Reveal the best Giselle's entrance

Learning a new role or a variation is always a big moment in the life of a dancer. I am a lot like you and I remember the first Repertoire variation I had to dance. You finally get the chance to do what you love.

As a teacher or ballet master, you’re getting ready for hours of rehearsal to help your dancer give life to this character. This is always a big responsibility: how to stay true to the art and adapt it to the interpret.

Soon the excitement is replaced by preparation. There are so many versions sometimes that you could spend hours researching the Internet and discussing with ballet masters and if you ask two dancers you will probably get different, if not conflicting, opinions. I remember spending three or four days lost in understanding the many ways the ballet had evolved with time, trying to a video of the version I was supposed to dance.

That is what makes ballet so interesting: it is rich in interpretation. And we know that you already have a busy schedule so we decided to reach out to the ballet world encyclopaedia, Jean-Guillaume Bart, Principal dancer and Ballet Master of Paris Opera Ballet.

Jean-Guillaume Bart is known for restaging gems of the Repertoire such as La Source, The Sleeping Beauty and Le Corsaire and he thought about working on Giselle and did extensive research on this ballet.

Today Jean-Guillaume shares with you his views on how to interpret Giselle’s entrance based on the libretto and the musical score.

There is no Giselle without an Albrecht and he is probably the most controversial male character of the classical Repertoire: vilain or careless?

In our next email we will learn what the music tells us about him from a brilliant intervention by the fantastic Gaëlle Sadaune, pianist at Paris Opera Ballet School.

Before I send it out, I’m interested,