Giselle

What is more moving and tragic than an unfulfilled love which leads to the death of a beautiful young girl? And what is more romantic than that at the hour of midnight the same young girl re-appears, an insubstantial and eerily seductive spirit, to lure her faithless lover with enticing smiles to join her in a frenzied dance of death? Théophile Gautier's story of the young peasant girl Giselle became the epitome of the art of romantic ballet.

But it also tells of the bitter reality of a young woman being destroyed by the pangs of love. Youri Vàmos highlights this field of tension by giving the Giselle story a new historic reality of context in southern France just at the outbreak of the First World War.

The innkeeper's daughter Giselle meets the First Lieutenant Albrecht incognito as a young civilian and falls in love with him. When his true identity is discovered, the officer disavows Giselle and she breaks down.

In a lazaret on the Front the wounded Albrecht meets his Giselle again. In feverish visions Albrecht once more experiences his deep feelings for his former beloved; but he recognizes his blame and is left with the hopelessness of his ill-starred love.

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Ballet master Youri Vàmos [...] finds his Giselle between the strangely joyous outbreak of war in 1914 and its crushing consequences, between fairy-tale peasant doings and bloody death in the lazaret beds of a desolate villa. The idea pays off: it allows the piece its somewhat dreamy distance and yet does not deny the fearful reality of our world.

Albrecht and Giselle approach each other in a duet of ravishing restraint. The ballet ensemble is in top form, above all Valerio Mangianti as a vigorous and elegant Albrecht.

Choreographer Youri Vàmos transforms the musical impulses skilfully. The young company creates excellent drama. Justly ecstatic applause.

Valerio Mangianti and Kaori Morito as Albrecht and Giselle are not only remarkable dancer personages, as always with Vàmos, but they competently adapt in to the typical Giselle style and the haute école of dance. [...] The near Turin born dancer presents himself athletic, full of tension and masculine in the jump combinations, sensitive and smooth in the love dream sequences. Tenderness and power unites the 26 year old Japanese Kaori Morito in unmistakable manner, who with her gentle movements and balances abducts into the world of weightlessness.

Up-to-date ballet could hardly be more grippingly beautiful or more visually demanding. What an ideal synthesis of dance, music, lighting and stagecraft! Youri Vámos kept us waiting long for this Giselle, but has now landed a major coup which is acclaimed and eulogized in unison.

Vàmos imparts a strong, clearly defined profile to the figures, while in the second part he does not forget the old choreography of Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot.

The ensembles had stature and format. The company thereby once more proved that it must be reckoned as not only among the biggest, but also among the best in Germany.