Adam - Giselle

Image Not Available Starring: Carla Fracci, Rudolf Nureyev Dvd Release: 6th February, 2006 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: PAL, Region 0 Encoding

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Giselle, danced to familiar music by the French ballet & opera composer Adolphe Adam, is a Romantic-era ballet first danced in Paris in 1840. It is one of the very few ballets of that tradition that still holds the stage, danced in calf-length tutus. In the second act, the undying love of Giselle for Albrecht, who has come by night to visit her tomb, saves him from having his life-spirit taken from him by the spectral wilis, the vampiric ghosts of betrothed girls who have died before their wedding day & their Queen. The Romantic poet Theophile Gautier is the author of the plot for this ballet. The version we see today is not much like the original, where the most famous dancer of her day, Fanny Essler had an operatic mad scene at the end of the first act. Giselle passed out of the European repertory until it was revived by Sergei Diaghilev in 1910, a startling change of pace for the avant-garde Ballets Russes. The role of Giselle is one of the most sought-after in ballet, since it demands both technical perfection & outstanding grace & lyricism. Posters Of Giselle

Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev, Russian-born dancer, was regarded by most critics as the greatest male dancer of the 20th century, possibly the greatest ever. He was born in a train near Irkutsk, while his mother was travelling across Siberia to Vladivostok, where his father, a Red Army political commissar of Tatar descent, was stationed. He was raised in a village near Ufa in Soviet Bashkiria. As a child he was encouraged to dance in Bashkir folk performances & his precocity was soon noticed. Due to the disruption of Soviet cultural life caused by World War II, Nureyev was unable to enroll in a major ballet school until 1955, when he was sent to the Vaganova Choreographic Institute, attached to the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad. Despite his late start, he was soon recognised as the most gifted dancer the school had seen for many years. Already, however, his extremely difficult temperament was evident. In retrospect it seems obvious that his personal problems were mainly due to internal conflict over his sexuality. Posters Of Don Quixote

Editors Choice: Don Quixote, Valentino, The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Tchaikovsky, Romeo And Juliet, Giselle, View DVDology

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