Cape Ballet Africa’s Giselle is an entrancing story of love and betrayal

There’s something remarkable about sitting in a theatre and experiencing a story that captivated audiences more than 100 years ago. Standing on the stage is Giselle, an innocent peasant girl whose heart is captured by Albrecht, a young nobleman disguised as a fellow villager.

Their tale of love and betrayal has stood the test of time for good reason.

Maina Gielgud’s Giselle opened to a standing ovation on 13 November at the Baxter Theatre. Performed to a recording of the score by the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, Cape Ballet Africa brings to local audiences this classical Romantic ballet about undying devotion.

Traditionally, Giselle’s first act takes place during the autumnal grape harvest season, but there’s a springtime vibrancy in the air when Cape Ballet Africa’s Giselle begins. As the ensemble gathers around the stage to accompany Giselle’s introduction, their costumes – designed by Michael Mitchell – in shades of bright greens and deep pinks, are reminiscent of tulip buds, twirling into full blooms upon each turn the dancers make.

The mood is bright and filled with a sense of anticipation, one that often comes with a shift of season, and for Giselle, that change comes in the form of a romance to sweep her off her feet.

Giselle and Albrecht’s courtship is characterised by an unexpected, playful humour as Mia Coomber (in the role of Giselle) and Gabriel Ravenscroft (as Albrecht) bring a believable chemistry to their characters’ flirtations. Their romance storyline is complemented by the Peasant Pas de Deux danced with an enchanting energy by Paige McElligott and Joshua Williams, who take on the principal roles in the production’s later performances.

Yet, beneath the cheery tone of Act 1, a darkness looms on the peripheries.

Giselle’s set, also designed by Mitchell, carries both the liveliness of the season as well as a foreboding. The wooden cottage structures, alive with greenery and streaked with sunlight, are central to the scenery of the first act. But the black, wiry trees lurking from the stage wings carry a threatening presence, foreshadowing the transition from idyllic pastoral life to the second act’s ghostly realm.

The curtain rises to reveal the setting of Act 2: a mysterious, gloomy graveyard. Flashes of fluorescent figures can be spotted among the forest landscape as the dancers, now in flowing white tulle tutus, take turns dashing behind the backdrop.

On opening night, soft gasps of astonishment crept across the theatre when the audience was introduced to Myrtha (Leanè Theunissen), Queen of the Wilis.

Myrtha drifts onto the stage through weightless, fluttering steps, or bourrée en couru. And, under the exquisite lighting designed by Wilhelm Disbergen, her dress glows with a moonlit iridescence. Theunissen’s delicate control of her movements, together with the soft, luminescent lighting, conjures a spectral illusion so convincing that it seems a real ghost has floated to the stage.

Myrtha is accompanied by the Wilis, the spirits of young women who were betrayed by their lovers. Their entrance, emulating veiled brides gliding down an aisle, is just one example of how the ballet’s choreography resists alienating its audience by grounding itself in recognisable imagery and motifs.

In the same spirit, Giselle and Albrecht’s tragic trajectory in Act 2 shows a command of storytelling through physicality. Ravenscroft bears both mournfulness and mania in his movements, embodying an entranced state as his character, under the Wilis’s spell, is forced to dance without end.

Some might be of the impression that classical ballet is an intimidating form of storytelling to grasp, but Gielgud’s Giselle proves otherwise. This fairytale-like tragedy is an ideal show for both an audience who is new to watching classical ballet as well as for the experienced ballet-goer.

Cape Ballet Africa’s production is steered by such evocative and atmospheric intensity that even if a person were to lose track of the narrative’s finer details, its impact need only be felt through its emotional resonance. DM

Maina Gielgud’s Giselle is playing at the Baxter Theatre until 22 November. It will also be performed at the Maynardville Open Air Festival in Cape Town on 20 and 21 January 2026 and in Johannesburg at The Teatro Montecasino from 13 to 15 March 2026.