| Les Sylphides | |
|---|---|
 Anna Pavlova inLes Sylphides, 1909 | |
| Choreographer | Mikhail Fokine |
| Music | Frédéric Chopin,Alexander Glazunov |
| Based on | Chopiniana |
| Premiere | (asChopiniana): 1907,Mariinsky Theatre,Saint Petersburg, Russia (asLes Sylphides): 2 June 1909,Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris |
| Original ballet company | Ballets Russes |
| Characters | the poet, sylphs |
| Design | Alexandre Benois (set) Léon Bakst (costumes) |
| Created for | Tamara Karsavina,Vaslav Nijinsky,Anna Pavlova, andAlexandra Baldina |
| Genre | Ballet blanc |
| Type | Romantic reverie |
Les Sylphides (French:[lesilfid]) is a short, non-narrativeballet blanc to piano music byFrédéric Chopin, selected and orchestrated byAlexander Glazunov.
The ballet, described as a "romantic reverie",[1][2] is frequently cited as the first ballet to be simply about mood and dance.[1]Les Sylphides has no plot but instead consists of several white-cladsylphs dancing in the moonlight with the "poet" or "young man" dressed in white tights and a black tunic.
Its originalchoreography was byMichel Fokine, with Chopin's music orchestrated byAlexander Glazunov. Glazunov had already set some of the music in 1892 as a purely orchestral suite, under the titleChopiniana, Op. 46.[3] In that form, it was introduced to the public in December 1893, conducted byNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Identifying the premiere of the fuller ballet poses a challenge. One might say that it premiered in 1907 at theMariinsky Theatre inSaint Petersburg asRêverie Romantique: Ballet sur la musique de Chopin. However, this also formed the basis of a ballet,Chopiniana, which took different forms, even in Fokine's hands.[4] AsLes Sylphides, what we consider the work was premiered bySergei Diaghilev'sBallets Russes on 2 June 1909 atThéâtre du Châtelet, Paris. The Diaghilev premiere is the most famous, as its soloists wereTamara Karsavina,Vaslav Nijinsky (as the poet, dreamer, or young man),Anna Pavlova, and Alexandra Baldina.[5] The long whitetutu that Pavlova originally danced in, and that the entire femalecorps de ballet adopted soon after, was designed byLéon Bakst and inspired by a lithograph ofMarie Taglioni dressed as asylph.
The London premiere, in the first season of the Diaghilev Ballets Russes, was at theRoyal Opera House. With more sylph-like elusiveness, the North American premiere might be dated by an unauthorized version in theWinter Garden, New York, on 14 June 1911 (featuring Baldina alone from the Diaghilev cast). However, its authorized premiere on that continent, by Diaghilev Ballets Russes, was at theCentury Theater, New York City, 20 January 1916, withLydia Lopokova (who also featured in the unauthorized production five years earlier). Nijinsky danced it with that company at theMetropolitan Opera on 14 April 1916, where it was paired with a similar work to a piano suite (byRobert Schumann),Papillons, also choreographed by Fokine. Fokine also set the ballet for several other companies, and he and his wife, Vera Fokina, danced its leading roles themselves for some years.
Chopiniana, staged by Fokine, had a different musical composition. Also,Chopiniana was originally a compilation of dramatic or character dances set to Chopin's piano music. The Glazunov suite upon which this original version was based had only four Chopin pieces; Fokine wanted to use a waltz as an addition to the suite and was able to get Glazunov to orchestrate this to create his ballet, also calledChopiniana.
The newly orchestrated waltz would be Fokine's inspiration to re-choreograph the ballet into its nearly-final form, selecting different Chopin pieces to go with it and getting these orchestrated by the Maryinskyrépétiteur Maurice Keller.
When Fokine's ballet premiered in Paris as part of Diaghilev's "Saison Russe" in 1909, Diaghilev commissioned re-orchestrations of all the dances, except for the Glazunov-orchestrated Waltz, byAnatoly Lyadov,Sergei Taneyev,Nikolai Tcherepnin andIgor Stravinsky.[6] This version, now titledLes Sylphides, was first staged at theThéâtre du Châtelet on 2 June 1909.[6]
Thecanonical version of the balletLes Sylphides includes:
TheNew York City Ballet (NYCB) produced its own staging of the standard version, omitting the Polonaise in A major (and leaving the Prelude in A major in its original position), under the original title,Chopiniana. The NYCB premiere was staged byAlexandra Danilova and took place 20 January 1972, at theNew York State Theater,Lincoln Center. The original cast includedKarin von Aroldingen,Susan Hendl,Kay Mazzo, andPeter Martins.
A number of musicians have orchestrated the Chopin pieces for major ballet companies, includingMaurice Ravel,Benjamin Britten,Alexander Gretchaninov,[6]Roy Douglas, andGordon Jacob.[7] The Ravel orchestration has been lost.[8] The Britten orchestration was considered lost but a score thought to be his was found in 2013 in the archives of theAmerican Ballet Theatre.[9]
Roy Douglas's version has been recorded a number of times, and has largely supplanted the earlier versions. It was written in 1936, to replace what Douglas called "very bad orchestrations of Chopin's music".[10]
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Glazunov, Alexander Constantinovich".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.Ballets to the music ofFrédéric Chopin | |
|---|---|
