Becoming Max

I've never seen a Giselle like this before? No, it's not a new character, not a new story, nothing that would catapult the peasant's daughter, who has just become a Wili, from the enchanted forest into the here and now. Giselle is Giselle, died of too much lovesickness for her weak heart, and now stands white and innocent like all Wilis in this ballet world, in the forest, suffering for Albrecht, the scoundrel. The difference: She does it silently. Which in itself wouldn't be anything special. As is well known, Giselle doesn't speak in the romantic ballet by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot from 1841, and therefore neither in the version by Patrice Bart which the choreographer staged in 2015 with Christian Spuck's Ballett Zürich, and which has now been revived under the direction of Cathy ...