Some Enchanted Evening

DANCE REVIEW: La Sylphide

by Janet Anderson

	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Jun 9, 2009

[ dance review ]

Alexander Iziliaev Francis Veyette (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

First presented in 1832 Paris by dancer-choreographer Phillippe Taglioni, La Sylphide is the oldest ballet still being performed. Taglioni's daughter Marie, famous for popularizing en pointe dancing, performed the lead.

Pennsylvania Ballet's handsome production of this old bonbon is a real treat. The elegant old Academy of Music is the perfect setting, and the bagpiper piping people into the theater makes a nice flourish.

As the story goes, James (Zachary Hench), a young Scottish lad, is betrothed to village maiden, Effie (Abigail Mentzer). While napping by his fireplace, an open window allows a lovely wood sylph (Julie Diana) to drift inside, alighting at his feet — a vision of white tulle with tiny wings and flowers in her hair. James awakens startled by this ethereal creature dancing around on her toes. The sylph is the fragile, fluttering embodiment of 19th-century imagination. When James reaches out to her, she disappears up the chimney.

The villagers celebrate James and Effie's betrothal with bouncy Scottish reels and jigs. Francis Veyette gives a great character performance as the witch who shows up and spoils the party. The witch explains to Effie that she'll actually marry Gurn (Ian Hussey), while letting James know the beautiful sylph can never be his. Undeterred, James flees to the woods seeking the sylph. Meanwhile, the witch calls together cohorts. They create a magic scarf that will kill the sylph if she wears it. This is presented to James as a way to win the sylph's love.

Hench powerfully portrays his ardor, performing difficult leaps and battements en avant. Diana floats around the stage with tiny jumps and undulating arms, looking like the famous prints of Taglioni dancing the role.

Of course it ends badly. The sylph accepts the scarf and dies beautifully. If only Taglioni could have known how his work would linger on for almost two centuries of sylphs, swans, Giselles and other magical beings dying gracefully onstage while white-clad corps members dance and some poor deluded prince weeps his heart out.

Peter Martin's abstract ballet set to the Barber Violin Concerto opens the program, making a superbly danced and stark contrast to the 19th-century work. Still I'd bet on Taglioni's old warhorse to win the longevity race.

La Sylphide | Through June 13, $24-$129, Pennsylvania Ballet at Academy of Music, 240 S. Broad St., 215-893-1999, kimmelcenter.org

The Truth Fairy
Joseph O'Neill
Kaleidoscope
Caricature Assassination
Head over Heels
The Lepage Project
Free Association
Art + Soul Food
Slightly Irregular
Urban Convergence
Merge: Recent Works