Kiel Ballet - La Sylphide - Kiel - January 2018

[Jan McNulty]

I love La Sylphide and when an opportunity (cheap flight) arose last minute to pop over to Kiel to see their new production I jumped at it!

 

Kiel Ballet had engaged Peter Bo Bendixen, who had been a principal with RDB and is currently AD at the Tivoli Ballet in Copenhagen, to stage the production for them.  What can I say - it was a gorgeous, traditional production!  The set and costumes were lovely.  James was in a red tartan but the other tartans were more muted and seemed much more effective than the garish ones in the current ENB production.

 

The ballet has been staged with care and attention and the dancers showed an admirable understanding of the Bournonville style.

 

Shizuro Kato was terrific as James, in love with Effy but bewitched by the Sylph who was danced with delicious capriciousness by a sublime Yuka Higuchi.  Madge was performed with a finely judged sense of menace by Christopher Carduck.  Jemina Bowring was a delight as Effy and Jeremy Curnier was subsumed into the role of Gurn.  It was also lovely to see Lucia Solari as a leading sylph - her delicate performance bodes well for her debut as The Sylph at the end of this month.  I wish I could be there for that!

 

Despite the small size of the company the stage always looked to be full of dancers as the stage is not huge.

 

I was deeply moved at the end of the performance and was very glad I had leapt at the opportunity to see it.