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Oct 29, 2023 · French ballet master and choreographer Marius Petipa decided to restage the original 1832 Taglioni production of La Sylphide at the Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1892. The ballet (and the opera) played a significant role in Russian society in the late nineteenth century.
Jul 6, 2024 · The French Romantics seized this counter-Enlightenment impulse and made it their own. La Sylphide struck a chord in the hearts of many, precisely during a time when it was most needed. The public went crazy over La Sylphide .
La Sylphide was the first ballet where dancing en pointe had an aesthetic rationale and was not merely an acrobatic stunt, often involving ungraceful arm movements and exertions, as had been the approach of dancers in the late 1820s.
- Really want to be sylph-like…? A sylph, like the one our hero James is bewitched by, is a mythological spirit of the air. As far as we know, the term first appears in the 16 Century works of a Swiss physician, alchemist and astrologer called Paracelsus.
- In a land, far, far away. The story is set in Scotland. Why? Because back in the 1800s, Scotland was thought of as an exotic, faraway land. And it must be said, the ethereal mists of the Highlands certainly spark the imagination – and perfectly suit this ballet’s supernatural themes.
- The beauty of youth. Bournonville himself originally wanted to do a revival of Taglioni’s 1832 version of the ballet. The only reason Bournonville came up with his own take on La Sylphide was because the Paris Opera demanded too much money for the score by Jean-Madelina Schneitzhoeffer.
- Fantastic tales and where to find them. The story of La Sylphide is loosely based on the obsessive stories of the French writer Charles Nodier. He introduced a younger generation of Romanticists to gothic literature, vampire tales and conte fantastique (meaning ‘fantastic tales’, a bit like science fiction).
Bournonville’s La Sylphide premiered in Copenhagen in 1836 with his protégé Lucile Grahn in the title role and Bournonville himself as James. While Filippo Taglioni’s version fell out of the spotlight a few years after it premeired, Bournonville’s La Sylphide has been a part of the Royal Danish Ballet’s repertory ever since.
La Sylphide is one of the world’s oldest surviving romantic ballets – but what exactly does the term “romantic ballet” mean? When was this period and how did it affect the ballet world?
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May 26, 2018 · Bournonville's La Sylphide is one of the world's oldest surviving ballets. It is the story of James, a young Scotsman, who is set to marry Effie, but on the eve of their wedding he dreams of a beautiful sylph whom he, upon awakening, briefly sees before she mysteriously disappears.
