecht's noble manner arouses hisHilarion's suspicions. When the peasant boys and girls start a waltz, Giselle presses Albrecht to dance with her. Giselle's mother says her daughter has a weak heart and will die if she does not forsake her love of dance. She fears Giselle will become one of the dreaded Wilis.

A hunting horn is heard in the distance. Albrecht becomes nervous and hurries away with the peasants. The Prince of Courland, his daughter Bathilde, and the courtiers enter with great pomp. They are looking for a place to rest after the hunt. Giselle and her mother serve the party food and drink. Bathilde takes an interest in Giselle. They each admit that they are in love and soon to be married. Albrecht returns with the peasants. Bathilde claims him as her future husband. Giselle is shocked. She goes mad and dies in her mother's arms. Albrecht is driven from the scene by the peasants.

Act 2

It is midnight in a dark wood with a pool in the distance. Gamekeepers enter looking for an observation post. Hilarion warns them that the spot is the haunt of the Wilis. The gamekeepers flee in all directions.

The winged Myrtha rises from the weeds to call her subject Wilis together. Giselle is about to become one of them. She rises from her grave and dances. Albrecht enters to pray at Giselle's grave. He sees Giselle and they dance. The Wilis trap Hilarion, force him to dance, then cast him into the pool to his death. Myrtha wants Albrecht to die too, but Giselle intervenes to save his life. Day breaks. The Wilis vanish. Giselle sinks into her grave. Bathilde and the courtiers enter looking for Albrecht. He collapses in their arms.

Contemporary reviews and comments

Grisi and Petipa on a sheet music cover

Giselle was a great artistic and commercial success. Le Constitutionnel praised Act 2 for its "poetic effects". Moniteur des théâtres wrote that Grisi "runs [and] flies across the stage like a gazelle in love". One critic made a detailed analysis of the music in La France Musicale. He thought the Act 1 waltz "ravishing", and the scene of Berthe's narrative filled with "quite new" harmonic modulations. He praised other moments in Act 1 (especially the mad scene), but was in raptures with the music of Act 2, singling out the entrance of the Wilis and the viola solo played through Giselle's last dance. He thought the flute and harp music accompanying Giselle as she disappeared into her grave at ballet's end "full of tragic beauty."

Coralli was praised for the Act 1 peasant pas de deux and for the "elegance" of Act 2. Dance historian Ivor Guest writes that Coralli followed a suggestion made by Gautier and picked the most beautiful girls in the company to play the peasants and the Wilis. One observer wrote that the selection process was cruel: the almost-beautiful girls were turned away without a second thought.

Grisi and Petipa were great successes as the lovers. Gautier praised their performance in Act 2: "[The two made the act] a real poem, a choreographic elegy full of charm and tenderness ... More than one eye that thought it was seeing only [dance] was surprised to find its vision obscured by a tear—something that does not often happen in a ballet ... Grisi danced with a perfection ... that places her in the ranks between Essler and Taglioni ... Her miming surpassed every expectation ... She is nature and artlessness personified."

Adam thought Petipa "charming" as both dancer and actor, and that he had "rehabilitated" male dancing with his performance. Of Dumilâtre he wrote, "... in spite of her coldness, [Dumilâtre] deserved the success she achieved by the correctness and the 'mythological' quality of her poses: perhaps this word may seem a little pretentious, but I can think of no other to express such cold and noble dancing as would suit Minerva in a merry mood, and in this respect [Dumilâtre] seems to bear a strong resemblamce to that goddess."

Giselle made 6500 francs (a form of French money) between June and September 1841. This was twice the amount for the same time frame in 1839. Grisi's salary was increased to make her the top earner among the dancers at the Opéra. Many pictures of Grisi as Giselle were printed and sold, and arrangements of the music were made for social dancing. The sculptor Emile Thomas made a statuette of Giselle in her Act 2 costume. A silk cloth was manufactured called façonné Giselle, and Madame Lainné, a milliner (hat maker), sold an artificial flower called 'Giselle'. The ballet was parodied at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in October 1841.

Early productions

Giselle was performed in Paris from its debut in 1841 to 1849. It was then dropped from the repertory. Grisi always danced the title role. The ballet was revived in 1852 and 1853, but without Grisi. The work was dropped from the repertory after 1853. It was revived in 1863 for a Russian ballerina then dropped in 1868. It was revived almost 50 years later in 1924 for the debut of Olga Spessivtzeva. This production was revived in 1932 and 1938.

Romantic Ballets
The Ballet of the Nuns La Sylphide (1832) Giselle (1841) Napoli (1842) Pas de Quatre (1845) Paquita (1846) Coppélia (1870) Swan Lake (1876) The Sleeping Beauty The Nutcracker

Giselle was produced by other ballet companies in Europe and America almost immediately after its first night. The British had their first taste of Giselle—not with the ballet— but with a drama based on the ballet called Giselle, or The Phantom Night Dancers by William Moncrieff. He had seen the ballet in Paris the same year. The play was performed on 23 August 1841 at the Theatre Royal, Sadler's Wells.

The actual ballet was first staged in London at Her Majesty's Theatre on 12 March 1842 with Grisi as Giselle and Perrot as Albrecht. The dances were credited to Perrot and one Deshayes. It was revived many times, once in 1884 with a Mlle. Sismondi in the role of Albrecht. This production was received with little enthusiasm. It was preceded by the operetta Pocahontas.

The ballet was staged by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1911 at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden with Tamara Karsavina and Nijinsky as Giselle and Albrecht. Anna Pavlova danced Giselle with her own company in 1913. Alicia Markova danced the role with the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1934, and Margot Fonteyn took the role in 1937 when Markova left the company. The English loved Giselle. In 1942, for example, three different companies were dancing the ballet in London.

Giselle was first performed in Russia at the Bolshoi Theatre, St. Petersburg, on 18 December 1842. Gedeonov, the Director of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, sent his Ballet Master Titus to Paris to find a new ballet for ballerina Elena Andreyanova. Titus picked Giselle. The Ballet Master then staged the work completely from memory in St. Petersburg. Perrot produced Giselle in St. Petersburg in 1851. He made many changes to the ballet in his years of service to the Imperial Ballet. In the 1880s, Ballet Master Marius Petipa made many changes to the Perrot production.

Giselle was first staged in Italy at Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 17 January 1843. The music however was not Adam's, but that of one N. Bajetti. The dances were not the original either, but those of one A. Cortesi. It is possible, but unknown if, the ballet was first staged in the provincial theatres.

In 1844, American ballerina Mary Ann Lee arrived in Paris to study with Coralli for a year. She returned to the United States in 1841 with the directions for Giselle and other ballets. Lee was the first to present Giselle in the United States. She did this on 1 January 1846 in Boston at the Howard Athenæum. George Washington Smith played Albrecht. Lee danced Giselle (again with Smith) on 13 April 1846 at the Park Theatre in New York City.

Modern productions

Nijinsky as Albrecht, Paris 1911

Nijinsky was going to dance Albrecht for the first time in St. Petersburg in January 1911. The Czar and his family would be present. Diaghilev wanted Nijinsky to wear the Renaissance-style costume he had worn in Paris the same month. It was easier to dance in than the thick pants of traditional Russian Albrechts, but his genitals (though covered) could be detected. He was ordered not to wear it. Nijinsky said that he only wanted to dance well. According to Stravinsky, Nijinsky wore not much more than the tightest tights and a padded athletic supporter (jockstrap). The next day, the angry director of the Imperial Theatres ordered Nijinsky to apologize. Complaints about the dancer were collected here and there. Nijinsky knew Diaghilev would give him work, so he resigned. On 24 January 1911 he was officially dismissed from the Imperial Theatres.

References

• Balanchine, George (1979), 101 Stories of the Great Ballets, New York: Anchor Books, ISBN 0-385-03398-2
• Beaumont, Cyril W (1996), The Ballet Called Giselle, London: Dance Books, ISBN 1-85273-004-8
• Cordova, Sarah Davies (2007), "Romantic ballet in France: 1830–1850", in Kant, Marion, The Cambridge Companion to Ballet, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-53986-9
• Guest, Ivor (2008), The Romantic Ballet in Paris, Alton, Hampshire: Dance Books, ISBN 978-185273-1199
• Kirstein, Lincoln (1984), Four Centuries of Ballet: Fifty Masterworks, New York: Dover, ISBN 0-486-24631-0
• Ostwald, Peter F. (1991), Vaslav Nijinsky: A Leap into Madness, New York: Carol Publishing Group, ISBN 0-8184-0535-X
• Robert, Grace (1949), The Borzoi Book of Ballets, New York: Knopf, OCLC 16747462
• Smith, Marian (2000), Ballet and Opera in the Age of "Giselle", Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-9-691-14649-2

Other websites

• Media related to Giselle at Wikimedia Commons
• "Fantômes" Hugo's original poem in French
• The Earliest Russian Giselles - discusses the first interpretors of the role of Giselle in imperial Russia
• Some dance history of Giselle by Suzanne McCarthy for the Royal Ballet