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The Royal Ballet: Sylvia, London, November 2017


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I was at the Royal Ballet's rehearsal of Ashton's 'Sylvia' this week, which opens on the 23rd of November and runs into December. Utterly marvellous!

Here are some photos:


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Tierney Heap, Helen Crawford, Marianela Nunez, Nathalie Harrison, Claire Calvert
©  Dave Morgan. Courtesy of DanceTabs / Flickr


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Ashley Dean, Fumi Kaneko, Leticia Stock
© Dave Morgan. Courtesy of DanceTabs / Flickr

 

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Marianela Nunez, Vadim Muntagirov
© Dave Morgan. Courtesy of DanceTabs / Flickr

 

See more... 

Set from DanceTabs: Royal Ballet - Sylvia
Courtesy of DanceTabs / Flickr


By kind Permission of The Royal Opera House

 

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I'm amazed at how well this has sold, given previous experience: didn't think I'd be able to go tonight, and by the time I'd decided it might be a possibility there weren't any tickets left. Perhaps, given the season so far, there were a lot of punters desperate for some "proper" ballet?

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  • John Mallinson changed the title to The Royal Ballet: Sylvia, London, November 2017

The first real ballet of the season as far as I am concerned and so it would seem for many others. I am pleased to see that the ballet has sold so well this time round as this should mean that it will be revived in future seasons as I rather hope to see Naghdi in the title role as, if her Aurora is anything to go by, she has the sort of musicality and artistry that the role demands.

 

When the ballet was revived in 2004 I was bored by Bussell and underwhelmed by Nunez and if I had only seen them I would have said that the revival was more of a resurrection than the restoration to the stage of a viable theatrical piece. It was Yanowsky who persuaded me that it was a great ballet but that if it is to work it needs a dancer with the musical and artistic intelligence to use the text which Ashton created for Fonteyn. In other words it is a display piece for a ballerina which requires a dancer with the stamina and the ability to do much more than merely reproduce the text as set. Yanowsky said that the role is exhausting because it is like dancing in three different ballets in one evening. She pointed out that Sylvia displays very different  sides to her "character" in each act. This was not always that obvious in either Bussell's or Nunez's 2004 performances. But Nunez is now a mature artist and I am looking forward to seeing her give a far more creative, artistically perceptive account of the role than she managed in 2004.

 

In  Act 1 Sylvia is the huntress follower of Diana who vehemently rejects love, mocks Eros and is transformed by him into a lovelorn girl just in time to be abducted by Orion a hunter who seems to have escaped from a long forgotten minor work created for one of the Ballets Russes' successor companies. Act 2 Orion's island set somewhere near the eastern lands of the Ballets Russes. Here Sylvia rejects the vast riches which Orion  offers her and transforms herself into a seductress in order to escape his clutches. Yanowsky played this scene very wittily and it was great fun. Finally in Act 3 she undergoes a final transformation into one of Petipa's Italian star ballerinas. Here she must be brave and confident enough of her skills to use that music with real ingenuity not simply following it but playing with it holding back a little here and rushing forward to finish on the note as artistic perception suggests. This final pas is a touchstone of the dancer's artistry and musicality.As far as the sacrificial goats are concerned well I think that their choreography deliberately incorporates passing references to Nijinsky's Faun.

 

As with many other Ashton ballets the more familiar you are with the choreography  the more you see in it. It has a wonderful score and is the closest we are likely to get to seeing a genuine Empire ballet pompier. I am truly grateful that it is being revived and hope that it secures a more permanent place in the company's repertory.A six year absence is far too long for this work. Perhaps we can hope that Cinderella might be revived next season.

Edited by FLOSS
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52 minutes ago, FLOSS said:

The first real ballet of the season as far as I am concerned and so it would seem for many others. I am pleased to see that the ballet has sold so well this time round as this should mean that it will be revived in future seasons as I rather hope to see Naghdi in the title role as, if her Aurora is anything to go by, she has the sort of musicality and artistry that the role demands.

 

When the ballet was revived in 2004 I was bored by Bussell and underwhelmed by Nunez and if I had only seen them I would have said that the revival was more of a resurrection than the restoration to the stage of a viable theatrical piece. It was Yanowsky who persuaded me that it was a great ballet but that if it is to work it needs a dancer with the musical and artistic intelligence to use the text which Ashton created for Fonteyn. In other words it is a display piece for a ballerina which requires a dancer with the stamina and the ability to do much more than merely reproduce the text as set. Yanowsky said that the role is exhausting because it is like dancing in three different ballets in one evening. She pointed out that Sylvia displays very different  sides to her "character" in each act. This was not always that obvious in either Bussell's or Nunez's 2004 performances. But Nunez is now a mature artist and I am looking forward to seeing her give a far more creative, artistically perceptive account of the role than she managed in 2004.

 

In  Act 1 Sylvia is the huntress follower of Diana who vehemently rejects love, mocks Eros and is transformed by him into a lovelorn girl just in time to be abducted by Orion a hunter who seems to have escaped from a long forgotten minor work created for one of the Ballets Russes' successor companies. Act 2 Orion's island set somewhere near the eastern lands of the Ballets Russes. Here Sylvia rejects the vast riches which Orion  offers her and transforms herself into a seductress in order to escape his clutches. Yanowsky played this scene very wittily and it was great fun. Finally in Act 3 she undergoes a final transformation into one of Petipa's Italian star ballerinas. Here she must be brave and confident enough of her skills to use that music with real ingenuity not simply following it but playing with it holding back a little here and rushing forward to finish on the note as artistic perception suggests. This final pas is a touchstone of the dancer's artistry and musicality.As far as the sacrificial goats are concerned well I think that their choreography deliberately incorporates passing references to Nijinsky's Faun.

 

As with many other Ashton ballets the more familiar you are with the choreography  the more you see in it. It has a wonderful score and is the closest we are likely to get to seeing a genuine Empire ballet pompier. I am truly grateful that it is being revived and hope that it secures a more permanent place in the company's repertory.A six year absence is far too long for this work. Perhaps we can hope that Cinderella might be revived next season.

I am pretty sure that being 'bored by Bussell' is a hanging offence!

 

(I sometimes felt the same....!)

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I'm also very much looking forward to this ballet tonight and the other times I will see it.  I too will be interested to see how performances have progressed/evolved.  I am also interested to see all the talented dancers who have progressed into the company since the last revival tackle Ashton's choreography.  When I first saw this ballet I didn't take it very seriously and thought it was a bit of fluff, but the more I've seen it, the more I've appreciated the difficult choreography.  

 

I too was bored by Bussell, but that was often the case with me.

 

I hope the "first timers" enjoy it too....if you don't, it's worth persevering!  :)

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I seem only ever to have seen extracts from this ballet so am looking forward to seeing it in full for the first time! At least I know it will be a musical treat as am more familiar with the music for this piece. I opted to see Osipova dance this .....mostly because it's a matinee so will be interested to hear what others who know the ballet better make of her interpretation etc.

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I am greatly looking forward to seeing it again, and just to add to Floss's excellent detailed post, that the beautiful sets present a marvellous frame for this  ballet. I like the costumes too-  (a nice change from old knickers that look like the 'before' in a detergent ad.)

 

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2 hours ago, penelopesimpson said:

I am pretty sure that being 'bored by Bussell' is a hanging offence!

 

(I sometimes felt the same....!)

 

So did I - but often rather than sometimes :) In common with FLOSS, I was also underwhelmed by Nunez in other runs but am hopeful this time round. On the other hand, Yanowsky was the very embodiment of Sylvia.

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Just back after a pleasant evening at Sylvia. I thought I'd dash off a few brief notes for all of you while they're still fresh in my head, and I'll try to write in more detail tomorrow (and will look eagerly forward to hearing better informed comments from the more knowledgeable and experienced ballet goers among you):

- This was my first time seeing Sylvia. I found the story really very silly, even by classical ballet standards, so silly that I couldn't get emotionally involved in the narrative at all. Whereas I have no difficulty doing that for Giselle or Swan Lake which has me weeping like a fool each time; even Two Pigeons moved me to tears. But this thing was, well, not boring, just, to me, pointless.

- I absolutely adore Marianela Nunez; in my eyes she can do no wrong; when it comes to her I am genuinely unable to be even the least bit critical. And yet even she couldn't get me to take the story seriously enough to enjoy it tonight. Maybe she needs to grow into the role? I'm sure she was perfect but she didn't seem as perfect, as breathtaking, as effortless, as she usually seems to me. It's not her; it's the silly ballet and the silly role. But it did look like she was trying hard today, and she never ever looks like she's trying in the least, whenever I've seen her dance, because she is always so natural, so effortless, so perfect. Today she seemed, well, perfect, but full of effort. I'm explaining myself badly but maybe you will understand what I mean.  

- The music was lovely, as expected, and the orchestra was in good form. But, for me, cannot match the soaring beauty of Tchaikovsky's or Prkofiev's scores

- The melting set change in Act II is really wonderful. I should think that for children it would be magical. But otherwise the sets look, for lack of a better word (because I've used it already three times here), silly and school-drama ish.

- Costumes, ditto (silly, I mean. Sigh, fifth time using the same word): even in the third act, when the women are in different costumes, and it makes for a very colourful spectacle on stage, it still didn't look "right" to me. Why don't the women match, for one? The men's costumes are just beyond terrible.

- Ok, but Vadim Muntagirov was, today, STUPENDOUS.  Soaring jumps, light as a feather landings, perfect partnering, heart-stopping lifts, magnetic stage presence.  He floated around the stage and took my breath away. I have never seen any of the Legends some of you discuss here dance, being, alas, too young, but today I would think that Muntagirov ranked among them, the Nureyevs and the Baryshnikovs et al. But the role is such a waste of his talents, as he had almost nothing to do the entire time, except for the solo and the pas de deux in Act III.

- What the what was that goat duet doing? Was it to add some Sleeping Beauty like charm, or to attract broader (younger) audiences? It seemed not to fit at all with the rest of the themes which were, as it is, a bad mishmash of pseudo greek mythology/pseudo Orientalist (sigh, when will ballet companies get rid of this racist trope of the Orientalist Baddie) / pseudo 19th c ballroom 

I comment very rarely here as I am not in London often, so I feel terrible writing a less than glowing review. None of this is to knock the company, which I adore; or any of the dancers, who were wonderful. Just the ballet itself. 

Edited to add: I've now read Floss' lengthy explanation, and would like to say that Marianela Nunez did, absolutely, embody all three different characters as Floss describes Yaonowsky as having done. It confused me, but now I see (thanks to Floss) that this is what is required of the role. The way Floss describes it is exactly how Ms Nunez danced it. 

 

 

Edited by SMballet
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Muntagirov was indeed stupendous. A perfect amalgam of grace and elegance with power and precision all delivered with 'effortless' joy.  Every time I see him I think, 'Now THAT was surely his best performance' , but, it happens every time.

Remarkable!

 

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Just a quick note to say that I really enjoyed SMballet's comments. However: I agree that the ballet is often difficult to take seriously, and the sets and costumes are extremely old-fashioned; BUT, I loved it. Much of the choreography is excellent, the music is lovely, and the dancing of the principals was magnificent. I found moments strangely moving (e.g. the acknowledgement of Eros; Aminta's gentle gesture of love when he holds Sylvia's head in his hands; etc.). Its not Wayne McGregor; but if you can suspend disbelief, there is a huge amount to enjoy.

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Absolutely, bridiem.

I do take SMballet's points about unbelievable, even silly aspects.

 

But,  it is not meant to be deadly serious or believeable.

 

It is an entertainment, of a fabulously delightful kind. It is comedy, not tragedy, so unlike Giselle and SL we don't end the evening in tears -and it is fantasy- of which we do have a great deal in films and TV these days;   it is a type of entertainment people will perhaps always want and enjoy.

And within that framework, Ashton gives many moments of the most sensitive and moving depiction of human emotion. I wish I had time to write more but my short and stumbling words are very heartfelt.

It has certainly put me in the best mood for months!

 

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My first time seeing it.  I enjoyed it enormously but felt no desire to see several additional performances!  Also I wish I'd known that (unusually for a ballet set) there were things one needed to be able to see above ground level at the back, before I booked a far-round-to-the-side SCS ticket.

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If you want to blame anyone for the "silly" story then you should blame Torquato Tasso who wrote a play called Aminta in the sixteenth century; Merante who created the ballet in which Aminta is no longer a man of action but a passive creature wholly dependent on the gods to rescue Sylvia for him;  Delibes who wrote the music and the audience of the Paris Opera for whom, to borrow Balanchine's phrase, "ballet  is woman" and men's presence on the stage was only grudgingly accepted when it was absolutely necessary. But then perhaps you should not blame them at all as they did not set out to create anything other than a delightful entertainment.The ballet in Ashton's 1952 version is very much an entertaining display piece for a great ballerina created to show her artistic range. Because it was a vehicle for Fonteyn at the height of her powers, it depends for much of its effect on the dancer's artistic sophistication and intelligence. It helps if she has the  sort of extraordinary musicality which was, perhaps, Fonteyn's greatest gift. Perhaps It should now be treated as a company classic with performances in it used as evidence of the company's general artistic and technical health because like the great late nineteenth  Russian ballets which de Valois described as "the classics" it represents a real artistic challenge to every dancer in the  company who appears in it even if they are not in a named role as the choreography exposes them all to scrutiny in terms of their technique, musicality and artistry. Not even Orion can hide a lack of technical competence by acting his socks off.

 

Aminta apparently has little to do but in the first act but he has to establish his presence and his choreography provides him with no hiding place. It is full of those apparently simple steps which are extraordinarily difficult to perform really well and he is presented to the audience as a moving sculpture who is seen from every possible angle. He has to be perfect or his first act goes for nothing. As for Sylvia the role's choreography is not concerned with the transitory currently fashionable ideas about artistry as the display of naked physical skill exemplified by whether a dancer can stick her foot in her ear or how many pirouettes she can squeeze in if she distorts the music enough. It is a ballet about balance,dancing as a flow of movement, the individual dancer's nuanced response to the music to which she is required to dance;  her ability to dance in the required style with a relaxed upper body, beautiful epaulement, beautifully clean footwork and total fearlessness. As you can see it places no great demands on the dancers cast in any of the named roles.

 

The story is set in the world of ancient Greece and classical myth which Tasso did not necessarily take that seriously. As to how seriously Merante took the story, the nature of the music suggests that the answer is not that seriously either. It is not a rousing melodrama of daring do like the original Corsaire which in its first incarnation seems to have been more dependent on the acting skills of its cast than their technical skills. The original Sylvia was intended to be a charming entertainment much like its predecessor Coppelia.

 

Ashton's ballet represents a conscious decision to inhabit the world of late nineteenth century French ballet convention. The Ironsides went out of their way to produce designs which belong to the same world. They are deliberately rather than inadvertently old fashioned . The ballet is deliberately old fashioned in its structure, designs and staging because it was created as an evocation of French ballets of the 1870's. I suppose that it depends on what function you believe that Ballet design has/ In a  world in which knickers and vests seem to be the order it is easy to regard stage design as little more than stage decoration and costume design as little more than the provision of pretty costumes in whatever currently pass as fashionable colours  and shades. 

 

Good ballet designs tell the audience where a ballet is set and by their style tell the audience whether what they are about to see is serious or a comedy and by helping to create the ballet's mood  they assist the dancers in the performance of their allotted roles. All of Ashton's ballets were created with careful consideration given to how their sets and costumes would look in the theatre and what they tell  the audience about the action of the ballet. Some costumes tell the audience about the individual characters who wear them but in every case the choice of clothing style will say something about the type of ballet it is watching, its setting and its mood. The choice of costume style, its cut and the material from which costumes affects the quality of the movement which the audience experiences in performance a fact that has tended to be overlooked when ballets are redesigned. Only a handful of Ashton ballets have been redesigned since his death and none has been improved by the undertaking. So I for one shall not be voting for this ballet to be redesigned any time soon. 

 

As a francophile and a man who discovered the world of classical ballet in his teens rather than experiencing it from his early childhood Ashton appears to have been far more interested in its history and accepting of its conventions than someone in a position  to take it all for granted almost from birth. As far as Sylvia is concerned Ashton went so far as to claim that he had made his version at the prompting of Delibes who had appeared to him in a dream begging him to save his ballet.In these circumstances perhaps we should see this ballet as an affectionate homage to the lost world of the  ballet pompier of the 1870's rather than criticising it for not being something it was never intended to be,such as a didactic work or a gritty realistic one influenced by French cinema and the ballets of Roland Petit.

 

It is almost as if, at some level, Ashton was creating a ballet history for the young company now resident at Covent Garden with two nineteenth century inspired ballets, his Petipa style Cinderella and this affectionate recreation of a very specific form of French ballet, the ballet pompier.  I know that it was very remiss of the Paris Opera audience of the 1870's to treat ballet as a mere entertainment but that is how it was regarded. I am not sure that the score can support a more complex narrative than the one which it was created to accompany. Ashton' s decision to reject a  convoluted modern version of the story in favour of the original libretto gives us the strong resourceful Sylvia of Merante's original and his apparently  ineffectual Aminta. But as the plot, such as it is, requires that Sylvia should mock Eros and insult him in order to justify her abduction by Orion and the action of the second act. Aminta's reverence and respect for  Eros must be accepted as sufficient reason for the god's intervention to restore him to life . I leave it to you to decide whether Eros' rescue of Sylvia is more Aminta's reward for his fidelity to the god than for Sylvia's fervent prayers to him.

 

As far as last night's performance is concerned I will simply say that the ballet now seems to be acquiring a local performance tradition the naiads and dryads of the first act seemed to have far greater understanding of who they were supposed to be portraying than I recall at earlier revivals, In the last act the nine Muses who accompany Apollo seemed far more comfortable about carrying their identifying symbols  and far more conscious about who they were portraying.  As for the sacrificial goats they are there because the score includes the sound of goats bleating.They are intended to be amusing  and their frequent adoption of flat on poses is, I think, intended as an allusion to Nijinsky's attempts to create an archaic form of movement for his ballet L' Apres Midi d'un Faun. The tongue in cheek reference to the choreographer and his seminal work probably  did not go down that well in 1952 because Nijinsky had only died two tears before.I shall say something about individual performances when I have seen all three casts.At present I will just say that Muntagirov has set the bar extremely high for the other Amintas we are due to see this season.

 

As to giving Aminta more dancing what music would you use and what choreography would you cut? Remember the ballet was made before the arrival of Nureyev in the West and it was originally designed as a vehicle for the ballerina with one of those very dansant scores that almost told the corps what steps they should be dancing.

Aminta and Sylvia are types rather than individual characters

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by FLOSS
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My first time too. Perhaps controversially, I loved the scenery, I thought it looked brilliant. Howeverwhen Sylvia came out in her ‘seduction’ outfit in Act II, for some reason it reminded me of Princess Leia’s slave costume in Return of the Jedi, and I wondered if that made Orion ‘Jabba’? !

I digress. I agree I felt the storyline a bit odd, and perhaps unnecessarily complicated in Act I, and needed a thorough reading of the synopsis to have a grasp of what was going on and why. However my friend and I really enjoyed what we felt was a very sweet, frothy ballet and brilliant score. I agree that the role of Aminta could benefit from additional choreography to perform, Vadim Muntagirov was an absolute dream last night, I wish we’d seen more of him. And it would be good to understand more of the character of both of the lovers, they didn’t feel as developed as other leading roles, which I thought made it harder to form a connection with them. Some gorgeous moments in the PDD in particular, and also loved the larger set pieces and Sylvia’s attendants. I’d happily watch it again in future runs. 

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On 23/11/2017 at 10:13, FLOSS said:

When the ballet was revived in 2004 I was bored by Bussell and underwhelmed by Nunez...But Nunez is now a mature artist and I am looking forward to seeing her give a far more creative, artistically perceptive account of the role than she managed in 2004.

 

I saw Nunez at the dress rehearsal and again last night, on opening night. There is true glory in her performance but I have no idea how authentic what she was doing was, either to the 19th century inspiration or to Ashton. A lot was very big (rather like a Balanchine dancer I felt). Which may have been because she is a huntress. Or it may have been because, according to the programme, the coaching was by Bussell (never my idea of an Ashton dancer). 

 

In any case both she and Muntagirov showed themselves to have mastered the very difficult choreography, not so some of e.g. the corps (but I am pleased they are trying to do it, as learning the steps and the style will surely help to further raise the overall standard).

 

3 hours ago, FLOSS said:

As for the sacrificial goats they are there because the score includes the sound of goats bleating.They are intended to be amusing 

 

 

And not only the goats. As Mary wrote earlier, "It is an entertainment, of a fabulously delightful kind. It is comedy, not tragedy". If I had any overall observation, it would be that on opening night the comedy was not pointed as much as it might have been. Today's audience needs even more help - as comments here have shown - to understand the parody elements, the jokes, and indeed the overall light-heartedness. 

 

I think there is a risk that audiences may just look at the scenery and make assumptions about old-fashioned solemnity, which would be to miss the point. The music makes it all clear, of course, but not everyone trusts their ears these days.

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2 hours ago, Geoff said:

 

I saw Nunez at the dress rehearsal and again last night, on opening night. There is true glory in her performance but I have no idea how authentic what she was doing was, either to the 19th century inspiration or to Ashton. A lot was very big (rather like a Balanchine dancer I felt). Which may have been because she is a huntress. Or it may have been because, according to the programme, the coaching was by Bussell (never my idea of an Ashton dancer). 

I

 

I am surprised that Bussell was doing the coaching. I thought she was miscast in the role, it didn't seem to suit her at all.  I know we are always being told that today's dancers are so much stronger technically, but I thought she struggled with the choreography when I saw her.  Just goes to show what a wonderful dancer Fonteyn was, something that today's youngsters don't always appreciate.  .I can't believe some of the comments about Fonteyn on Youtube by current students, who all seem to think her technique is less than adequate because she doesn't have exquisite, highly arched feet, an extreme turnout, and super high extensions.  In particular, her turns seem to be the subject of the most scathing comments, purely because she sometimes "only" does a single pirouette.  

 

On 23/11/2017 at 10:13, FLOSS said:

 

 Finally in Act 3 she undergoes a final transformation into one of Petipa's Italian star ballerinas. Here she must be brave and confident enough of her skills to use that music with real ingenuity not simply following it but playing with it holding back a little here and rushing forward to finish on the note as artistic perception suggests. This final pas is a touchstone of the dancer's artistry and musicality.

 

 

I would love to see an example of exactly what you mean by that, Floss.  I am certain you do not mean that the dancer should hurry to catch up with the music at the end, fudging some of the steps in the sequence, because they decided to linger a bit longer over the steps that show their own particular technique to its best advantage.  Something I have seen many dancers do, and one of my pet hates! 

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43 minutes ago, Fonty said:

 

I am surprised that Bussell was doing the coaching. I thought she was miscast in the role, it didn't seem to suit her at all.  I know we are always being told that today's dancers are so much stronger technically, but I thought she struggled with the choreography when I saw her.  Just goes to show what a wonderful dancer Fonteyn was, something that today's youngsters don't always appreciate.  .I can't believe some of the comments about Fonteyn on Youtube by current students, who all seem to think her technique is less than adequate because she doesn't have exquisite, highly arched feet, an extreme turnout, and super high extensions.  In particular, her turns seem to be the subject of the most scathing comments, purely because she sometimes "only" does a single pirouette.  

 

 

Whoever decided to cast Bussell in Fonteyn's roles was doing her a disservice, she was miscast in Birthday Offering too. 

 

Fonteyn's chaine turns were exceptionally fast, almost a blur.  Of one thing you may be certain, if she performed a single turn it was because the choreography required a single turn.

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2 hours ago, Fonty said:

 

I am surprised that Bussell was doing the coaching.

 

Perhaps it's a case of "The RB now does 'Strictly' " ? Seriously, though, Yanowsky could have been an ideal coach for Sylvia. And how strange that Jonathan Cope (the first cast Aminta in the Christopher Newton 'realisation') doesn't seem to have bee involved.

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I thought that the revival of Sylvia went very well, and overall was better danced and with stronger technique at all levels than on some occasions in the past. In particular the women's jumps are far stronger than they used to be. I saw the original production of Sylvia with Fonteyn a number of times in the past and I consider  that Christopher Newton's "realisation" is pretty faithful as far as the choreography goes, However he has made changes to the drama in the second act. Originally there was no wine in Orion"s grotto, but Sylvia took some grapes and squeezed them, and made 'instant" wine - "silly"  I know , but I think it was in the original libretto, and sometimes you have to suspend disbelief. Of course Orion and his minions being unacquainted with alcohol quickly got drunk and collapsed. Sylvia then tried to get out of the grotto but couldn't find a way, she then prayed to Eros, the roof of the grotto flew off and Eros was revealed standing on a sort of plinth. He beckoned to Sylvia to go free and she jetteed off into the wild woods . This ending leaves us with the question of how did she find her way onto Eros's boat, so the new ending makes more dramatic sense. Some years ago at an insight evening I mentioned the "instant wine" to Christopher  Newton and was told that I was talking nonsense. However, some time later I met Valerie Taylor who was one of Orion's concubines in the original production, and she confirmed that my memory was correct.

 

Toda's Sylvias are more athletic in act 1 than Fonteyn was, and jump higher and further. The one thing that Fonteyn lacked was a good jump, but she made you think that she had one. That solo in act 1 has a number of difficulties, steps that look easy but are not, and the only time I ever saw Fonteyn fall on stage was in that solo.

 

Certain numbers in act 3 have been cut in this production for the simple reason that their music is not in the original score and Ashton borrowed a couple of items from "La Source". In particular I remember that there was a pas de dix for Apollo and the nine muses.

 

I thought that Vadim Muntagirov was excellent as Aminta and made much of what is quite a slender part. To those who feel that he should have more to do I say, "Where do you find the music, and how would you fit the extra action into the drama?" His solo in act 1 was outstandigly well danced with beautiful line, fluid and assured execution and sensitive use of the upper body which I am sure would have pleased Ashton.

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Reading all these posts with interest. I have never seen Sylvia before but am looking forward to it very much now . It sounds like a "complete" production with the marriage of music, scenery, choreography and dancers. Just what I love. Can't wait till Thursday!

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Wulff 

Thank you for the information about Sylvia originally plying Orion with "instant" wine in act two. It makes all the ceremonial at the beginning of act three when the arrival of the statue of Bacchus is greeted with fanfares, is then carried round the stage and the corps later dance around it make far more sense than it does in the current version. If Bacchus has intervened to make "instant" wine for Sylvia then all that ceremonial thanksgiving is understandable, as is the fact that Orion and his followers are unwittingly reduced to a state of unconsciousness by drinking what they believe to be grape juice. However if all that has happened in the second act is that Sylvia has encouraged Orion and his followers to drink too much ordinary wine and they have succumbed to its effects the rejoicing over Bacchus' powers seems a bit excessive. 

 

 I find the suggestions that Ashton's ballet would be improved if Aminta had more to do extremely interesting because that is precisely the sort of thing that happened to the male roles in the works of the nineteenth century choreographer the bicentenary of whose birth we shall be celebrating next year.

 

If at some point in the future the owner of the copyright to Sylvia  agreed to allow a stager to revise the ballet by building up Aminta's character wouldn't it  have the effect of distorting the narrative, disrupting the score's integrity and altering the ballet's impact? It would shift the focus of the ballet from Sylvia its eponymous heroine, whose punishment for lack of piety and rescue by the god she insulted is the excuse for the entire creation, onto Aminta. If Aminta were  transformed into an action hero surely he would have to fight Orion to secure Sylvia's freedom? This, in turn, would render Eros' appearance at the end of the second act unnecessary and a great deal of the choreography of that act redundant. Someone would have to find appropriate music  and create new choreography for Aminta the hero. Transforming Aminta from a passive devotee of Eros into a man of action would inevitably necessitate the creation of new choreography for Orion as well and, at some point, these improvements would  lead to a review of Sylvia's role and revision of her choreography as well. Sylvia might well find herself transformed from the strong active resourceful heroine which  Merante and Ashton intended her to be, into the usual damsel in distress, passive heroine of nineteenth century ballet .  

 

Here in a nutshell you have the fate of those Petipa ballets in the active repertory across the world today in which roles and choreography have been so radically altered that their creator would not recognise them. Just as there are those who praise Petipa for being such an innovative choreographer because he appears to have foreseen every shift in taste and choreographic development which occurred during the twentieth century we should be praising Ashton for foreseeing all the "improvements" in technique which have occurred since his death.

 

The ballet was created as an entertainment. Ashton breathed new life into it the score "saving" Sylvia just as Delibes had asked him to do. He gave it new choreography incorporating elements of ridiculous fantasy and allusions to a number of Diaghilev ballets which his  audience would have known well and created a role for his ballerina which displayed her artistry to the full. The ballerina's role continues to present a challenge to today's dancers as it calls for extreme musicality and effortlessness rather than a display of extreme flexibility, effort and sheer physical strength in which it is permissible to distort music to fit the dancer's movements and displays of technique. 

 

All the named roles, with the exception of Sylvia and Eros, are just roles, types totally devoid of character and motivation. We are not invited to examine the childhood trauma which made Orion the man he is. Aminta does not have a character in the MacMillan sense of the word . In Merante's ballet he is a passive individual because all of Merante's interest,and that of the POB's audience, is focused on the star of the show the ballerina who is dancing the eponymous heroine Sylvia. We are stuck with that version of the story in this ballet because that is the version Ashton chose to use to display Fonteyn's skills. Remember that at the time that this piece was made star billing in the full length ballet had been the preserve of the ballerina for just over a century.

 

I have seen three versions of the ballet and for me Ashton's is by far the best as it accepts the libretto's limitations and makes a virtue of them. For me Bintley's version is far too complicated to work as an effective piece of theatre, I am sure that Janet will object to this assessment but that is my opinion of the work, while the French version is far too abstract to work for me.I am not arguing that no one should attempt to make a new version of Sylvia. I am simply saying that it should not be a radical reworking of  Ashton's  ballet with bits of his choreography standing out like a good deed in a naughty world.

 

Edited by FLOSS
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