What is the best Blu-ray of the ballet Giselle? In Feb. 2020 we have 7 Blu-ray versions of the traditional Giselle ballet. (There is also a recent modern re-envisioning of the Giselle story by Akram Khan that fans of modern dance admire.)
Although there are several choices, there is only one supreme disc for the traditional Giselle: the grade A+ 2012 Paris Opera Ballet Giselle with Laëtitia Pujol (Giselle), Nicolas Le Riche (Albrecht), Marie-Agnès Gillot (Myrtha), and Wilfried Romoli (Hilarion). This was first published by TDK, but later Arthaus bought the rights to this and became the publisher. (The TDK disc is identical, but would be now quite old.) This was truly a 5-star cast with the incomparable Paris Opera Ballet female corps as the 5th star. The performance is exquisite, but the recording was made in 2006 and is starting to looked ever so slightly dated with an old set for the village act.
A more up-to-date version would be the grade-A 2017 Royal Opera House version with Marianela Nuñez as Giselle and Vadim Muntagirov as Albrecht. (Don’t get this confused with earlier and inferior Giselle discs from the Royal Opera Ballet. )
The grade-B+ Dutch National Ballet Giselle with Anna Tsygankova and Jozef Varga is our honourable mention, especially if you are on a tight budget as this comes to us from the Kultur label. (This may be the only time I’ve recommended a Kultur product on this website.)
If you have friends who are gluttons for ballet, try a double feature with one of the traditional versions above as the lead show followed by the Akram Khan take. This will give you plenty to talk about.