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La Sylphide
Palais Garnier - from 01 to 16 July 2017
La Sylphide
Pierre Lacotte
Palais Garnier - from 01 to 16 July 2017
2h05 with 1 interval
About
In few words:
The ways of the subconscious are infinite when reality becomes too oppressive and torment must be mitigated. Seized by doubts on the eve of his wedding to Effie, the young James is visited by a sylph in a dream. La Sylphide is an evanescent creature, the embodiment of the ideal woman and a metaphor for the freedom his marriage might steal from him. First performed in 1832 at the Paris Opera, Philippe Taglioni’s La Sylphide was the first work to draw inspiration from the Sturm und Drang literary movement. The misty forests of Scotland offer an ideal backdrop to the opposition between the real world and an inaccessible universe. Marie Taglioni, dressed in a long diaphanous white tutu performed the title role which was entirely choreographed on points, accentuating the ethereal sylph-like character of her character and outlining the emblematic silhouette of the ballerina. Unanimously praised by audiences and critics alike when first performed, La Sylphide left a lasting impression on a generation of poets and writers, including Théophile Gautier, the future librettist of Giselle, before disappearing from the repertoire at the end of the 19th century. In 1972, the ballet was faithfully recreated by Pierre Lacotte for the Paris Opera Ballet. Since then, its spell‑binding subtlety has never ceased to fascinate, establishing it as the romantic ballet par excellence
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La Sylphide
Ballet in two acts
After Philippe Taglioni
Set designs after Pierre Ciceri
Costume designs after Eugène Lami -
Saturday 01 July 2017 at 19:30
- Saturday 01 July 2017 at 19:30
- Monday 03 July 2017 at 19:30
- Tuesday 04 July 2017 at 19:30
- Wednesday 05 July 2017 at 19:30
- Friday 07 July 2017 at 19:30
- Sunday 09 July 2017 at 19:30
- Monday 10 July 2017 at 19:30
- Wednesday 12 July 2017 at 20:30
- Friday 14 July 2017 at 19:30
- Saturday 15 July 2017 at 19:30
- Sunday 16 July 2017 at 14:30
Latest update 11 July 2017, cast is likely to change.
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Performances
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Gallery
Audio clips
La Sylphide - Pierre Lacotte
— By In partnership with France Musique
Backstage
© Dick Bruinsma
Podcast
Podcast La Sylphide
"Dance! Sing! 7 minutes at the Paris Opera" - by France Musique
07’
"Dance! Sing! 7 minutes at the Paris Opera" offers original incursions into the season thanks to broadcasts produced by France Musique and the Paris Opera. For each opera or ballet production, Judith Chaine (opera) and Stéphane Grant (dance), present the works and artists you are going to discover when you attend performances in our theatres.
03:04’
Video
Under the Skin of Madge the Witch
Meeting with Dancer Alexis Renaud
In 1993, Alexis Renaud, today a Sujet, joined the Opera's Corps de Ballet thanks to a variation of James in La Sylphide. The ballet has been symbolic in his career since, on the verge of his retirement, he is performing the role of the witch Madge. To take revenge on James, who has driven him away, this disquieting and evil character uses her poisoned vein to cause the death of the Sylphide. Octave follows the dancer’s metamorphosis, shortly before his appearance on stage.
© Ann Ray / OnP
Article
La Sylphide, a waking dream
Pride of place to the French school
09’
The first
great romantic ballet, La Sylphide was
absent from the repertoire until Pierre Lacotte dug up, collected and assembled
the pieces of the puzzle, just like an archaeologist. Meticulously, he brought
new life to a masterpiece that continues to enchant us with its mystery and
poetry. In 2013, at the last performance of La
Sylphide at Opera Garnier, the journalist Rosita Boisseau met the
choreographer and invited him to recount the extraordinary story of this
ballet.
How important is La Sylphide in your artistic career?
My
passion for La Sylphide, a ballet
choreographed by Filippo Taglioni in 1832 to music by Schneitzhoeffer, goes
back to my childhood. At the age of 10, I entered the Paris Opera Ballet
School, which in those days was located at the Palais Garnier. I began using
the Opera library – these days I must be its oldest reader – between lessons
and rehearsals. I was fascinated. I devoured everything I could find, from
works on Louis XIV to documents on Marie Taglioni, who performed La Sylphide. And I began to be genuinely
obsessed by this ballet and by this woman who seemed to have fascinated every
one around her. I sought out everything in existence on the libretto, the music
… I was then lucky enough to see a version of it, alas incomplete, put on in
1946 by Victor Gsovsky with Roland Petit and Nina Vyroubova. I continued to
forage trying to reconstitute the missing parts.
Were there any other versions of La Sylphide in existence at the time?
“Taglioni was a phenomenon and even had carriages named after her!”
What made you begin your own research to create your version of the ballet?
After an
ankle injury, I was forced to rest. I was 38 years old. To calm my frustration,
I began researching into old ballets, like La
Fille mal gardée which goes back to 1789, and then, of course, La Sylphide. I began to collect the
critical reviews from the period, which described the sequences of steps and
gave their names. I found annotated scores. I put together all the information
I had unearthed at the Paris Opera and in London, where Taglioni had often
danced. Queen Victoria, who drew admirably, had sketched Taglioni. I also
travelled to countries like Germany, Austria and Russia where I was lucky
enough to read accounts by other dancers of her manner of dancing, of behaving
on stage… I even found a description of a dance class she took! I also read a
lot about the period, about Romanticism, how people lived then, the fashions …
Taglioni was a phenomenon and even had carriages named after her!
Did this patient archaeological work hold any surprises for you?
I made
one incredible discovery. I learnt that Marie Taglioni’s grandson, Auguste
Gilbert de Voisins, had entrusted the Louvre with a lot of memorabilia, her
ballet shoes, her journal … Unfortunately, no one knew where the dossier was.
Thanks to one of the archivists, I gained access to the cellars and finally,
after a long and fruitless search, just as we were beginning to admit defeat, I
spotted a place high up in one of the cellars and, miraculously, we managed to
get our hands on those papers! It was incredible! Little by little, the pieces
of my puzzle, after three years of research, began to fall into place.
What kind of information did you find in Taglioni’s journal?
It is
full of marvellous stories and anecdotes. Comments like, for example, “This
evening I danced well” or, on the contrary, “I missed such and such a thing”.
One day, she confided that she had fallen into the fireplace. Another time,
during a boat trip to England, she tells how that trunks containing all the
costumes fell overboard. She was an incredible person. For the opening night of
one of her pupils, Emma Livry, a very beautiful performer of La Sylphide, she sent her a little note
in which she wrote: “Make me forget, but don’t forget me.”
Did any pieces of your puzzle remain missing?
Yes,
obviously. I had the staging, the sets and the blocking of the Ballet Corps as
well as bits of variations … I had to reconstitute the whole like an antique
fresco of which some fragments are missing. I choreographed whole sequences in
the spirit of the period, with a lot of sincerity and without flamboyancy. I
trusted in my work and in my intuition. One example: at the beginning of Act
II, I had no idea how the Sylph would have made her entrance. And then, there
was this rock on the stage so I imagined that she could have appeared sliding
over the rock. Some time later, I had the opportunity to go and work at the
Mariinski Theatre in Saint Petersburg. I had access to certain documents and
was lucky enough to find a drawing of the production showing just that: the
Sylph sliding over the famous rock.
How and when did your puzzle become a production?
Curiously,
I had first of all made a film of La
Sylphide for television. I had this enormous dossier and obviously I wanted
to do something with it. I contacted the director of the channel and suggested
doing a documentary on La Sylphide. I
left the dossier with him. I didn’t hear from him for months. I had reached the
stage when I almost felt like giving up dance. This was in 1970. I had just
married Ghislaine Thesmar. I’d found work in a factory making plastic objects
in the south of France. It was there that I received a telegram one day
requesting a meeting to discuss my project. I returned to Paris and after a
long discussion – he wanted Russian dancers, I wanted Ghislaine Thesmar and
Michaël Denard in the leading roles – we came to an agreement. We were off! After
the film had been broadcast, the director of the Opera, Bernard Lefort, asked
me to stage it with the dancers of the Paris Opera. Ghislaine Thesmar was to
dance only two performances: she was then appointed Étoile on the strength of
her interpretation of La Sylphide.
“The ballerina must control everything, must float like a feather.”
What are the stylistic features of La Sylphide?
The
performance of the female role requires the dancer to soften the sauts, to land on the stage with her
legs folded to such an extent that you can’t hear her heels. She must control
everything and float like a feather. Her movements must never stop abruptly but
continue so that the audience holds its breath and only in a sense recovers
when the movement is completed. The bust is thrust further forward than usual;
the ports de bras must, to quote
Théophile Gautier’s description of them, exceed in worth “long poems”. This
dreamy seductress is a very delicate character to portray. For that of James,
it’s a question of dancing an ecstatic being, who thinks only of one person and
is oblivious to the rest of the world. He is happy and in love. These two roles
are among those that the performer must really strive towards in order to dance
them with profound intensity.
What did Ghislaine Thesmar, who also performed the role, bring to it?
The
little steps with the lower leg are very technical and must also be spiritual.
Ghislaine brought that spiritual something to the hands and feet. She also
infused the role with a certain mysticism. Her Sylph had something almost
religious about it. She identified with the character by exploiting its poetry
and grace to the full. At the end, the Sylph does not die, she fades away.
Surprisingly, the comments of both audiences and critics on Ghislaine’s work
were close to those ellicited by Taglioni like, for example, “waking dream” or
“she doesn’t touch the ground”…
Since its premier in 1971, you have staged this ballet in a great many countries and with dancers from every horizon. What difficulties have you encountered?
Extract from « En scène ! », 2013
© Svetlana Loboff / OnP
Article
The Scottish Pas de deux from La Sylphide
Dissection of a step: Episode #4
02’
The epitome of the romantic ballet, La Sylphide offers a perfect demonstration of the steps of the classical school. The highly stylized positions are illustrated by perfectly rounded low ports de bras. The Scottish Pas de deux is an invitation to dance. In the ballet’s first act, as James and Effie prepare to celebrate their engagement, all their friends rally around. In the studio, the dancers Emmanuel Thibault and Marion Barbeau rehearse the rond de jambe and glissade of their adage, under the benevolent eye of ballet coach Viviane Descoutures.
The step (diaporama)
The step in video with Premier Danseurs Muriel Zusperreguy and Emmanuel Thibault, Palais Garnier 2013
© Pauline Andrieu
000:58’
Video
Draw me La Sylphide
with Hop'éra !
Acte 1
Dans une chaumière d’Écosse, James – assoupi dans un fauteuil, près de la cheminée – attend l’aube du jour qui verra ses noces avec Effie. Se tient près de lui un esprit ailé, une Sylphide, qui le contemple amoureusement et l’éveille d’un baiser. James tente de saisir la vision, mais la Sylphide s’envole.
Arrivent Effie, sa mère et les voisins pour les préparatifs du mariage. Ainsi que Gurn, amoureux – sans espoir – d’Effie.
Une vieille femme, peut-être une sorcière, vient dire la bonne aventure. James la repousse, mais Effie lui tend la main : ainsi la jeune fille apprend avec tristesse que son fiancé ne l’aime pas vraiment, trop absorbé par son rêve de belle inaccessible, et qu’elle épousera finalement son soupirant Gurn. James, furieux, chasse la sorcière. Celle-ci jure de se venger.
Resté un moment seul, James revoit
Acte 2
La sorcière danse avec ses consœurs dans la forêt au clair de lune. La vieille s’affaire autour d’un chaudron d’où elle tire une écharpe vaporeuse. Dans la clairière, des êtres étranges volent d’arbre en arbre. Paraît James, comme un fou, cherchant sa Sylphide. La sorcière, sournoisement, vient lui offrir le voile magique qui lui permettra de retenir cet être insaisissable.
James a retrouvé l’objet de son désir parmi les créatures voletantes.
© Ann Ray / OnP
Article
In the forest
A Tale for Adults
10’
She swings on a vine, letting her white dress float out behind her amid the scent of moss. She lives in an enchanted forest and comes to people the dream world of little girls. In a tale in which fantasy goes hand in hand with reality, the novelist Astrid Eliard has drawn the playful portrait of a sylph, but who is she?
Of all the stories that one tells to children, rare are those that resist the test of adulthood. Many are lost; all the others end up raising an indulgent smile. And that is how enchantment – fairy keys, elves, magic flowers – is extinguished. With a wry little smile.
The one I requested of my mother for years and years without her ever tiring of it, grew up with me. And today, it gives me the impression of a mighty oak tree, its branches reaching above the canopy of dreams. Because of this tale, I wandered lost in forests as night fell. I took unconsidered risks; I headed straight into storms threatening the Forest of Tronçais, of Brocéliande or Rambouillet. I espied wild boar furiously rooting in the earth. I listened to sound of raindrops, after the rain had ceased to fall when there remained only droplets falling delicately from the leaves. I lifted stones swarming with little beetles, gathered twigs, anemones and periwinkles for my herbaria. On returning home from my excursions, I always felt a little sad as I brushed away the soil from beneath my nails or befuddled the bloodsucking tics on my arms and ankles that with ether. Already I missed the forest.
At the beginning, the story, like so many others, told of princesses, of cauldron-bubbling witches and enchanted forests. My mother had a gift for variations and digressions, and thus from magic potion to child-eating ogre, she finally introduced her to me, perched high up in an ash tree, swinging from a vine, her white dress fluttering in the breeze. I am almost certain that in her hair she wore a crown of ivy. My favourite. I was less enamoured of the diamonds and the ribbons of plaited gold that adorned her thereafter.
From then on, castles, secret passages and even outlawed princes camping out among the brambles with a view to rescuing their beloved ceased to interest me. It was her I wanted. I papered my bedroom walls with her image – I spent my days drawing her, flying from tree to tree – all day I awaited the evening with impatience, longing to hear all about her impossible loves with mortals that she pursued to their very doors. Many of them died, doubtless too many, but my mother adored snuffing them out with a breath. I found them terribly weak, those men: they certainly did not live up to the marvellous names they had been given – Gibraltar, Ventur, Elléon or Théor. I did not understand how one could die for love so quickly, without even a kiss and I told myself that I would know how to hold on to her, if she ever appeared before me one day.
Time passed, the time for stories also, and so anything but geography became out of the question. My mother took such things very seriously. She bought me atlases – I fell asleep over them, one hand resting on the page, the other holding on firmly to my torch – she drew maps for me. She answered all my questions: in which forest did she live? She migrated with the seasons, like swallows. What language did she speak? She knew them all. Could she die? Of course, but not like us, of illness or old age, but of grief, of madness, she could. Could she … grow old? She had been eighteen years old for so long … “Grow old? No, I don’t think so…” she replied thoughtfully.
At the age when children give up fairies and when I should have abandoned her, she became more real than ever. Strangely, my doubts reinforced her presence, perched in trees, smiling and amused, on the look out for wanderers who would fall in love with her. For I did doubt, a lot. Whenever I had a sheet of paper to hand, I would draw a line down the middle and fill the two columns, separating what was real – the neighbour’s cat, our building, our neighbourhood with the school, the bakery, the crossroads with their zebra crossings, the bus shelters – from what was not – ghosts (although …) the kingdom of Atlanta, seven-league boots. I never could find a place for her in either column and she often went from one to the other, as from tree to tree – springing light and agile. That suited me. As long as she flitted like that through the air, the mad hope that she existed was permitted me. I talked about her to those around me, at school to Mrs Vermeil, my teacher, who saw in her nothing but “stories for little girls”.
“Now then, grow up, you know very well that sirens don’t exist.”
“Sylphs not sirens.”
“Oh… it doesn’t matter what name you give them…”
She gave a little tap on my satchel and sent me out to join the others who were playing catch or skipping. It was brilliantly sunny that day, the chestnuts were in flower, the holidays were approaching, but for me the world had suddenly become drab, children’s games stupid, their laughter silly. So this, then, was life? This and nothing else? Was there nothing up there, in the forests? When I got home, I tore down the drawings of her from the walls of my room; I ripped up the maps my mother had taken such pains to draw, and sobbing, contemplated the shreds of my childhood. I was angry with my mother, terribly angry. Why had she lied to me? Why tell stories if you couldn’t believe in them. I would have been content with this world if I had only known that it was so confined … I would have made do, but now…
“Who says it’s confined?” my mother interrupted. “The world is not limited to what you can see. Lots of things remain unknowable but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
“So?”
“So don’t listen to what other people say.”
We patched up the maps with sticky tape, went over in indelible ink the borders of her country, forests of oak, of birch and pine, forests with cycle tracks or trodden with paths, forests of black or red, of green tender or dark, and we set off, at last, to find her.
People took us for Sunday ramblers – a bit better equipped certainly: rucksack, water bottle, compass, walking shoes, cap and packed lunch. “Have we forgotten anything?” my mother would say before slamming the front door impatiently. It mattered little what direction we took, providing we came to a forest. My mother liked them lightly wooded, bathed in light; I preferred them sombre and dense. Side by side, without saying much, we wandered for hours from morning to night. I walked along head in air – in this way I learnt to recognise passerines: tits, pied flycatchers or treecreepers – hoping to catch a glimpse of a white skirt floating through the air. But my mother would often say to me with a knowledgeable air:
“She won’t show herself here,” and she pointed to the beer cans, tissues and plastic bags littering the edge of the paths here and there.
“She lives far away from us, in a world so wild that we cannot imagine it. We must walk farther.”
We picked up the rubbish that soiled the forest – her home – rubbish that, according to my mother, kept her at a distance.
I don’t know how many years we walked like this, cleaning up the woods. I amassed a hoard of objects: a gold coin, a watch, a medal, some sunglasses, a silk scarf, but she always eluded us. The less I saw her, the more I hoped.
My mother aged, too quickly. She was diagnosed with an illness that made her confuse days, seasons and people and made her talk nonsense. I was lost in her babbling, but one thing remained clear in her otherwise confused discourse: the incredible story of that young girl of eighteen who lived in forest trees. She talked a lot about her, and the nurses looking after her listened patiently, one hand pressed against her forehead, as if to calm her ardour: “Yes, yes, there, there … Shhhhh.”
Until the very end, I remained faithful to my mother’s story. Perhaps it was madness … Of course, it was madness, taking the plane to Poland or Germany because my mother, with vacant eyes, had placed her trembling hand on maps of them in an atlas. It was senseless to pursue the quest of a lady who looked twenty years older than she was, who spent her days in a dressing gown, a lady of whom no doctor could say when her dementia had begun, but hope is not sensible, or there would be no sense in hoping.
And then, one day, it happened. She was there. Cross my heart, she was there, rustling the leaves in an oak tree in a forest in Scotland. It was a morning in June, the forest floor was carpeted with violets trembling in the dew. I had slept under the stars, I was chilled to the bone and would have given anything for some coffee and the corner of a sofa. I plunged on, however, where there was no longer a path, no abandoned plastic bags. Moss deadened my footsteps and all was so calm that I thought for an instant that I was wandering in a dream. A deer passed within inches of me; I followed her as far as a stream where she leaned over to drink. It was there that I heard the sound of foraging in a tree. There was no wind, and no bird, not even a big one, could have shaken the branches so noisily. I raised my eyes, dazzled by the rays of sunlight piercing the canopy like sharpened blades. I didn’t see much – as my mother once said to me, you can’t limit the world to what you can see – but a wedding ring falling from the sky bounced off my nose before landing on the mossy ground. Inside the ring was engraved in italics: “I will always love you”.
From whom had she stolen it? Ventur? Elléon? Who had died of love for her? I kissed the ring and slipped it on my finger. The stories we tell to children are not always what they seem.
Astrid Eliard
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