Ballet Mistresses: María Elena Llorente / Consuelo Dominguez
Assistant Technical Director: Salvador Fernández
Stage Manager: Ernesto Peón Simón
Lighting Designer: Ruddy Artiles
Stagehand: Eduardo Peón Simón
34 CENTERBILL • APRIL/MAY 2018
Cargo: Yankier Paz
Wardrobe: Roger Casteleiro
Martha Gil
Dolores Cruz
Sound: Edel Marín
Props: Eduardo Romero
Pianist: Keren Rodríguez Gallo
Press: José Ramón Neyra
Manager: Martha Espinosa
Executive Vice Director: Redento Morejón
National Museum of the Dance Director and Cuba en el Ballet magazine Director: Pedro Simón
Secretary: Virginia Casañas
Physician: Dr. Ángel Gaspar Obregón
About Ballet Nacional de Cuba’s Giselle
In Ballet Nacional de Cuba’s repertoire, Giselle has a signi cant importance. A landmark
role for BNC’s founder and artistic director Alicia Alonso, Giselle represents the moment
that cubanismo galvanized an historically European art form and exalted the ballet to new
heights. Of the ballerinas noted for their performance of Giselle, Alonso achieved a rare
artistic accomplishment when she rede ned the possibilities of the performance in her
interpretation of the dance. Her Giselle has been recorded in the annals of dance history.
Synopsis
Act I
It is grape-harvesting time in Central Europe. Giselle, young peasant girl, is in love with
and courted by Loys, whom she assumes is a villager. However, Loys is, in fact, Albretch,
Duke of Silesia. He is disguised as a peasant to win her love. Hilarion, the gamekeeper,
is also in love with Giselle, but she rejects him, and confesses that her love belongs to
Loys. Hilarion quarrels with Loys, and he leaves suspicious and vowing for vengeance.
Giselle dances in spite of her delicate health but is caught by her mother, who expresses
her fears that if her daughter dies in the prime of her life, she could be turned into a Wili.
Wilis are nightly creatures of the woods, tormented souls of maidens who have died before
their weddings. During a hunting party organized by the court, the retinue of the Prince of
Courtland, with his daughter Bathilde, Albretch’s ancée, arrives casually in the palace.