Les Sylphides, a ballet blanc¹, is often considered one of the first (if not the first) 'romantic reverie' performed. It is a ballet with no obvious plot - an abstract performance - and simply a collection of dances concerning a young man (a poet, or dreamer) who finds himself in a moonlit park amidst a group of sylphides (or fairies), who then perform with, and around, him. Some may see it as a kind of Rip Van Winkle / A Midsummer Night's Dream story - if that helps to make the lack of plot more understandable.

The Performance

A visual meditation on beauty – a reverie of the soul.
- John Gregory, dance historian

Les Sylphides is a very short ballet at just over half an hour in length, and as such can be a wonderful introduction to the art form. The dance is sometimes confused with Swan Lake, and it is just as elegant a ballet, the forms made by - and grace of - the sylphs a joy to watch. The ballet music brings together orchestrations of eight pieces for piano composed by Frédéric Chopin over the period 1831-41, as follows:

• Polonaise in A major - the curtain rises and all the dancers are on stage, posed motionless. The music begins and a polonaise (Polish 'slow' dance) is performed.

• Nocturne in A flat major - an ensemble is danced by the whole troupe.

• Valse in G Flat major - a solo waltz variation is performed by a lone sylph.

• Mazurka in D major - a solo Polish folk dance is performed by the prima ballerina (lead sylph).

• Mazurka in C major - a solo again, this time by the lone male dancer (the poet/dreamer).

• Prelude in A major - a solo dance by a different sylph.

• Valse in C sharp minor - pas de deux (dance for two) performed by the prima ballerina and the poet.

• Grande Valse in E flat major - the final ensemble, featuring a tarentella (Italian 'courtship' dance) between the poet and the lead sylph.

Première

The ballet 'premièred' as Reverie Romantique: Ballet sur la musique de Chopin on the 10 February, 1907. The matinee performance at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg was part of a work that was originally orchestrated in 1892-93 by Alexander Glazunov as Opus 46, Chopiniana. Choreographed by Mikhail Fokine to Glazunov's orchestration of music for piano by Chopin, Les Sylphides (as it was to become known) was officially first performed for the public in its final incarnation by the Diaghilev Ballets Russes at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, on 2 June, 1919.

The popularity of the performance may have had a little to do with the fact that another ballet called La Sylphide had recently been conducted at the theatre, and much of the public might have been confused by the (perhaps intentionally by the promoters) similar names. The cast at the time were Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Alexandra Baldina, and Vaslav Nijinsky - in the role of the young poet. It became an almost overnight success, and when the Ballets Russes toured, Les Sylphides was one of the company's signature dances. The ballet went on to be staged many times over the years, including a Royal Ballet performance featuring Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev in 1963, and by the New York City Ballet, the Australian Ballet, the Trocks, and the Kirov Ballet.

In Other Media

Les Sylphides has also found fame as being a popular subject of English painter Laura Knight (1877 - 1970). The artist was a common feature backstage at many Ballets Russes performances starring Anna Pavlova, and toured alongside the ballet company making sketches and many fine paintings of ballet life, both on stage and behind the scenes. Her works showing Les Sylphides include 'The End of the Dance' (c1920), 'Les Sylphides' (c1925), and numerous others that have Pavlova (and other dancers that Knight became friends with, like Lydia Lopokova) in various acts of preparation, performance and differing states of undress. Knight was honoured with the title of Dame of the British Empire in 1929, and in 1936 became the first woman painter elected to be a member of the Royal Academy. Her impressionist style also covered many other subjects, including the circus and the British aircraft industry of the Second World War, and she was the official war artist at the Nuremburg Trials in 1946. However, it is her depictions of the ballet dancers as they prepare for Les Sylphides that are perhaps some of her more well-known works.