Letter to The Editor - It presents and celebrates as sacred the experience of true, romantic love

To The Age          Jewel Topsfield's otherwise comprehensive discussion of Giselle ("Truly, madly", 18/8) omits two important matters. First of these is Adolphe Adam's inspired music which unmistakably endorses the love relationship between Albrecht and Giselle. Second is the fact that Albrecht, as well as Giselle, is seen as a victim of a world insensitive to the need to honour true love. He is a hero, not a cad. Maina Gielgud is right to emphasise the holy nature of this ballet. It is not merely that it has "connotations of forgiveness and redemption" but that it presents and celebrates as sacred the experience of true, romantic love. Such love is not self-indulgence but a step towards heaven and a heightening of human nature.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic