The ballet Giselle, choreographed by Jules Perrot and Jean Coralli, was first performed in Paris in 1841. Its libretto was conceived by the romantic theorist Theophile Gautier, Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean Coralli, based on the book about fairies and ghosts by the great German Romantic Heinrich Heine. The authors, inspired by the then ballet star Carlotta Grisi, created a ballet distinguished by many features of the then-dominant artistic movement of Romanticism. The creation that celebrated dance contained all the elements of a complete work of art: music, movement, acting, painting and above all dance and they were all expressed in perfect harmony. Shortly after it impressed everyone at the premiere, Giselle became a cult creation of the dance scene, which it remains to this day.
Considered by many the "Queen of Romantic Ballet", Giselle is an unusual phenomenon in the classical ballet genre. The ballet deserves such a definition because of many as-pects of its unique multi-layered structure, everything from the ideas of its charismatic authors to the dramaturgy of two completely different acts and the music by Adolphe Adam. Premiered shortly after La Sylphide, this performance marked the beginning of a new path. The contrast between the reality of the real-life story in the first act and the phantasy content in the second white act, characteristic of this performance, served as a model for the conception of all subsequent memorable ballet creations.
Giselle is a story of a young country girl who, deceived after unhappily falling in love, finds herself in a fairy world of former fiancées who died before they could marry and indulge in their dance passion.

José Carlos Martínez, a former principal dancer at the Paris Opera Ballet, long-time artistic director at the Spanish National Ballet Company (Compañía Nacional de Danza) and currently dance director at the Paris Opera, returns as a choreographer to the co-production stage of the Cankarjev dom Gallus Hall in Ljubljana.

Biographies:

Kevin Rhodes, José Carlos Martínez, Iñaki Cobos Guerrero, Andrej Hajdinjak, Dominik Steklasa, Anael Martín, Gregor Traven