Adam: Giselle

Day 266

Adam: Giselle

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden

Mark Ermler

Giselle is one of the great pillars of the ballet repertoire. Like many of these 19th century ballets the music has been constantly adapted for new versions of the staging, often with additional music contributed by other composers. So there are several version of Giselle on record. This one claims to be complete and based on Adam’s original score although I have read that there are some other recordings which are even more authentic.

Whatever the truth this is a lovely score. I was surprised that some of it was familiar - I’ve never seen the ballet and am not aware of a suite like those for other large ballets, but over the years some of this music must have been used as background or in isolated extracts. The music is constantly inventive, by turns melodic, humorous, rhythmic and dramatic. It is more of a ‘numbers’ score than the more symphonic Sylvia I listened to a couple of days ago but on its own terms it is delightful and highly accomplished.  It gave me great pleasure to listen to the whole score.