About the ballet
- Run time: 2hrs 15min, 1 intermission
- Opera house: Vienna State Opera
Ballet’s ultimate tale of love, loss, and forgiveness, Giselle is a timeless favorite. A heart-wrenching saga of unrequited love and redemptive mercy, the ballet tells the story of the titular village maiden in love with a handsome villager named Albrecht. What Giselle does not know is that her new paramour is a young nobleman in disguise who is already betrothed to another. When the truth is revealed, she dies of a broken heart, but returns from the grave to forgive her lover and save him from death by the forest-dwelling Wilis, the vengeful spirits of jilted brides.
Considered ballet’s ultimate tale of unrequited love, heartbreaking loss, and triumphant forgiveness, Giselle remains a timeless favorite. A heart-wrenching saga of betrayed love and mercy, the ballet’s exquisite grace tells the story of the titular village maiden and a handsome villager named Albrecht. What Giselle does not know is that her new paramour is actually a young nobleman in disguise who is already betrothed to another. A romantic triangle emerges that brings passion, death, and everlasting love.
Ticket information
- Select a date an book
- E-Ticket (Print@home)
Vienna State Opera
Opernring 2, 1010 Vienna View in Google Maps
How to get there:
Subway: U1, U2, U4 to Karlsplatz
Trams: 1, 2, D, 62, 71 to Opernring
French composer Adolphe Adam (1803 –1856) was a popular writer of ballet and opera music, producing over 80 operatic stage works in the course of his career. Today he is best known for his ballets Giselle (1841) and Le corsaire (1856), and the Christmas carol Minuit, chrétiens! (1844), later set to different English lyrics and widely sung as "O Holy Night".
Jean Coralli (1779 – 1854) and Jules Perrot (1810 –1892) choreographed the original version of Giselle. It is, however, Marius Petipa’s revival of Giselle from the 1884 that has become the “traditional” version.
Librettists Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges (1799 –1875) and Théophile Gautier (1811 –1872) took their inspiration for the scenario from Heinrich Heine’s De l'Allemagne, and from Victor Hugo’s poem Fantômes.
