Ho Chi Minh City's elegant colonial-era opera house has a reason to draw the curtains and dim the lights this autumn. The HCM City Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera (HBSO) is staging Giselle, one of the cornerstones of Romantic ballet, on October 24 and 25, with performances starting at 8pm.
The ballet, set to music by French composer Adolphe Adam, first premiered in 1841 at the Salle Le Peletier in Paris, danced by the Paris Opéra Ballet. Nearly two centuries later, its story still lands: a village girl falls for a disguised aristocrat, discovers his engagement to another woman, dies of heartbreak, and returns as a spirit among the Wilis — ghosts of brides-to-be who dance men to death. In the second act, the Queen of the Wilis condemns Albrecht to dance until he drops, but Giselle's love and forgiveness spare him.
This production was restaged for HBSO by two international regulars with the company. French dancer Chloé Glemot, who has performed with the American Ballet Theatre in New York, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montreal and the English National Ballet in London, moved to Vietnam in 2013 to continue her career. She works alongside Japanese dancer Yuki Omori, a former All-Japan Dance Competition winner and soloist with Tokyo's New National Theatre Ballet. The pair have previously collaborated with HBSO on Cinderella and The Nutcracker.
The title role goes to HBSO soloist Đỗ Hoàng Khang Ninh, a graduate of the HCM City Dance School who has refined her technique in Norway and Germany and has appeared in the company's versions of Cinderella, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. Lê Đức Anh dances Albrecht and La Mẫn Nhi takes the role of Myrtha, supported by the HBSO Ballet and students from the HCM City Dance School.
For visitors, this is a nice excuse to build an evening around one of the city's most beautiful buildings. The Saigon Opera House sits at 7 Lam Sơn Square in Sài Gòn Ward, within walking distance of District 1's hotels, cafés and rooftop bars, so it's easy to pair the ballet with dinner beforehand or a drink after. Tickets are sold at the venue and online at www.tickebox.vn.
Seeing Giselle matters here because productions of this calibre are still rare in Southeast Asia. You're getting a full-scale Romantic ballet, staged by dancers trained in New York, Montreal and Tokyo, performed in a 19th-century French colonial theatre — for a fraction of what a similar night would cost in Paris or London. If your trip falls in late October, it's a genuinely memorable way to spend an evening in HCM City, and a good introduction to Vietnam's quietly thriving classical arts scene.
