Giselle ou Les Wilis” – now known as “Giselle” – was first performed at the Paris Opéra on 28 June 1841 to a rapturous reception, and it remains today a popular fixture in the international ballet repertory. Yet the idiosyncratic way its score has been handed down to us in the twenty-first century has caused many of its striking and meaningful elements to be obscured.

Some versions of “Giselle” were, for practical reasons, orchestrated from piano reductions. Others drew more closely from the ...