Giselle story for kids: the ballet retold

Giselle is a ballet about a village girl who loves to dance. She falls in love with a young man who is not who he says he is. The first act is set in a sunny village, and the second is set in a forest at night, among ghosts. The music is by Adolphe Adam. This page tells the story act by act, in words to read aloud.

Quick facts

• Music by: Adolphe Adam, a French composer
• First danced: 1841, in Paris
• Acts: two
• Length: about two hours, with one break
• Kind of story: a love story and a ghost story
• Good to know: it is sad and a little spooky, so many families wait until a child is about eight

A note for parents

Giselle dies at the end of the first act, and the second act is full of ghosts. Nothing is gory. The mood is sad and a little spooky, and the ending is about forgiveness. Tell the story before you go, so that nothing comes as a shock.

Who is who

• Giselle: a village girl with a weak heart, who loves to dance
• Albrecht: a nobleman who pretends to be a villager
• Hilarion: a forester who loves Giselle
• Berthe: Giselle’s mother
• Bathilde: a noblewoman who is engaged to Albrecht
• Myrtha: the queen of the Wilis
• The Wilis: the ghosts of young women who died before their wedding day

Act 1: the village

It is harvest time in a village among the vineyards. Giselle lives in a cottage with her mother.

A young man has moved in across the way. He calls himself Loys, and he wears a villager’s clothes. In truth, he is Albrecht, a nobleman. He has hidden his sword and his fine cloak in a hut. He loves Giselle, and he has not told her who he is.

Giselle picks a daisy and pulls off the petals: he loves me, he loves me not. The count comes out wrong, and she is upset. Albrecht plucks a petal in secret and shows her that it comes out right.

Giselle’s mother worries. Her daughter’s heart is weak, and she dances too much. Berthe tells the village girls about the Wilis, the ghosts of girls who died too young. They rise at night, she says, and dance in the forest.

Hilarion, the forester, loves Giselle too. He does not trust Loys. He breaks into the hut and finds the sword.

A hunting party of nobles stops in the village to rest. One of them is Bathilde. She is charmed by Giselle and gives her a necklace. The two girls tell each other that they are both engaged.

Then Hilarion steps forward with the sword. He blows a hunting horn, and the nobles come back. Bathilde takes Albrecht’s arm. He is the man she is to marry.

Giselle cannot take it in. Her mind slips. She wanders through the crowd and dances a few steps from happier days, as if she were alone. Then her heart fails, and she falls. She dies as the whole village looks on.

Act 2: the forest

It is midnight in the forest, beside Giselle’s grave.

Myrtha, the queen of the Wilis, glides out of the mist. She calls her sisters, and they rise in long white dresses and veils. Any man who meets them in the forest at night is made to dance until he drops.

Tonight they have a new sister. They call Giselle from her grave, and she spins into the dance.

Hilarion comes to the grave. The Wilis surround him. They make him dance until his strength is gone, and they drive him into the lake.

Then Albrecht comes, carrying lilies. He is full of sorrow for what he did. Giselle appears to him, and she forgives him.

Myrtha does not forgive. She orders Albrecht to dance. Giselle begs for his life. She dances with him and for him, to give him time to rest. All night she keeps him going.

At last a bell rings in the distance. Dawn is coming. The Wilis lose their power and fade into the mist.

Giselle has saved him. Her love has also freed her from Myrtha’s band, and she can rest in peace. She sinks back into her grave, and Albrecht is left alone in the morning light.

What to watch for

The daisy. In Act 1, watch Albrecht cheat with the petals.

The mad scene. At the end of Act 1, Giselle repeats small pieces of her earlier dances, with the same music, now slow and broken.

The white act. In Act 2, every dancer wears a long white skirt. Lines of Wilis cross the stage with small hops, one leg held out behind them.

Two dancers in one. The dancer who plays Giselle has to be a happy girl in Act 1 and a weightless spirit in Act 2.

About the music

Adolphe Adam wrote the score fast, in a matter of weeks. He gave certain characters and ideas their own tunes, and he brought those tunes back later in the story. Giselle’s happy dance tune returns in the mad scene, in pieces.

Adam also wrote the Christmas carol “O Holy Night.” Read the stories behind ten carols.

One dance in Act 1, for a pair of villagers, has music by a different composer, Friedrich Burgmüller. Piano students know him for his studies. Read Burgmüller for kids.

Things to do together

He loves me, he loves me not. Pick a daisy, or draw one. Count the petals to see how the game will end before you start.

Float like a Wili. Put on calm music. Cross the room with the smallest, quietest steps you can.

Happy and sad. Hum a cheerful tune. Then hum the same tune slow and soft. That is what the music does in the mad scene.

Draw two acts. Fold a page in half. Draw the sunny village on one side, and the forest at night on the other.

Questions to ask

• Was Albrecht wrong to hide who he was?
• Why did Giselle forgive him?
• Why did Myrtha not forgive?
• Which act would you like to see more?

Print and play

Draw a scene on a listening journal page. Read ballet for kids, ballet stories for kids, and the Swan Lake story, a second ballet with a white act.