Set designing project of the Ballet Giselle. Compañia Nacional de Danza. Absolute premiere at the Teatro de la Zarzuela. December 2020. Ballet in two acts a Giselle seen through the Spanish and inspired romanticism in the poetry of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer.

In 1841, the Paris Opera premiered the ballet Giselle, in which the poet Théophile Gautier, inspired by German legends by Heinrich Heine, create romantic myths that will mark the entire history of dance: innocent peasant women in love, vintage parties, handsome princes seductive, spectral ghosts of spirits of the forest … The year before, Gautier had visited Spain and with his book Le voyage en Espagne inaugurates the romantic fashion of travelers Europeans discovering the country, its types folk and their traditional dances.

In 1863, the Spanish poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer retires to the Monastery of Veruela, in the Sierra del Moncayo, and there, surrounded by forests and nature, he writes his rhymes of unfortunate loves and sad legends Destinations. For this new version that he presents the National Dance Company we wanted to imagine a Giselle seen through the Spanish romanticism: inspired by the poetry of Bécquer, we will dance the story of that girl in love with the handsome traveler stranger she will love beyond death.

Without abandoning the elements they have made of this work one of the peaks of ballet classic, in our Giselle will appear also the bowling school and traditions Spanish, and in the night forest where inhabit the wilis, those spirits of girls dead before they were married, the voices of The wind will whisper verses from Becquer. At the end of Giselle, the force of love and force of dance defeat death and darkness. That is the hope that guides us in this show.