Giselle v Superman

I’ve turned up at my local cinemas for quite a few of the live ballet relays that now represent a major arm of outreach to the masses by the Royal Ballet and other world companies. Wending my way through the blockbuster queues at Odeons and Empires, I’ve alarmingly often found myself among only 15 or 20 people speckling the black auditoria drinking in a rare chance to see great ballet.

Tomorrow it’s the Royal Ballet’s Giselle that will beam out live to the nation with a transcendent cast in a hauntingly pretty production of the masterpiece of romantic ballet with a fantastic cast. The story is much more sophisticated and real than the average classical ballet (and shorter too). You have a young aristo disguising himself as a yokel for an amorous adventure aimed at seducing an innocent peasant girl. But he is found out. The victim breaks down, kills herself.