Tragedy meets love, betrayal, deception and the spectral in Giselle: a romantic ballet about a young peasant girl, the eponymous Giselle, who falls in love with a nobleman, Albrecht.
Betrothed to a fellow aristocrat, Albrecht disguises himself as a villager to pursue Giselle; his duplicitous efforts prove fortuitous, and a relationship ensues.
Enter the green-eyed monster so oft associated with amour: Hilarion, a local gamekeeper also vying for Giselle’s affection, reveals Albrecht’s true identity. Albrecht’s deceit is of such a visceral nature that Giselle descends into insanity, dies, and — beyond the grave — becomes tormented by the sisterhood of the Wilis (and yes, they will give you the willies!): a clan of ghostly women scorned by men, dying of heartbreak, and exacting revenge on any — and all — men they encounter from the hereafter by forcing them to dance to their death.
First performed by the Paris Opera Ballet in 1841, its nearly 200-year-old run is pirouetting to Egoli from February 12-15 à la Joburg Ballet, celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2026.
From happy to devastated to going completely mad ... it drains out all of that nervous energy by the end of the act.
Giselle is a particularly auspicious ballet to open Joburg Ballet’s season with as it was the first ballet performed by the company — then known as the South African Ballet Theatre — in 2001.
As auspicious an anniversary as it is for Joburg Ballet, it’s an equally auspicious event for one of the company’s principal ballerina, the Jozi-born Tammy Higgins, who will be making her debut as Giselle; a role shared with Ryoko Yagyu and Monike Cristina.
“A dream come true,” replies Higgins, who’s been dancing since the age of five, in response to the question about the first words that came to mind when she received the news that she’ll be portraying this iconic figure.
An emotionally and technically challenging ballet, Higgins elaborates on the dichotomous nature of depicting a character both in life and in death: “Going from this young girl, who’s innocent and in love, and dies from heartache, and then coming into the second act where you’re actually not a real human being ... you’re a ghost, a Wili, is very different.”
The first act of the ballet concludes with Giselle spiralling into insanity following the revelation of Albrecht’s duplicity, which stands in stark contrast to her carefree demeanour, resulting in a maelstrom of emotions for the dancer: “From happy to devastation to going completely mad ... it drains out all of that nervous energy by the end of the act,” says Higgins. “And by the time you go to Act II”, (with a mere 15-minute break between acts!), “all that emotion has to come out ... that it takes you into a literally different world.”
Higgins might be portraying a phantom figure, yet remains a very much corporeal human — and dancer — which makes for a demanding second act considering the contrasting nature of performing Giselle as a living being, and Giselle as a pseudo-spectre: “You have to be completely smooth; you cannot be jerky and vivacious,” she says of the Adagio in Act II: a eerily slow pas de deux, where the ghost of Giselle — surrounded by the sinister Wilis — forgives Albrecht; her love for him, ultimately, repelling the Wilis’ magic, and saving him from his death.
Yet Hilarion’s fate is one of misfortune: “What’s so tragic about Giselle is that Hilarion has known her since childhood, they grew up together, and she doesn’t save him from the Wilis. He dies and, even though his love for her was true, it was unrequited love ... it’s very tragic that she still saves Albrecht who has broken her heart, and she’s ultimately dead because of him.“
Various interpretations surrounding the authenticity of Albrecht’s love for Giselle have been doing the rounds in ballet circles: some believe that he wasn’t truly in love with her, “that they were just playing around, it was a game for him,” Higgins explains.
As for Higgins’ interpretation?
“I’m a hopeless romantic,” she bashfully grins, “I want to believe that it started out as him playing around with her but then once he lost her ... you know they say, ‘you don’t know what you have until you’ve lost it’,” she draws on the maxim to illustrate Albrecht’s genuine love for Giselle: “He actually did fall in love with her ... her innocence," she muses.
“He also maybe felt trapped that he was in an arranged marriage, then he found something that he knew would never come of anything. But I don’t think he will ever lead a happy life after that because he’s lost this great love.”
Higgins describes performing the role Joburg Theatre started with — on her home soil with fellow South African Revil Yon portraying he-who-lost-this-great-love — as “something really special. I think it’s beautiful”.
Chassés, grand jetés and arabesques aside, Higgins is a crochet enthusiast. Did she divide her lunch breaks into eating and practicing this craft as means to stay inside sanity while rehearsing Giselle?
“No! Coffee!” she laughs.
Brava, java! — for giving this Saffa ballerina the spirit to portray an iconically spirited character both in this life and the next.
Encore!
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