Ballet scores again with La Sylphide

The Meridian Energy season of La Sylphide
Royal New Zealand Ballet
St James Wellington

Then Christchurch (6 – 9 August), Dunedin (13 – 14 August), Invercargill
(19 –20 August), Auckland (26 –29 August), Napier (2 – 3 September)

With their latest offering the Royal New Zealand Ballet have not only put on a grand entertaining, they have also provided a rarely performed dance work which is central to the development of ballet in its present form.

La Sylphide is an early nineteenth century Romantic work choreographed by the Danish choreographer August Bournoville. The work is not to be confused with the early twentieth century ballet Les Sylphides which is a homage to the earlier work.

The Romantic style is essentially a transitionary stage from the court dances of the early1800’s until the growth of the classical form at the end of the nineteenth century.

Where classical dance has certain rigidity with poses and lifts and steps having an angularity and severe quality the Romantic form was softer. Poses and movements are based on the curve and oval rather than the more rigid diagonal and circle of the classical language.

While the Romantic form did not have the same complexity of display and narrative expression it did allow for a boldness and inventiveness in which emotional display was more favoured.

Bournoville was not only a master of the romantic style of choreography he also was far more interested in the male roles, mainly because most of the roles he created were for himself.

La Sylphide which was choreographed in 1836 is set in Scotland (A romantic setting at the time due to the influence of Sir Walter Scott) and tells the tale of James who is engaged to marry Effie. On the eve of his marriage he is visited by the Sylphide who offers him a taste of the sublime.

James is desperate to have her and runs off to the forest where he cavorts with her and the other sylphs.

He is tricked by the evil witch Madge into throwing a magic scarf over the Sylphide in the belief that it will make her human but the loss of her powers means she dies and Effie marries James’s friend Gurn.

Many of the Romantic notions of the early nineteenth are threaded through the ballet; the idea of communing with Nature, aspiring to rise above the common and base as well as the ambivalent notion of controlling Nature.

So James is torn between the love of the sylph and his love of Eddie, the higher realms of spiritual, love and the earthly.

Michael Braun as James is able to display this ambivalence with dancing which is by turns energetic and lethargic, providing a sense of a man trying to resolve his predicament. In this he is also traversing the dilemma that many males have found themselves in when they are seduced by another woman in their life.

Michael Braun delivers huge open chested leaps and elaborate bouncing footwork which is an ideal complement to the delicious dancing of dancing of Antonia Hewitt as the Sylphide.

She has the more sophisticated moves however; disappearing up the chimney, flitting in through the window and leading her fellow sylphs in forest dances with gazelle-like movements

Her dancing is that of the free sylph, gliding across the stage without reference to the classical language, this is not the elegant floating wings of the classical swan but the lively fast stepping of the underworld fairy.

In her white filmy costume and winsome smile she was like a surreal apparition of the underworld.

Her Act I dance of seduction was a beautifully conceived and presented sequence with her tempting and evocative poses delicately crafted, combining coquettishness and playfulness. This conveyed the notion of her being part apparition and part figment of the imagination.

The Act Two forest glade scene was replete with charming set of dances. A pas de trois of sylphs was delectable and the full group of sylphs conveyed a sense of delicacy and refinement. But throughout their displays Antonia Hewitt dancing shone through with a lustrous richness.

Rory Fairweather-Neylan as Gurn provided some lively and expressive dance and on a couple of occasions provided some inspired balletic humour as he imitated the fragile movements of the Sylphide in a gawky display.

Jon Trimmer as the witch, Madge also created elements of humour in his brewing up a spell sequence.

These couple of instances of humour however do not help in sustaining the dramatic tension of the work not helped by Jon Trimmer being dressed up like as something between the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz and Chewbacca.