Giselle

Critical Edition

Under the supervision of Elena Randi, Silvia Zanta is working on a multi-witness critical edition of Giselle, the famous Romantic ballet first staged at the Paris Opéra in 1841 with choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot, music by Adolphe Adam, and a libretto by Théophile Gautier and Vernoy de Saint-Georges.

The aim is to restore “on paper,” according to rigorous philological criteria, the choreographic and musical score of the ballet in the version of its first performance—or, at the very least, in the version most closely resembling the original staging, based on the surviving sources. Furthermore, considering the extraordinary success Giselle has enjoyed for nearly two centuries, the project also seeks to describe, within the limits of available evidence, the variants—or at least the major variants—introduced into the choreographic score during subsequent revivals.

The crucial sources for this project include:

• the complete handwritten choreographic score by Henri Justamant, preserved at the Deutsches Tanzarchiv, Cologne (shelfmark DTK-TIS 52915);
• the complete handwritten choreographic score in Stepanov notation, preserved in the Sergeev Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MS Thr 245, Box 1, (2));
• the partial handwritten choreographic score in Stepanov notation, preserved in the Sergeev Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MS Thr 245, Box 1, (4));
• the partial handwritten choreographic score by Arthur Saint-Léon, preserved at the Bibliothèque-musée de l’Opéra, Paris (shelfmark RES-234);
• the handwritten répétiteur of the musical score, preserved at the Theatre and Music Museum of Saint Petersburg (shelfmark 7114/8);
• the printed piano reduction, preserved in the Sergeev Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MS Thr 245, Box 1, (5)).

This project constitutes the subject of Silvia Zanta’s doctoral research within the PhD program in History, Criticism, and Conservation of Cultural Heritage at the University of Padua.

Stage Reconstruction

On December 16, 2024, at the Teatro del DamsLab in Bologna (University of Bologna), Silvia Zanta presented a lecture-performance on Giselle. In the course of the lecture, she outlined the history of the ballet’s transmission and illustrated the philological reconstruction choices, focusing on the crucial interpretive shift introduced by the 1924 production.

The excerpts presented—taken from the version performed by Olga Spessivtseva and reconstructed according to rigorous philological criteria based on Sergeev’s handwritten choreographic score—were compared with the original 1841 version of Giselle. The Justamant manuscript, in light of recent research, can now be considered an almost exact transcription of this original version.

The presentation was accompanied by performances from Stefania Ballone and Francesco Mascia, two distinguished dancers of the Teatro alla Scala company.