Giselle presented by The Joffrey Ballet at Auditorium Theatre

Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended

"...The brilliance of this cast cannot be overstated, playing to the inherent strengths of each dancer. Jaiani's penchant for drama is perfectly tuned for the title role as her bashful naivete transforms into passionate love for Albrecht, then into woeful mania. Hilarion's jealous vengeance and Albrecht's conflicted grief are convincing, and neither puts on too much schmaltz. "Giselle's" variations are treasured and challenging, but it's the dramatic range of these characters that makes them some of the most coveted roles in ballet."

Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended

"...This exquisitely danced production, arriving after several seasons featuring a slew of distinctly modern works, reconfirms the company's enduring connection to its deepest roots. Watching it was akin to seeing Picasso's supremely beautiful realistic drawings after looking at his many boldly fractured modern works."

Stage and Cinema - Highly Recommended

"...Both classic ballet and romantic fantasy, Adolphe Adam's 1841 masterwork is for a rightly renewed reason a worthy offering by Chicago's Joffrey Ballet. Playing the gorgeous Auditorium Theatre through Oct. 29 only, this two-hour treasure, revisioned in 2012 by Lola de Ávila (formerly of the San Francisco Ballet School), leaps and soars. Like its dozens of performers, each seemingly at the peak of their powers, it pours out its passions without benefit of words. Happily, no one is more enthrallingly electrifying as the diaphanous waif Victoria Jaiani, a Joffrey treasure and a Giselle to haunt the future as much as she honors the past."

NewCity Chicago - Somewhat Recommended

"...Nevertheless, for addicts of beauty, the Joffrey’s new “Giselle” may give satisfaction. The curtain rises on a lush wooded countryside where peasants drift in floating chiffon, looking more Fragonard than Brueghel. It’s harvest season, no labor or rotted grape to be seen. When Albrecht (Temur Suluashvili) turns up in silk shirtsleeves, he fits in like watercolor soaks a page. As Giselle, Victoria Jaiani seemed miscast in the first act, more a swan flown off course than a country girl—her hands too long and weightless to find her hips, her thrown kisses lost to the imperial line of her arabesque. Throughout, the expressive principle seemed to be a contract to either mime or dance, but never both at once. As a thoroughly plotless element, the peasant pas, danced by Cara Marie Gary and Hansol Jeong, was thus a refreshingly unassuming interlude."