DVD Videos

Choreography PATRICE BART after JEAN CORALLY and JULES PERROT

Costumes & Sets ANGELO SALA

Patrice Bart’s choreography for the Teatro alla Scala in Milan alludes to the original by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot, who had created it for the Paris Opera ballet company. The costumes and sets by Angelo Sala, reconstructions of those designed by Alexandre Benois at the beginning of the 20th century for Sergei Diaghilev and his “Ballets russes”, succeed in evoking the unique flair of the originals. The orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala under Paul Conelly interpret Adolphe Adam’s colourful score masterfully and in perfect correlation with the magical images presented on stage.

The Italian prima-ballerina Alessandra Ferri is to be acknowledged especially amongst all of the brilliant performers. She is doubtless the star of this traditionally based new production of the well-loved ballet classic Giselle – one of the most famous Romantic ballets of all time.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1

Picture Format: 16:9

DVD Format: DVD 9 NTSC

Running Time: 116 mins

FSK: 0

The Bolshoi Ballet troupe in Yuri Grigorovich’s version of the romantic masterpiece 'Giselle', at last available in HD. First performed in 1841, 'Giselle' was an immediate hit. With music by Adolphe Adam and a libretto by Théophile Gautier and Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges, the ballet touches on the great romantic themes: local colour, a pastoral love affair doomed to end in tragedy, a plunge into fantasy and redemption through the power of love. Learning that Albrecht, her beloved, is in fact a nobleman engaged to be married to a princess, the naive peasant girl Giselle dies. The Queen of the Wilis – the spirits of deceased young virgins– decides that Albrecht should follow Giselle to the grave, and condemns him to dance until he dies of exhaustion. But Giselle’s spirit dances with him and saves him. Composer Adolphe Adam owes his reputation to this archetypal, richly melodic Romantic ballet. As Giselle, Svetlana Lunkina is simply sensational. Her Albrecht is the iconically noble dancer Dmitri Gudanov. And the cast is perfectly rounded off by Maria Allash as the Queen of the Wilis. The Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra is conducted by Pavel Klinichev.

Choreography: Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot, Marius Petipa

Choreographic version Yuri Grigorovich

Designer Simon Virsaladze

Choreography by JEAN CORALLI & JULES PERROT

Choreographic restaging by MARIUS PETIPA

Adapted by PATRICE BART & EUGÈNE POLYAKOV

Arthaus presents Giselle, a classical ballet, which, with all its splendour and grace, is generally regarded as the apotheosis of the Romantic ballet.

The work premiered in the Salle de la rue Le Peletier at the Paris Opéra in 1841 and is considered the first major plot-based ballet to have survived to the modern day with its original choreography almost intact. In the course of the past century and a half Giselle has undergone only a few changes, e.g. by Marius Petipa, who revised the work for his 1887 production at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg.

The performance recorded on this DVD is based on the St Petersburg version and was choreographed by Patrice Bart and Eugène Polyakov, two out-and-out Petipa specialists. The scenery is the work of Alexandre Benois from 1924; originally designed for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, it heralded the re-emergence on Western programmes of the long absent Giselle and to this day it remains the benchmark for traditionalist stagings of this ballet.

The production was marked by an all-stars cast: Laëtitia Pujol dances the title role, combining her flawless technical skill with a fully developed sense of grace. Nicolas Le Riche, one of international ballet’s most respected stars, created her male counterpart, Albrecht, whose faithlessness drives her insane. Le Riche is famous all over the world for his elegant strength, the beauty of his expression and the musicality of his movements.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.0, DTS 5.0

Picture Format: 16:9

DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC

Running Time: 111 mins

FSK: 0

Choreography by JEAN CORALLI & JULES PERROT

Choreographic restaging by YVETTE CHAUVIRÉ

From La Scala comes a staging of an archetypical Romantic ballet on DVD. A production of Giselle features the original version of the choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot and was danced by outstanding dancers, including two of international ballet’s star dancers - Svetlana Zakharova and Roberto Bolle.

First performed at the Académie Royale de Musique in Paris in 1841 as a two-act “ballet-pantomime”, Giselle is hailed by ballet historians as the apotheosis of the Romantic ballet. The ballet was conceived by the influential French poet, author, critic and possibly the greatest champion of the Romantic ballet, Théophile Gautier, who, together with Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges wrote the scenario that inspired Adolphe Adam’s score.

In this performance, Giselle is danced by Svetlana Zakharova, a Ukrainian dancer, who grew up in the tradition of St Petersburg’s Maryinsky Ballet and is now one of the youngest ballerinas at Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet, where her predecessors include Galina Ulanova, one of the most famous Giselles in the history of ballet. Her partner as Albrecht is Roberto Bolle, La Scala’s current star dancer. The filming for this DVD recreates the atmosphere of a night at the wonderful La Scala opera house, while providing the viewer with a closer look at the dancers, their interpretation and their artistic endeavours.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1

Picture Format: 16:9

DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC

Running Time: 105 mins

FSK: 0

These two valuable studio performances comprise rare archive material featuring internationally renowned dancers released for the first time on DVD.

Les Sylphides, introduced by one of the founders of modern British ballet, Tamara Karsavina, is one of the earliest examples of a complete filmed ballet in the BBC archives.

The production boasts a stellar cast, including Alicia Markova, Prima Ballerina Assoluta and Founder and President of English National Ballet.

Markova, invited by Diaghilev to join his Ballet Russes at just fourteen, was the first British dancer to become the principal dancer of a ballet company. Svetlana Beriosova became a prima ballerina at Sadlers Wells in 1955, and Violetta Elvin, one of the Bolshoi’s most promising talents was often seen as Fonteyn’s closest rival.

Giselle, one of the most popular ballets from the Romantic era, features Nadia Nerina in the title role. Renowned as the best technician at Covent Garden in the 1950s and 1960s, Nerina was famous for her acrobatic lifts.

New York Times critic on Nerina: “She is as pretty as a picture, has great charm and can dance like a million dollars.....we shall all be fighting to drink champagne out of her slippers!"

1DVD

Sound format: Ambient Mastering

Picture format: 4:3

Running time: 92’

Subtitles: F/G

Menu languages: English

Booklet languages: E/F/G

Region code: 0

Territory Restrictions: None

Choreography and TV adaptation by Mats Ek

Stage Designed by Marie-Louise De Geer Bergenstråhle

“Giselle“ is seen as the epitome of romantic ballet and ever since its debut performance in 1841, it features among the standard repertoire of countless ballet companies. The acclaimed Swedish choreographer and dancer, Mats Ek, made dance history in the early eighties with his bizarrely unromantic and radically drastic new interpretation of the ballet classic. He interpreted the content and the style of the second act in a contemporary way for the Swedish Cullberg Ballet - one of the most famous modern dance formations in the world. Mats Ek keeps the music of Adolphe Adam: he uses a 1969 recording of the Monte Carlo Opera Orchestra conducted by Richard Bonynge that we also hear in this studio recording. The premiere cast of characters, Ana Laguna (Giselle), Luc Bouy (Albrecht), Yvan Auzely (Hilarion), Vanessa McIntosh (Bathilde) and Lena Wennergren (Myrtha), turn the accompanying recording into a fi rst class ballet documentation.

“My version of Giselle is an attempt at retelling the story. For me Giselle – and this applies to the old ballet as well – is about love. Love, which in the old version conquers death. That differs in mine. But love remains the main thing.” Mats Ek

Sound Format: PCM Stereo

DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC

Picture Format: 4:3

Running Time: 89 mins

FSK: 0

Perhaps the most celebrated ballet of the Romantic era, Adolphe Adam’s intoxicating ballet Giselle is the dramatic story of a peasant girl whose betrayal by her aristocratic lover causes her to go mad before dying and returning as a ghost. Featuring the fabulous Alina Cojocaru in the title role and Johan Kobborg as a torn Count Albrecht, Peter Wright’s sparkling production and John Macfarlane’s pastoral designs create an opulent feast for the eyes, here captured in High Definition video and true surround sound.

Paul Czinner’s acclaimed 1956 filming of the Bolshoi Ballet’s first-ever tour of Great Britain, which preserves two complete programs: a Bolshoi Highlights Program featuring Raissa Struchkova in the Walpurgisnacht from Gounod’s Faust, and Galina Ulanova in The Dying Swan and a thrilling performance of Giselle with Ulanova and Nikolai Fadeyechev

Also included in the Highlights Program is the celebrated Spring Water ballet, set to music by Rachmaninoff and danced with dazzling virtuosity by the outstanding members of the Bolshoi troupe

The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra are under the direction of Gennadi Rozhdestvensky and Yuri Faier

In Dance Magazine, critic Clive Barnes eulogized the artistry documented here: “Everything the Russian critics have written about her is true. The impeccable technique, the expressive body, the intellect, the informed face; yet Ulanova has something criticism could never define, something you might look for in Shakespeare’s sonnets.”

“The greatest performance by an interpretive artist within my experience” – Clive Barnes, Dance Magazine (1998) [on Ulanova’s Giselle as seen documented here]

In 5.1 DTS Surround Sound

First time on DVD

The amazing Bolshoi interpretation of Theophile Gautier’s piece created in 1841 at the Opéra de

Paris : Giselle. One of the great moments of Dance history that saw the main themes of Romanticism expressed.

A love pastoral care that ends tragically, a fantastic world of unearthly creatures and redemption

thanks to the power of love. Giselle is the dream of a poet who gets deliberately lost in a dream world… A young countryside

girl seduced by a Lord, reaches the height of tragedy before falling into a supernatural epilogue. This ballet is a masterpiece of romantic ballets in which movement traduces the soul’s language. In order to write Giselle, Théophile Gautier required the help of Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges. The choregraphy was insured by Jean Coralli : first ballet director of the Opéra de Paris.

Jules Perrot who was in love with the main interpret contributed to the project more than he was expected to. This reunion of talents made this romantic ballet masterpiece exist. Movement

became the soul’s language. The popular Bolshoi Ballet series continues, bringing ballet lovers some of the finest performances by

the worlds most acknowledged dance company.